Ever wondered what a public space would look like if children designed it? If so, ‘Re-imagining Public Space’ is for you.
Re-imagining Public Space answers a fascinating question: How would tomorrow’s leaders, our children, design a public space? This question was put to a group of 15 6-10 year olds at a ‘culturstruction’ workshop last August. Re-imagining the Public Space is a model of their fascinating results. It is on display on Sitric Road, Stoneybatter as part of Dublin City Council’s Innovation Dublin Festival on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th October. The model was designed from the children’s ideas and built by staff at Dublin City Council joinery workshop in Cherry Orchard.
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For further information:
Dublin City Council Press Office, T. 222 2170, 086 815 0010, E. info@dublincity.ie
www.innovationdublin.ie
Concept:
In his book, The Craftsman, Richard Sennett makes reference to the remaking of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome carried out by Pope Sixtus V. In designing the new building work the Pope used only descriptive words, and never drawings, to convey his ideas directly to his craftsman. This anecdote then became the starting point for Dublin City Architect, Ali Grehan, to initiate a temporary public space programme.
The model:
In August 2009 Culturstruction (Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy), with the assistance of Dublin City Council's Community section, facilitated a weeklong summer workshop with fifteen 6-10 year olds. The idea was to challenge the conventional relationship of who designs our city. The group were introduced to the ideas of measurement and scale, brainstorming, democratic decision making and talked about strategies for playing in urban areas. The children were asked to describe a new public place through spoken words alone. This spoken brief was then recorded and passed to the crafts people at the Dublin City Council Joinery Workshop in Cherry Orchard. The resulting design will be temporarily installed on Sitric Road, Stoneybatter, for Innovation Dublin. The site-specific intervention will be constructed from salvaged materials and modular items that will be reused by the City Council.