[Scenario +] Interface Studio

Studio leaders: Dr Anika van Aswegen & Amy van der Walt

How can I share with you the feeling of this experience? How can I describe it without words? I want to express with gestures. I want to mimic what I see around me by using movements to give commentary on the meaning of things. I wonder if anyone would want to participate in this expressive narrative. Music, dance, mime, spoken word, instruments, poetry, book readings, discussions… I want to collaborate – for me to become us.

The [Scenario +] Interface studio investigates temporality, time and performance within public and urban interiors. Design for interaction, participation and sharing is considered through activation of environments, instead of static installation. The project aims to create scenarios for experimental and experiential learning by means of cultural exchange and knowledge sharing. In a rapidly changing society, focused on quick and commercial consumption, spaces for cultural expression are diminishing. When they are found in the city, they often have exclusive entry. In societies where inclusion and diversity are valued, efforts are made to integrate opportunities for cultural exchange to strengthen social cohesion and creative economies.

How can temporal cultural hubs act as active agents in a transforming society as sites for discussion, debate, participation and collaboration? Consider deployable spatial interventions (interior, architecture and landscape) to enable creative development, knowledge transfer and expansion of creative capital in which communities can thrive. A ‘kit of parts’ approach considers assembly, disassembly and reassembly through spatial interventions. The project intends to integrate dynamic creative industries on the UP Hatfield campus as primary site and expand into the city as a form of urban acupuncture. A series of multi-scalar deployable interventions create an integrated network. The project uses design thinking methods of empathy mapping through personas and kinaesthetic empathy to develop user understanding and site responsive spatial interventions. These should be adaptable and scalable through a prototyping process. Themes of human-centred design, spatial agency and multi-scalar narratives through human-environmental systems are considered. The studio emphasises diversity of experience through human-centred design approaches by shifting perspectives, questioning biases and embracing positive incremental change. The project forms part of the larger York Timber Chair collaboration considering potential for architectural prototyping for timber construction.