MA-thesis project: Explorative Space Builders

CODE are happy to present the MA-thesis project in codesign ‘Explorative Space Builders’ conducted by Naomi Aholou-Komedza. In the thesis report Naomi writes: My master thesis project is about finding ways to involve citizen into the conceptualisation of a public spaces. I choose to focus onto the playground of Børne U.N.I, a school in Vesterbro in Copenhagen as a case study of public space. My project partners are Gitte Svenning the headmaster of Børne U.N.I and Elverdal a playground design company. For the headmaster of the school their ambition in this project is to get ideas for their future playground that they are planning to build as soon they have gotten funding. And for Elverdal their ambitions are to get inspired by my way of involving people in the design process.

In my previous education, a bachelor in industrial design and two years diploma in product design, I worked on public spaces but I never imagined to include users into the conceptualisation of the project. I see this project as a way to get aware how my design knowledge has evolved on leading projects, over the past two years in the co-design master.

For this project I engaged designers and teachers, the head of school, children and one parent in different encounters, where we jointly imagined a common vision for a the future playground of Børne U.N.I. All this with some anthropological methods, empathy, considering trial and error an intrinsic element of innovation, and experimentation. I want to interrogate the real needs of the users to suggest new solutions.

The existing play ground at Børne U.N.I

Problem statement

The objective is to find ways to conceptualise the school’s court yard collaboratively with people of the school, depending on the needs of the users of the playground, their practices, uses, culture and the stories that they want to tell.