ACT
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Project Description
What is public?
When we asked ourselves "What is a public space?" we did not find a satisfactory answer. But we found the theories about the public sphere of Aristoteles and Hannah Arendt. Our demand was to create a public forum, a roofed plaza. A place for publicness, politics and participation.
The “space of appearance” (Hannah Arendt) finds its architectural manifestation.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
What is a public building?
In the beginning of the project, we asked ourselves what a public building is and should be?
We researched typologies from churches to shopping malls, but there was no space which we would have called public. We mostly felt religious, cultural or commercial restrictions. Perhaps we were looking for the temple of democracy and didn't found it. The parliaments we know are only rooms for representatives and compared to temples or churches rarely public and not really accessible.
What we found where ideas from Aristoteles and Hannah Arendt describes for example the appearance space and creates principles like “acting is fun” and “acting in concert”.
“Acting is fun” was an important catch phrase because we think that fun is crucial to push people for participation. As a physical space this was for us something like the living room of society, where you meet in small groups discuss, create ideas and compromises. In the public sphere it must be a low threshold space with as less restrictions as possible. It is like the ideal image of the Greek agora where individuals and groups connect and create.
From the sphere of acting in smaller groups, creating ideas, and having fun we move to the bigger scale of society where we need to act in concert. This is the space of compromises in society where groups meet and fight for there ideas. The physical space here is like a concert or theatre, its circular, its equal, it is a space where you listen and review, it’s a space where you proceed or overthrow ideas.
Key objectives for sustainability
For a better future we need a sustainable democracy as much as a sustainable economy.
Real sustainability must come from the people.
A building itself can be easily made sustainable when people want to do it. In our case we thought of a simple construction with as less concrete as possible mainly out of wood. Low tech will allow us to make a building which is easy to handle and has a low energy input. This also allows us to prevent us from using environmentally difficult materials. With high tech wood processing it is possible to make connections which are easily dismantlable and not clued together or in other ways bonded to materials which are making it difficult to recycle building parts.
In our opinion it is crucial to push society for a more sustainable future because architecture itself depends too much on external decisions. Therefore, we decided to think about how to make political processes possible which can lead to a sustainable democracy.
We want to push political participation, cultural exchange, discussions, the free political action.
It is not technology, which is making something sustainable, it is the way we use things and spaces.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Aesthetics meets politics.
It is the transition from the famous square/park "Heldenplatz" to the "Volksgarten" the public garden. Our space at the transition is a kind of roofed garden that allows to discuss or relax at any kind of weather. A open horizontal space that can be entered from all sites. The space that is called "acting is fun" has no walls only pillars, plants, chairs and individuals who form smaller spaces in an open space. It can be seen as a metaphor for equality and freedom in the participation in political processes. Atria’s form the structural-physical elements for climate and light. Its a dynamic and flexible space, and diverse in its usability.
The physical space for acting in concert is like a theatre or the Pnyx in Athens. Larger groups of people gather in this area to conclude on there ideas and to find compromises. A big space which declines to the center without any columns lets us focus on the speaker and gives us the opportunity to listen.
Key objectives for inclusion
The idea of the project is equal inclusion into the public sphere.
Inclusion of the Individual into the political system, everybody should act politically. The horizontal space is a metaphor for the equal inclusion of all individuals into the society. Key elements are for us accessibility at any time, a flexible but equal space, through the flexibility everybody is represented by the space.
The way we use a space like that has therefore to be free from discrimination, oppression and fear.
Innovative character
Another architectural typology to meet and share.
The search for a uncommercial political space lead us to the proposal of this project.
The innovation can be found in the connection of political ideas and physical architectural spaces.
The natural environment and the artificial environment need no boundary. We create a horizontal roofed space with a kind of horizon like in a park, with highest permeability and a construction like trees in forest. It is a space where natural and artificial environment comes together and build a horizon.
