Neighbourhood bastions

Stop motion, Premiere pro. Semester 7: Everyday matters, Professor: Rainer Hehl Technische Universität Berlin

In this master studio at TU Berlin, my colleagues Gregorio Bonano, Christian Zimmerman, and I created a stop motion movie that focused on the everyday life in urban fringes. The studio was open, giving students the opportunity to choose the location and topic themselves. We chose the area of Metmankiez, which was under heavy pressure from real estate development, new infrastructure, and gentrification. These changes often lead to the creation of new and sterile environments.

To counteract this, we proposed to use the strangely formed plots of land for unconventional appropriation. Our design included urban counter-culture triggers, such as spaces for artists who were under threat in the area, spaces for nature, and spaces for wagenburg (since housing was being demolished). We created spaces for these groups to appropriate, bastions.

To communicate our design, we created a stop-motion movie that showcased our model of the area and the proposed design. Our aim was to explore unconventional appropriations of the land and highlight the importance of preserving diverse urban spaces.