Understanding Territories: A social approach to building walls

We are very excited to be running a workshop for the Plaka Collective, as part of the new educational programme 
POLITICS OF SURVIVAL
2. MATTER OF SURVIVAL WORKSHOP + CONVERSATION 
http://www.plaka.porto.pt/ficheiros/projectos/Colectivos_PLKA___POLITICS_OF_SURVIVAL_PT__ENG.pdf 

The political debate on walls and borders in the fluid human conditions of our era showcases the loss of our communal knowledge about territories. As the human species gather ever more densely into cities, it is important to regain the long standing experience of building walls as a society, understand their purpose and what they represent.

Front-footing vs Protecting/ Inviting vs Excluding / Open vs Solid / Fluid vs Static / Community vs Individualism ; walls or lines are the most basic element in designing spaces.  

This workshop teaches skills of architectural observation, improvisation, collaboration, creative thinking and building with simple materials. It invites people to explore the borders of a given site and their typologies and suggest a new space for inhabiting. 

In the process of the workshop we activate a principal tool for thinking, experiencing and communicating; the human body. We learn to listen and trust our movements and our feelings as indicators of what is needed, we learn to trust each other as allies in surviving in the world today while dropping our personal ‘walls’ that we have long built for ourselves and each other in our day to day lives.

The workshop has a duration of 3 hrs and is divided in three parts;

Part 1: we activate our kinaesthetic abilities through simple exercises.

Part 2: it takes place outdoors, where we explore the surrounding environment. 

Part 3: we build with paper, string and our bodies, simple structures. 

After the closing of the workshop a small conversation will take place with the participants of both workshops of the day.