We took this assignment to mean occupying a space in order to create a change. Our 1st idea was to create a realistic looking roadside speed camera. We tried this in a number of locations till we found a place that would give a clear view of the camera the cars came down the road.
The result was amazing as even people doing the speed limit slowed considerably
The 2nd experiment was about creating a realistic but signed as fake situation. There were three signs, fake danger, fake cleaning and fake maintenance. They were set up along with cones in believable situations. We first tried at Doncaster but this did not work out as security did not even alow us to set up. The 2nd place we tried was Eastland, in this case we were able to set up and move to a safe location. But within 5 minutes staff removed both the sign and the cones.
While it was up however most people got a laugh out of it
Chris, Lucy, Nick, Sarah and Sophie
Music “I think I like u 2″ by Jamaica
People seem to be quite afraid of other people. So, for our public interaction, we removed the need to interact with other people, and left the public to interact with much less intimidating, stationary, objects. We discovered people quite liked leaving their mark on the world.
Majority of the people who engaged with the activity where in groups. We left the posters exposed for 2 hours. People seemed to feel a bit daunted because the posters were in open spaces where everyone could view each other drawing on them. We also found that the same name or characature appeared on 2 of the posters. By chance these people had walked past all the posters.
Our intervention was based around what people will believe. To do this we created a number of signs, some being believable while others were slightly more ridiculous. The signs were then placed in locations around federation square and we waited to see what would happen.
For the most part they were not even noticed as people when about their business. Some glances were made and in a few case the “fake rules” were broken for all too see.
Overall it would have been far more interesting to do this over a much longer time frame which may have seen shop owner and local authorities get involved
Picnics – A social activity where a meal is eaten outdoors, especially at a park.
The act is public but has intimate moments.
When I started looking for a ‘informal urban practice’ I came across the Highline Park. I felt this displayed the notions of a picnic in the sense that they have designed an area for the public to roam freely in a public space but to also find intimate private moments on their individual experiences.
The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park.
The project gained the City’s support in 2002. The design team of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, created the High Line’s public landscape with guidance from a diverse community of High Line supporters. Construction on the park began in 2006.
The High Line, is a 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance. It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fell into ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch of railway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces. Through a strategy of agri-tecture—part agriculture, part architecture—the High Line surface is digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes. The paving system consists of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The long paving units have tapered ends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, “pathless” landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways. The park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social. Access points are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from the frenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape.
French Revolution
1789 – 1799 was a period of massive social and political change, the French monarchy that had held power for centuries collapsed in three years, aristocrats and religious leaders were thrown out for new principals of citizenships and inalienable rights.
American Revolution
The rejection of the parliament of Great Britain was the catalyst of a social upheaval in the new colonies. Provincial governments were set up and all royal officials were expelled. The British responded by sending troops to regain control of the rebelling states. The resulting civil war ended in October 1781, 5 years after the signing of the declaration of independence
Industrial revolution
Occurred between the 18th and 19th centuries and had major effects on social and cultural conditions, 1st starting in England before spreading across Europe and the rest of the world. The industrial revolution had a marked change in the day to day lives of everybody on the planet, and proved to be a decisive Turing point in human history
