Marta is a graduate student at 4Cities, a European master in urban studies which takes students to Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid. Previously, she also studied visual arts and theater in Venice and landscape design in Vienna.

To the question “Where are you from?”, her answer is both open and precise:  30% from Este, 30% from Venezia, 20% from Wien, 5% from Modena, 5% from Bruxelles, 5% from København and 5% from Madrid.

She is mainly interested, among other topics, in cultural theory related to urbanism and public spaces, landscapes, contemporary dance and photography. A wide and rich profile that brings new approaches and perspectives to the agency, so we are sure we will be sharing interesting debates and experiences with her at work during her internship.

Welcome, Marta!

In this session Belinda Tato will talk about last week ACTIVITIES WORKSHOP. If you have seen the pictures, then you already know that the participants had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. As Creative Guest Elger Blitz said, playing is good for everybody, regardless of their age.

We also have a guest: ENVIRONMENT Community Activator Romy Ortiz, a human geographer from the University of Bergen. She works in the Centre for urban ecology, on environmentally friendly urban development, urban meeting places, and integration issues. This is what she writes about her role:

“Come to the workshop, so we can design a square that is human and environmentally friendly!”

If you don’t feel like surfing dreamhamar.org, this is your best shot at getting the latest news on what’s going on in Stortorget Square!

See you today, on Monday 17th, at 18:00 on dreamhamar.org!

This evening the energy of the young and the inspiration of the muses make a somewhat different Hamar Experience, but don’t be afraid, for it is what happens when you have so many things to talk about with such nice guests.

Kathrine Berg is a lovely woman and artist who is working with the 1,300 kids from the Cultural Rucksack Project. By the way, the Cultural Rucksack will finish this week and we are looking forward to seeing the results.

Inger Lise works on a different project about art and youth. Whatever she has to say, it is going to be interesting. And yes, we are letting her tell you the details about the project. We think it’s more interesting that way.

And there is more, because next week ACTIVITIES workshops begin and you are going to get a preview on what is going to happen there – What? You haven’t registered yet? It is free, it is fun and you’ll meet interesting people while talking about Hamar. And we might just invite you to coffee and cake, too.

There will also be a surprise for the technology oriented, so don’t forget your smart phone or your tablet pc.

Let the muses and the younsters inspire you this evening at 18:00h on Hamar Experience 12.

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image based on a photo by Gunnar Bothner-By (Flickr)

We would like to invite students, designers and creatives from all over the world to participate in dreamhamar online workshops.

The workshops focus on network learning and network design applied to a specific case study – the design of a public space: Stortorget Square in Hamar, Norway.

Via the workshops, participants will be able to be part of an international network of professionals and talented people. The aim is to develop and share ideas about the design of the square.

Please find below the details of the first of dreamhamar online workshops:

PUBLIC SPACE AND PEOPLE
online workshop directed by Andres Walliser

Public spaces have been one of the defining elements of the urban condition, whereas a city or a hamlet.
This workshop aims to look at public space from a social point of view.
The workshop will focus on different uses of public space in relation with social, cultural, political, and environmental variables; the evolution of public space in urban contexts, and the role of people in public space development through practice, use, and participatory tools.

Public space can be the result of a customary use along time, or of urban planning as a given space with different functions like representation, social control, or comercial, among others. It also can be the outcome of a participation process – both top down (this is launched by the public admistration), or bottom up, demanded by the residents.

The workshop will be illustrated with examples reviewing both public spaces along history and recent relevant cases of innovation in urban and social design.

Andres Walliser has a PhD in Sociology and he is a specialist in urban issues. As an Academic, he is particularly interested in participation, gobernance, and social exclusion; while as a practitioner, he focuses on urban planning and urban policies.Andres Walliser is an Associate Lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, and collaborates with Ecosistema Urbano since 2005.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
| 4 online sessions | theoretical and methodological aspects
| 4 online network design sessions | development and sharing of ideas
| networking | each workshop will have its own blog hosted in dreamhamar.org where participants will be able to meet, interact with each other, and build their own network of creatives from all over the world.
| tools | participants will learn to use network design and communication tools such as livestream, wordpress, google+, twitter, facebook, posterous, and so on.
| publication | each participant will submit a project or an idea at the end of the workshop, which will be published under a creative commons license in dreamhamar and ecosistema urbano websites.

WORKSHOP CALENDAR
4 – 26 October, 2011
| online sessions | Tuesday 18:00 – 19:00 (UTC+2, Norway Time)
| online network design sessions | Wednesday 18:00 – 19:00 UTC+2 (UTC+2, Norway Time)

REGISTRATION FEE
250 euros | 200 euros until 31st of August 2011

REGISTRATION DEADLINE
26th, September 2011, 12.00 pm (UTC+2, Norway Time)

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
Minimum: 5
Maximum: 15

GRANTS
3 grants available.
Should you wish to apply for a grant, please send us a cv, a motivation letter, and three projects. We will contact you with more details.

For registering, please click the banner below and choose your payment method (Paypal or credit card).

dreamhamar online workshops are a collaboration betweenEcosistema Urbano and Urban Social Design. Andres Walliser directed “City Centers’ Sustainable Development” within  Urban Social Design Experience, an networked-learning online program on urban and social innovation.

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For any information regarding dreamhamar’s workshops, please fill the contact form or just email us at dreamhamar@gmail.com
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This post was originally published in dreamhamar.org

“Reactivating a place for the community, playing with the borders.”

“Imagining a different place, talking with the citizens.”

These are the goals of Orizzontale group who is operating a second time inside of the quarter of Pigneto, a very populous area in the East of Rome. Indeed, Orizzontale group had already worked in the same area, when it realized an installation called “Le orecchie di Giussano”. Nowadays, we are trying to spark off a process of reactivation of the area of Largo Perestrello, in Pigneto quarter.

Seven years ago an underground parking has been completed, under the area of Largo Perestrello, leaving a big empty area which has stayed enclosed and neglected.

Since that moment, none of the later local governments has been managed – or at least interested- to give a new aim to this potentially valuable space for such a populated area of Rome, rich of social interaction like “La Marranella” is.

In the morning of the 27th of November, with the large participation of all the quarter, we have “opened“ the square, removing the mesh fences and we placed them inside the area, shaping a big question mark.

The intention was pressing for a reaction, or only to draw the attention to this urgent and neglected problem, like the theme of the lack of public spaces in the city.

The question that Orizzontale group wanted make for the local inhabitants was to ask them what they wished that space would become or how they imagined it.

The original idea of Orizzontale group planned, as a second phase, the realization of an installation that could permit to use this place, the square of largo Perestrello, and that could prompt the citizens to stay in the square. The installation had to be unveiled on the 11th of December, when a demonstration of the quarter had to be placed. However, a week before of our intervention, the works for a new market (that now has been placed in a neighbouring square) started unexpectedly. The local inhabitants are distrustful and they think the works won’t be completed because part of the funds has still to be allocated by the local administration.

The opening of the building site means that something happened.

Orizzontale group understood the new situation and realized an installation to put outside of the building site, called Work-watching.

Work-watching is a painted red flight of wood steps, five steps 2.10 meters long. The structure was completely built with recycled materials. An optical disc was marked on the ground to draw the gaze of the work-watching users towards the building site.

Using some stencils, we marked the steps and we wrote the title of the installation and his meaning (through an iconic language to remind the idea of the building site) and our website for additional information.

The installation shouldn’t only have the function of a sitting and meeting place, but also of a watching point from where the local inhabitants can control the phases of the works in progress and protect their own rights over the public spaces.

text and images by www.orizzontale.org

The Dutch artist Anne Chienmeier has already done small gardens on the bus roofs and airplanes. And her last project is movable community garden. Citizens can take it directly to their front door, or park it on a suburban industrial zone and pick fresh vegetables for lunch, and drive it away when winter comes. But more than fresh vegetables important is community sense, meet and talk to neighbours, cultivate together, celebrate garden celebrations and eat the cultivated crop together.

You can read about Annechien Meier, her Mobile garden project and more other projects (but in Dutch) in her web page.

Info from www.nextnature.com

The Dutch artist Anne Chienmeier has already done small gardens on the bus roofs and airplanes. And her last project is movable community garden. Citizens can take it directly to their front door, or park it on a suburban industrial zone and pick fresh vegetables for lunch, and drive it away when winter comes. But more than fresh vegetables important is community sense, meet and talk to neighbours, cultivate together, celebrate garden celebrations and eat the cultivated crop together.

You can read about Annechien Meier, her Mobile garden project and more other projects (but in Dutch) in her web page.

Info from www.nextnature.com

The typical characteristic of modern Japanese cities, most evident in Tokyo, is a chaotic, patchwork-like, urban environment filled with high-density residential and commercial areas close to industrial plants. Tokyo is known for hypermodern architecture, skyscrapers and looks like a future city. But how do people actually live in this concrete urbanity?

Given the lack of vast green spaces, Tokyoites are taking action. I have found a nice article about what creative citizens are doing to bring back some of the green in their city. First, reclaim your immediate environment and stuff the sidewalk with flower pots as much as possible. Second, imitate nature to soothe the stressed commuters with a forest of plastic plants, cement trees – or the friendly chirping of an artificial bird.

PingMag shows you the green islands and blossoming places in this most dense populated area. Read it and see more picture here.

In the pictures – Roadside Jungles – Tree Trunks As Lampposts. You start to feel like in a green avenue, until you look up and you see a lamp where the leaves and branches should be.
And Flowerpots, little idylls, in Tokyo’s streets.

Carve is a dutch design firm that focuses on the planning of public space, particularly for use by children and young people. They create innovative and playful playground/park equipment. One of the most amazing projects is playground “walhalla”. Where child enter the play structure, made of two vertical mesh screens enclosed a series of undulating ribbons. The ribbons undulate to become walking surfaces at some points, walls at others or ceilings. The exterior vertical screens have climbing holds place intermittently on them to allow children to climb around on the exterior surface. The “Walhalla” design was nominated for the Dutch Design Award in 2006.

Other unusual project – is design for a small skate park in Utrecht, for children to skate, cycle or play. Most funny thing is that in the summer it is converted into a neighbourhood swimming pool.

More information about CARVE can be found on the designers website www.carve.nl