Modulverantwortung: Heike Biechteler
Lehrteam: Heike Biechteler, Torsten Lange

Fabricating the inclusive city — materiality, performance, life

The materiality of public space often escapes—even gets pushed out of—our conscious attention. We perceive the stuff that enables and sustains the gathering of bodies in the city as mere background. Yet, what the urban realm is physically made of matters profoundly. Behind the term public space lie complex material assemblages that impact not only access to public space but also its performance in terms of inclusivity.

In this semester, we will therefore investigate material agencies in the public realm, that is, physical objects and materials’ ability to act by affecting the potential of urban spaces in manifold ways.
We seek to develop techniques for sensing how the material assemblages of specific sites make their users feel—comfortable or uncomfortable, safe or unsafe, welcome or unwelcome, stressed or relaxed, hot or cold. We ask how material properties including color, texture, sound, or smell impact these diverse perceptions, and how aspects like gender, age, or physical ability, and their various intersections, affect people’s experiences. We investigate how materials can embody place, while carrying subtle messages and more profound cultural meanings, as well. Moreover, we trace the wider—indeed planetary—networks and cycles of extraction, production, assembly, use, and demolition that these materials are part of, and we study how their fabrication and configuration on-site influence their durability, weathering, and decay. Finally, we will look at the effects those materials have on urban biodiversity. Students will produce an individual, in-depth study of a set of materials found during an investigative stroll through Horw.

In a series of full-day seminars, this module will present the positions of practitioners who are at the forefront of these questions and convey practical abilities through workshops and exercises.