[in] design team formed due to a mutual interest in the concepts of re-use and re-value and we aimed to use these as a premise for engagement. We drew inspiration from the work of the Situationists. Namely Guy Debord who stated “revolution is not showing life to people, but making them live.”

In practice, we focussed on Melbourne’s CBD and began by inserting a series of preliminary experiments into the urban fabric. These helped us to gauge interest and engagement levels. The most successful of these happened at Queen Victoria Market, where we were approached by market organisers to undertake further work. From here, we decided to  investigate the idea of re-use more deeply and focussed on mapping Melbourne’s waste system. Working with our harvested information we located sites within close proximity to high volumes of waste and used the existing materials to create interventions.

The results of our interventions led us to discover that it’s very difficult to distinguish between public and private space. Business owners often asserted false ownership over laneways and footpaths and this led us to ultimately question the existence of public space at all. We also recognised that often the pre-existing level of formality could predict the success of an intervention.

[in] from quinn delany on Vimeo.

[in] @ Melbourne City Square from quinn delany on Vimeo.

Pallet Stool Making from Nick Rebstadt on Vimeo.

Video showing the making of Pallet Stool Infrastructure.

TransFarmer group is formed by two industrial design students in 2010. The aim is to raise environmental awareness by encouraging urban greenery. The project is divided into two parts. We did a series of small activities in the first part aiming to test the relationship between plants and human. The second part was developed and inspired from the first project. We combined a series of developed informal practice into an exhibition on the streets gaining lots of attention and feedback from our audience. The second part is a more impactful version of our practice. We also created a facebook page under the request of public and we are going to create more activities and invite people who are interested to join us in the future. There are the email address and all of our process below.

Email : transfarmer@rocketmail.com (JOIN US NOW!!!)

the ultimate video of our best projects:

In the forum of informal urban practice, each member of our group brought different interests and perspectives to the table. These were colour association, behaviour and community. We found that we could easily explore all three of these interests simultaneously through conduction informal urban experiments. Initially overflowing with ideas, we had to select the ones that would best explore our interests and provide the most feedback. This resulted in the following experiments (as detailed in the final presentation panels):

Colour Exploration- a impersonal investigation into the connection people have to colour

Bartering and Badge Making- a more personal approach that challenged the public to try something new

Natural Gallery- in this experiment, we allowed the public to approach us, instead of approaching them

Take Me- we invited the public to join us in the creation of a welcoming and enjoyable space

Each experiment was influenced by the experience gained from the one before, resulting in intelligent experiments that were fun as well as informative. Visit our blog for more information.

KEY IMAGE

The Habitallery team project was to communicate with the public by promoting subtle shifts within the everyday life of the city, awareness of the The Habitallery persona and of one’s own habits within their urban surroundings.

This was achieved by extracting mundane aspects and input of the urban fabric and its inhabitants and then re-issuing these ideas back into the public realm to promote self awareness and a sense of intrigue in relation to their environment. In this particular urban context of Melbourne, already heavily saturated with ‘interesting things to look at and do’ from both formal and informal channels, we intended to complement existing informal urban practices (I.U.P) with a fresh take through unexplored avenues and experiments we felt were interesting, effective or evocative. We endeavored to let The Habitallery project unfold naturally and become self defining.

PDF:

habitallery project presentation posters

Extended video:

Jose M. Hernandez 3299046