Users with/out bodies

Abstract

‘Socially engaged’ participatory design projects from the performative arts are often seen as producers of ‘other’ knowledge. This encompasses embodied, affective and non-representational dimensions of architectural knowledge on future dwelling. Such understanding of what the arts do is in opposition to rationalizations and particularly the scaled concept of a pre-social singularised future inhabitant—the ‘user’—as imputed by modern(ist) architecture and urban planning practices. This paper proposes a combined argument rooted in body sociology by showing that the incorporation of future inhabitants in architectural design processes is a material struggle for social difference around the abstract concept of the ‘user’. It is a political dynamic that concerns all stakeholders in the design processes. The case is called ‘Planbude’, a participatory project in Hamburg, which questions the conventional self-referential body techniques and methods of embodying design in the profession of architects. It will be shown that Planbude’s intervention into the conventions of design processes is not about the aesthetic ‘othering’ of knowledge production only. It will be argued that the members of Planbude have strong practical competences in translating their research results into design processes by critically dealing with the conventional methods of architects and planners. Among all stakeholders this leads to a cultural sensibility and to considerations of differentiated bodily needs in the politics of an architectural design process.

Key words:

• embodiment in planning and architecture
• performative arts
• participation in architecture and planning
• material politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Literally translated into Recht auf Stadt, this is a network of 63 civil initiatives in Hamburg; see www.rechtaufstadt.net [accessed 20 April 2016].

2 Two performances by Sylvi Kretzschmar can be streamed on YouTube: “Kollektive Anrufung! Verstärkung für die Esso-Häuser”, uploaded on 13 May 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=__wBDqx71Nk [accessed 20 April 2016], and “Esso Häuser Requiem”, uploaded on 25 May 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLbqhnb0FgE [accessed 20 April 2016].

3 See the organisation’s website: planbude.de [accessed 22 March 2016].

4 These projects are often self-accredited and form part of civil engagements and/or squatting-related concerns in the neighbourhoods in which artists live and work. Alternatively, they may be commissioned and financed by other stakeholders, such as investors, foundations, and local governments. More often, they are financed through state-led cultural or creative-industry funds, and recently also through prizes (see Introduction to the SF, this issue).

5 See also the paper by Uskokovic in this issue.

6 It has been argued that in science and technology studies, the materiality of humans and of embodying design has been silently placed out of sight or hidden behind the study of the material forces that assemble an architectural design as an object of the social (Collins and Evans 2007, 7).

7 Although various devices (co-design, kinaesthetic empathy in design, wearables, and sensor-based movement technologies) have been developed in order to broaden the consideration of the bodily needs of inhabitation, the most conventional generation of expertise in architecture is based upon ‘self-referential’ body knowledge.

8 The artists Christoph Schäfer and Margit Czenki founded ‘Park Fiction’—a neighbourhood park planned and realised by the people who used it and lived in the area only a few blocks away from the Esso-Häuser. The ‘Park Fiction’ project was exhibited in Documenta 11 in 2002; see park-fiction.net [accessed: 07 May 2016].

9 See www.nlarchitects.nl/slideshow/315/ [accessed 10 October 2016].

10 For a discussion of the plans in architectural discourse, see www.archdaily.com/776710/why-nl-architects-plus-bels-winning-proposal-for-hamburgs-st-pauli-wont-win-you-over-with-glossy-renders [accessed 20 April 2016].

11 In Hamburg, other participatory design projects have become brands of local knowledge production, such as the ‘Wunschproduktion’ (wish production) of Park Fiction and ‘Komm’ in die Gänge’ (get into gear) of Gängeviertel. All of these have been criticised by other activist groups for their neoliberal connotations, for selling local knowledge to the city’s branding institutions, and for furthering the interests of potential investors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanna Katharina Göbel

Hanna Katharina Göbel is Post-Doc researcher and lecturer in the fields of Cultural Sociology and Body Sociology at Universität Hamburg.