Field Trips in Public Space 2018 - Reagenzglas (süd-)osteuropa
The experimental course format of field trips was developed based on a collaboration between future.lab and the City of Vienna. Focusing on the field of public space, students of architecture and spatial planning devote themselves to semester-based topics—in some cases driven by the desire to develop an individual research and study focus that can be further explored in a thesis or dissertation.
The field trips took place for the third time in the 2018 summer semester. After an initial semester in which participants independently developed thematic focuses from a given pool of topics, the focus shifted to identity and conflict culture in public space. For the third edition, a geographical focus was chosen in (South) Eastern Europe, which lived up to the claim of traveling into the unknown and the surprising.
Specifically, the field trips involve the scientific preparation, implementation, documentation, and evaluation of expeditions. These are developed independently by the course participants and are not intended to be guided excursions, but rather voyages of discovery and research. The aim is to promote a differentiated understanding of the debate surrounding public space (in Vienna) by changing perspectives and confronting other, unfamiliar ways of using and developing space.
Between July and September 2018, nine expedition teams set out to visit the cities of Belgrade, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Sarajevo. They held numerous discussions with experts and gathered a wide variety of perspectives. They visited exemplary locations and projects, recording their experiences day by day in a logbook and sharing them online. In this publication, the individual groups provide insights into the Field Trips adventure.
Im Rahmen der dritten Reihe der Field Trips wurde der Fokus auf planerische, gesellschaftliche und kulturelle, politische wie ökonomische Zugänge, Denkmodelle, AkteurInnen und Konzepte, die den öffentlichen Raum im geografischen Kontext (Süd-)Osteuropa prägen, gelegt. Die intensive Auseinandersetzung mit der bewegten Geschichte und der Prägung, die Stadt und Gesellschaft insbesondere im Kommunismus erfahren haben, stellte hierbei eine wesentliche Voraussetzung dar, um das Verständnis von Öffentlichkeit und die Bedeutung, die öffentlicher Raum für die Gesellschaft einnimmt, zu untersuchen.
Stefan Ghenciulescu—freelance architect, co-founder of the Zeppelin association and editor-in-chief of the international architecture magazine of the same name, as well as assistant professor at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest—has been recruited as a visiting professor at future.lab for the 2018 summer semester. His diverse activities include research focusing on public space, urban cultures, low-budget processes, and community architecture.