Author(s): Angeliki Sioli, Aleksandar Stani膰i膰 & Pierre Jennen
To repair some of the social inequalities in the neighborhood of Bijlmermeer, at the Southeast side of Amsterdam, Kring Brasa鈥攁 non-profit community organization鈥攈as been working on the project the Gardens of Brasa. The Gardens are meant to give local residents access to a shared green area which they can develop according to their cultural and social needs. Our recent master level studio course, 鈥淒esigning with Others,鈥 collaborated with the community towards this future. The students designed and partially built a lightweight structure to serve as a community center. The course was designed in close collaboration with the community, over multiple meetings, in which hopes, aspirations, and concerns were exchanged. Recent community-design scholarship (like the notions of collective bricolage and transversal participation) offered an overall theoretical framework in guiding the students through the process of particiaptory design. In this paper we present a short history of the area鈥檚 troubled past (an unfortunate case of non-participatory design) and explain the conditions that brough Kring Brasa together. We then explain the process behind the design of the studio course, its main challenges and shortcomings. We conclude discussing how a studio course based on patici卢patory design can educate socially responsible designers.
Volume Editors
Sara Jensen Carr & Rub茅n Garc铆a Rubio
ISBN
978-1-944214-48-7