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Fiction and Action

KNOT urban future workshop on Berlin - Mariannenplatz with: Jakub Szczęsny (Centrala, Warsaw), Niclas Henninger (Exyzt, Paris / London), Mister (Basurama, Madrid) and Raumlabor (Berlin) in 1-2-3 multiple choice style

How do we want to shape our future urban environments? The workshop „fiction + action“ starts with the hypothesis that top down urban planning methods that aim to achieve a determined project through an abstract process of planning and internal discussion, aiming at pre-defining possible futures do not work in many situations.

If we understand the city as a dynamic entity, we could read it with the analogy of a living being. and life does not generally follow planned routes, but is rather good for surprises and detours. Looking for a less determining, but more dynamic approach to urban development schemes, we need to find ways of integrating learning and testing situations into the urban planning process. working with 1:1 actions and interventions allows to get in touch with the real conditions of a place.

The workshop takes place in the KNOT in mariannenplatz, a green square in berlin‘s district of kreuzberg. The area around is densly populated, has a quite diverse and interesting athmosphere. Mixing old style alternative people with groups of different migrant background and contemporary hipsters, kreuzberg houses one of the most diverse population. relevant questions of urban development in the vincinity of mariannenplatz can be asked: [a] for the former site of the wall and death strip, [b] the banks of the river spree - site of the „mediaspree“ development scheme or [c] the still empty lots around moritzplatz.