PROCESSES OF INTERVENTION/PARTICIPATION IN THE BAUMHAUS PROJECT

urban territories 2 Qualitative analysis: »Make a Festival!«

tutors:

Dipl.-Ing. Katja Heinecke, Katrin Klitzke, M.A., Prof.

Bernd Kniess

author:

Aleksandrs Feļtins

PROCESSES OF INTERVENTION/ PARTICIPATION IN THE BAUMHAUS PROJECT Hamburg/Delft 2011

INTRODUCTION

What is a tree-house? How to build a tree-house? Do we need tree-houses? Well, everyone knows the answer for the first question, or more precise, any answer is correct. The answer to the second I tried to found in the body of this paper; and, the answer to the last one is sketched in the concluding paragraphs.

The Baumhaus project has been developed during Summer semester of 2011, within the framework of seminar »Intercultural practice: activate-participate-associate«. The task was nothing but general and specific at the same time: build a tree-house as a multicultural practice. Multicultural practice could be understood as co-working of actors with different cultural, professional and social background. For this project, working together with different age groups also was the case.

The idea originates from IBA Hamburg, and has a programmatic goal to implement climbing park in the Rottenhauser Feld park, in the near vicinity of Haus der Jugend and Universität der Nachbarschaften.

The period of development and implementation lasted four months. Looking back, two parts can be distinguished. During first, the network of future actors had been built. Second part lasted two

weeks. Additional people joined core team. The original site was expanded to accommodate spatial net. Models in scale 1:20 were prepared to test design ideas. Crucial turning point happened in the beginning of the preparation week — we’d got materials: ropes, lashing straps and fire hoses — allmost everything donated by the companies from the neighbourhood. Second was a camp week, when ten kids joined us. The process is regarded as a thematic festival — the outstanding event in the life of participants (both kids and students), for the residents of the vicinity of the Rottenhäuser Feld and the daily life of this public park.

We began to work in the park, so we intervened in the public space and its daily life, and we had a diverse group of collaborators, which somehow should participate in the process. These two verbs, intervene and participate, are the starting point for this research.

THESAURUS

These concepts, participation/intervention, are broadly used nowadays, and as it is usual for such, sometimes meaning in the specific context is being lost. Thesaurus offers multiple synonyms for each and some interrelations and differences in meaning can be found.

Intervention as a noun and intervene as a verb has Latin origin, comes from latin intervenire, from inter- »between« and venire »come« — to »come-in-between« or it denotes something, which has came as such. There are two activities usually meant with this noun: mediation or invasion. When used as a verb, it means either if something is (unexpectedly) occurring, or someone is interrupting, or in less militaristic terms, when someone is getting involved. Thus, intervention is related to something unexpected, unusual, intentional and outstanding at the same time, it has specific temporal, locational and qualitative features which distinguishes this kind of action.

Participation comes from Latin participat- »shared in« and based on verb participare, »to take part«. It has a single meaning as a noun, though with many synonyms which are with similar meanings appropriate for different contexts: it means »involvement«, »presence«, »taking part« or more active part-taking such as »contribution« (denotes with something), »help«, »cooperation«, »aid«, or more neutral

»part«. As a verb it denotes either to take part in the activity (to engage in, play a role/part in) or to work together (cofunction, team up, etc.). In the context of the project, we can conditionally presume that »intervention« is a word for an action: intervention in the public space, in the park, in the daily life of the neighbourhood, which also may have ephemeral or permanent consequences. »Participation« is related to the process of creation. From the similarities’ perspective, participation/intervention share such connotations as interaction and engagement. This aspect helps to link them and find different dimensions of each.

The specific question: if our process was guided, it should have been managed somehow. Again, Thesaurus gives multiple connotations for this term. The word itself has Italian origin, in the sense to put (a horse for example) through the paces of the manège and from Italian maneggiare, based on Latin manus »hand«. As a noun it is a word for (mechanisms or means of) control, administration, guidance etc. Second — it is a word for administrative or governing body, e.g. »board of directors«. As a verb, to manage, it has at least four connotations in English language. First, related to the control, means »to guide«, »to administer«, »to lead« and »to rule«. Second, is related to the solution: »to cope (with something«, »to get along«,

»to make ends meet«. Third option is to use the word instead of »to finish doing something«, and the fourth is more about »to handle«, a tool or kid for example. In the context of the project, it is important to find out, how actors intervened&participated as a managers of the process, and how actually the process was guided, controlled or directed, and on the other hand, how different aspects were handled?

In order to the project to terms of »participation«, »intervention« and »management«, participants were questioned and some personal reflections summarized. First of all, the motivation was questioned: why someone participated? Was there any specific interest? Then, how each participant could and actually was involved. More specific question about materials, techniques and skills was asked in order to get assessment of the each personal involvement. Finally, subordination and position of each participant were questioned, trying to grasp organisational structure within the group. According to the answers received, interviewees were asked additional questions in order to get more insights to the process. Interviewees were asked

four standard questions: 1. What was your reason to participate in the project? (questioning motivation, specific detail on “goal/ambition” for the tutors, as it was a “guiding force”) 2. Did you have skills of building tree houses, what kind of previously learned skills have you been using? Had you had an idea with what exactly you could participate? (questioning intellectualpractical resource) 3. How did you “like” the material and tools we use? Was it hard to handle them? (questioning improvisation on material, taking to account that was a “theme for the improvisation” 4. How did you make decisions for your actions, what/who guided them? (questioning hypothesis of giving a way/suggesting) Nevertheless, I tried to avoid direct use of the concepts »participation&intervention« and »management« in standard and derived questions; though interviewees used those themselves. The only thing left left is to trace chains of these processes in the text of the interviews.

role game: students as planners/professors and kids as citizens/students

set goal:

everybody cared about part of each own everybody knew what’s going on

HEAD UP

DEVISION

OVERSEE

GU MANAGE

DIRECT

3.

material acting what to build up profession

1.

CONTROL how to handle the kids? to say “no”

distinctiveness and special knowledge social skills get together work with the kids

COMMON to work in a team

give frame PERFORM

pla

how much freedom to let how the process evolves?

build part of it mount identify oneself

regard as an opportunity

PARTICIPATE

ASSIST IN … see result

test ideas to get kids involved in the model 2.

COACT GET INVOLVED IN …

INTERVENE

to call som think diff

somebody asked me …

INTRUDE

to tell someone be open

INTERACT

COMMUNICATE professional backgound

1.

TOPOLOGY OF THE PROCESS

: treehouse

timeframes

E

ORGANIZE to think bigger

UIDE to react

to have an image of end result

PLAN

ay flexibility

meone ferently

LEGEND

IMPROVISE material enabled improvisation

3.

[IN MYRIAD]

Node concept

[IN GARAMOND]

Synonym

[in garamond]

Definition from the interviews Link to the synonym or to the related definition Link to another concept how the intercultural practice in a sense of different professional background was enabled and how project benefited from it? how to involve the kids

what kind of role material played

ANALYSIS Analysing interviews, I tried to find out how the »intervention/ participation« and »management« were linked together in the project. The text of the interviews has been scanned through and then chains of interrelations drawn. Thus the procedures of »intervention/participation« and »management« were traced in one single map. As a result topology of the concepts has been mapped. Here, the new »node« of improvisation appeared, because it was noted by interviewees frequently.

The resulting topology gives possibility to question the process and find out underpinning mechanisms. See »Topology of the process«. In order to find out aspect of the interest, it is now possible to start from any point of the interest and trace its interrelations — thus some »highways« can be distinguished. It should be noted, that the following three »highways« or chains are not the only, but from my perspective, the most complex and multidimensional.

For example, how the intercultural practice in a sense of different professional background was enabled and how project benefited from it? Magenta »highway« starts from the notion of interaction between individuals with different professional background. This was made possible by means of communication, the derivative of interaction, and was a base for a division of tasks. Division allowed everyone involved to take care of one’s own part and at the same time, everyone knew what others are doing. On the other hand, profession implies distinctiveness and special knowledge, what not in all cases would mean involvement. In overcame this, social skills of participants (to persuade or listen others) were employed. In some occasions, some participants regarded distinctiveness of certain approach as possibility, and the proposed solution was questioned and discussed in a group. It was important step to understand the importance of traditional design with scale models in the conditions of limited time and multiple tasks. The work on tree-house on-site was paused for a while to test some design ideas on the model, suggested both by the architects and kids, and after that project was enriched by new spatial possibilities. And this would not happen without good interaction within the group, and implies to be open for different views and approaches.

Second crucial aspect, which may be of interest is how to involve the kids. Cyan »highway« helps to trace the process of this involvement. It starts from open interaction with kids, the way how they were involved in and became participants. It was started with acquaintance of the kids with the material and call to try to do something with it. Nevertheless, it didn’t returned any fruitful results except confusion of the kids. Still, the assistance, the other way of saying intervening, or directing, the derivative of management, helped a lot, which gave »a frame« and directed the kids. This frame was rather simple — we asked them to think about how to make a swing, or a ladder from given material, which finally worked.

Another way to involve kids in the process was to enable them to built a part of actual tree-house — a climbing net. First they tested different structural, functional and programmatic possibilities of it on the model, then using some skills of students some nets were built and finally, they had been mounted in the working position in the tree-house. After that kids identified themselves as a co-authors and creators of construction.

And third, but not least, is what kind of role material played? On the one side, the yellow »highway« starts from the notion that material defined the very physical outcome of the project — it directed (managed) the result. So, it might be presumed, that conscious choice of material defines profoundly the whole process of the project. From the other side, material enabled improvisation. Here, it should be noted, that first of all, we should have improvised anyway, because the material in a form of fire hoses and lashing straps came in quite unexpected way. At the same time, since both materials were donated, we did not have to care about economisation and careful use, though we didn’t wasted it — nevertheless, this together with large amounts of it, enabled free improvisation. Another material-related aspect, also connected with improvisation, was flexibility: both in physical and functional terms. The qualities of material were quite appropriate to the use of the tree-house as climbing installation in regards of safety and comfort. Functionally lashing straps were used as a structural members in very diverse situations and fitted virtually any spatial configuration. It also should be noted, that it was extremely easy to handle it both for us and for the kids. In the meantime, unfinished structure of the tree-house with material scattered around it enabled play, both for kids and adults. Former improvised with ropes and straps trying to fix them on trees and structure; later tried to make use of the material and tested some structural approaches — knots, fixtures on the tree, nets, lashings etc. Eventually, it was possible to learn some new practical, social and physical skills for all involved. Thus, material defined the performance of the project, its temporal development as a cycles of play, design, test and implementation.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, why should we build tree-houses? Well, if we think of the practice in the public space, a kind of unusual event, which involves diverse actors and lets them look at their environment from unexpected angle, this was very successful try. And, what is important, not only look, but learn something new. About ourselves: how can we work together?

For kids, how to overcome obstacles and accustom to not-that-perfect but nevertheless exciting structure, use their physical abilities, avoid mistakes and at the same time have an excitement? Finally, maybe, someone has realized, that mundane environment can still be exciting.