We need to puzzle something out! Here we are at the last week of online workshop. Sara and Agata in their last posts give us their point of view in relation to the other participants ideas. I’ve found that very useful and interesting: the most significant ideas during the design process usually are reinterpretation of someone else drawing maybe just seen upside-down. I took a lot of time thinking about the participative process that is behind Dreamhamar and I finally summarize it in this drawing representing Ecosistema Urbano team (EU), online workshop participants (OWP) and Hamar inhabitants (HI) putting together all their ideas or simple thoughts on Stortorget square.
And as I’m a curious and eager person, I’m asking my self what will happen then? Stimulated by Agata last question “What are other possibilities to maintain a participative process?” And by the idea of the open ended square, I’m trying to figure out what does it mean to keep ongoing the participative process. Stortorget design | sketched ideas. Coming back to Stortorget practical proposals, I made some consideration starting from on Antonella Agnoli considerations on public space (via Sara Armento).
The first characteristic to consider is the dimensions of the public space. We have talk a lot in our last session about the green ring structure and I completely agree with it, above all with Sara concept of the big hug! This will permit the square to have a more human dimension, avoiding to feel a sense of dismay, and will not disturb the vertical view axis that goes from the church to the lake. The second characteristic is legibility, the capability of the square elements to immediately communicate their function.
The third characteristic is variety. Comfort in Hamar is an already discussed topic, but it could also refer to the seasonal strategy proposed by Ecosistema Urbano. What about security: maybe Hamar inhabitants don’t feel it as a problem but as a certainty. My idea for Stortorget: Quietly loud voices. I am interested in the two social dimensions of a place: - The physical one, where people meet face to face - The virtual one, where people interact using social networks and other digital tools. My idea for Stortorget is to try to reduce the distance between these dimensions and even mix them wherever possible, so that they feed to each other. I conceive the plaza to (literally) be the support to show the digital interactions taking place, increasing the impact of those in the population that uses the space.
The information published on the web, regarding the square and its community, could be displayed on the plaza projecting it on different surfaces such as the pavement, building walls, liter cans, bus stops, basement of statues and so on. I would also add an easy-to-use Participation Point in the cultural center where people could stop by, write something, and immediately see it published on the plaza. Proposal for Stortorget #01. I noticed that one of the problem of the square is the difficulty to see the lake and the landscape because of the Bazar building. So I thought that this disadvantage could be resolved by using the shelters as they are sketched in the booklet, improving them with stairs, for example, that allow people to enjoy the square from a different point of view too. PROPOSAL FOR STORTORGET #2. STORTOGET SQUARE PROPOSAL.