ENGINEERING OF WANDERING MAKING IN URBAN CONTEXT

Course Objectives: This is not an engineering class, but a critical and playful investigation into the process of making as a way of discovery and design. It is also intended as an inquiry into the poetics of urban space, that is in some way engineered/designed. The objective of the course is to expand design to realms of making and performing through the exploration of creative ways in engaging with the materials, with the environment, and with the human & more than human citizens of the city. Working at the scales ranging from domestic to urban at the threshold of the boundaries of the private to public space, we aim at designing dynamic interplay and expression tools as possible alternatives to the existing interfaces, where our interactions and partnerships could be redefined.

Course Content: Methods of individual inquiry and material research will lead to processes of design and discovery through making in the first half of the course. In the second half group works will be introduced and students will be encouraged to create performative interfaces, which are expected to be unique to their context as a result of radical observation and participatory research made in specific parts of the city. Both through the individual and the collective inquiry we like to embrace a diversity of practices in noticing, experiencing, engaging and experimenting with, and transforming these interfaces, using a variety of domains in design ranging from making artifacts to performing actions. This class requires direct engagement in place and will involve some excursions, yet considering the conditions imposed on us by the pandemic, our methods will have the flexibility for online participation, expanding on the making using digital technologies. The whole process will be documented and shared as open source.