IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

In this presentation we will introduce the Socio-Spatial Design Agency service-learning elective course, taught at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture, in the framework of which students are invited to design spatial projects / installations / interventions / tools with and for vulnerable citizens and social organizations working with those. We will explain how this course introduces concepts such as as ‘critical spatial practice’, ‘social resilience cells’, ‘place-based solidarity’, ‘commons’, ‘design justice’, ‘crossbench practitioner’, ‘QH mode of innovation’, and ‘design infrastructuring’ to students and helps them to acquire knowledge on and experience in social-spatial processes, co-creation methods and tools and innovative approaches in (interior)architecture and urbanism. We will also discuss how, using a Transition Design (TD) approach (Irwin et al., 2015), the ultimate aim of the course is to develop transformational literacy, both among students as well as among the societal actors involved. While teaching this elective and engaging in Community Design processes, we are inevitably confronted with several challenges and paradoxes. We will elaborate on how, in the context of the course, we do not want to avoid, ignore, or conceal these, but bring them openly to the table. As such issues that come up during the Community Design activities, are used to foster discussions on e.g. power relations, self-sufficiency, and empowerment and reflect on e.g. the impact of small-scale, bottom-up initiatives in relation to structural, long-term change, with the aim of stimulating all the involved actors to become agents of change.