Qualitative analysis: »Make a Festival!«

Hamburg/Delft

2011

author:Aleksandrs Feļtins

tutors:Dipl.-Ing. Katja Heinecke, Katrin Klitzke, M.A., Prof.

Bernd Kniess

PROCESSES OF INTERVENTION/

PARTICIPATION IN THE BAUMHAUS PROJECT

urban territories 2

weeks. Additional people joined core team. The original site was expanded to accommodate spatial net. Models in scale 1:20 were prepared to test design ideas. Crucial turning point happened in the beginning of the preparation week — we’d got materials: ropes, lashing straps and fire hoses — allmost everything donated by the companies from the neighbourhood. Second was a camp week, when ten kids joined us. The process is regarded as a thematic festival — the outstanding event in the life of participants (both kids and students), for the residents of the vicinity of the Rottenhäuser Feld and the daily life of this public park.

We began to work in the park, so we intervened in the public space and its daily life, and we had a diverse group of collaborators, which somehow should participate in the process. These two verbs, intervene and participate, are the starting point for this research.

What is a tree-house? How to build a tree-house? Do we need tree-houses? Well, everyone knows the answer for the first question, or more precise, any answer is correct. The answer to the second I tried to found in the body of this paper; and, the answer to the last one is sketched in the concluding paragraphs.

The Baumhaus project has been developed during Summer se-mester of 2011, within the framework of seminar »Intercultural practice: activate-participate-associate«. The task was nothing but general and specific at the same time: build a tree-house as a mul-ticultural practice. Multicultural practice could be understood as co-working of actors with different cultural, professional and social background. For this project, working together with different age groups also was the case.

The idea originates from IBA Hamburg, and has a programmatic goal to implement climbing park in the Rottenhauser Feld park, in the near vicinity of Haus der Jugend and Universität der Nachbarschaften.

The period of development and implementation lasted four months. Looking back, two parts can be distinguished. During first, the network of future actors had been built. Second part lasted two

INTRODUCTION

These concepts, participation/intervention, are broadly used nowadays, and as it is usual for such, sometimes meaning in the specific context is being lost. Thesaurus offers multiple synonyms for each and some interrelations and differences in meaning can be found.

Intervention as a noun and intervene as a verb has Latin origin, comes from latin intervenire, from inter- »between« and venire »come« — to »come-in-between« or it denotes something, which has came as such. There are two activities usually meant with this noun: me-diation or invasion. When used as a verb, it means either if some-thing is (unexpectedly) occurring, or someone is interrupting, or in less militaristic terms, when someone is getting involved. Thus, in-tervention is related to something unexpected, unusual, intentional and outstanding at the same time, it has specific temporal, location-al and qualitative features which distinguishes this kind of action. Participation comes from Latin participat- »shared in« and based on verb participare, »to take part«. It has a single meaning as a noun, though with many synonyms which are with similar meanings ap-propriate for different contexts: it means »involvement«, »presence«, »taking part« or more active part-taking such as »contribution« (de-notes with something), »help«, »cooperation«, »aid«, or more neutral

»part«. As a verb it denotes either to take part in the activity (to engage in, play a role/part in) or to work together (cofunction, team up, etc.). In the context of the project, we can conditionally presume that »intervention« is a word for an action: intervention in the public space, in the park, in the daily life of the neighbourhood, which also may have ephemeral or permanent consequences. »Participation« is related to the process of creation. From the similarities’ perspective, participation/intervention share such connotations as interaction and engagement. This aspect helps to link them and find different dimensions of each.

The specific question: if our process was guided, it should have been managed somehow. Again, Thesaurus gives multiple connota-tions for this term. The word itself has Italian origin, in the sense to put (a horse for example) through the paces of the manège and from Italian maneggiare, based on Latin manus »hand«. As a noun it is a word for (mechanisms or means of) control, administration, guid-ance etc. Second — it is a word for administrative or governing body, e.g. »board of directors«. As a verb, to manage, it has at least four connotations in English language. First, related to the control, means »to guide«, »to administer«, »to lead« and »to rule«. Second, is related to the solution: »to cope (with something«, »to get along«,

THESAURUS

»to make ends meet«. Third option is to use the word instead of »to finish doing something«, and the fourth is more about »to handle«, a tool or kid for example. In the context of the project, it is important to find out, how actors intervened&participated as a managers of the process, and how actually the process was guided, controlled or directed, and on the other hand, how different aspects were han-dled?

In order to the project to terms of »participation«, »intervention« and »management«, participants were questioned and some personal reflections summarized. First of all, the motivation was questioned: why someone participated? Was there any specific interest? Then, how each participant could and actually was involved. More specific question about materials, techniques and skills was asked in order to get assessment of the each personal involvement. Finally, subordi-nation and position of each participant were questioned, trying to grasp organisational structure within the group. According to the answers received, interviewees were asked additional questions in order to get more insights to the process. Interviewees were asked

four standard questions:1. What was your reason to participate in the project? (ques-

tioning motivation, specific detail on “goal/ambition” for the tutors, as it was a “guiding force”)

2. Did you have skills of building tree houses, what kind of previously learned skills have you been using? Had you had an idea with what exactly you could participate? (questioning intellectual-practical resource)

3. How did you “like” the material and tools we use? Was it hard to handle them? (questioning improvisation on material, taking to account that was a “theme for the improvisation”

4. How did you make decisions for your actions, what/who guided them? (questioning hypothesis of giving a way/suggesting)

Nevertheless, I tried to avoid direct use of the concepts »participation&intervention« and »management« in standard and derived questions; though interviewees used those themselves. The only thing left left is to trace chains of these processes in the text of the interviews.

PARTICIPATE

MANAGE

INTERVENE

CONTROL

DEVISION OVERSEE

GUIDE

ORGANIZE

DIRECT

PERFORM

IMPROVISE

material acting whatto build up

everybody cared about part of each own

everybody knewwhat’s going on

to work in a team

to think bigger

to react

to tell someone

INTRUDE

to call someone think differently

INTERACT

timeframes

COMMUNICATE

role game: students as planners/professorsand kids as citizens/students

to have an image of end result

somebody asked me …

GET INVOLVED IN …

to say “no”how much

freedom to let

work with the kids

get together

how the process evolves?

to get kids involved

ASSIST IN …COMMON

COACT

how to handle the kids?

PLAN

material enabled improvisation

flexibility

be open

give frame

play

identify oneself

see resulttest ideas

in the model

build part of itmount

set goal: treehouse

HEAD UP

profession

distinctivenessand special knowledge

professional backgound

social skills

regard as an opportunity

1.

2.

3.

3.

1.

PARTICIPATE

MANAGE

INTERVENE

CONTROL

DEVISION OVERSEE

GUIDE

ORGANIZE

DIRECT

PERFORM

IMPROVISE

material acting whatto build up

everybody cared about part of each own

everybody knewwhat’s going on

to work in a team

to think bigger

to react

to tell someone

INTRUDE

to call someone think differently

INTERACT

timeframes

COMMUNICATE

role game: students as planners/professorsand kids as citizens/students

to have an image of end result

somebody asked me …

GET INVOLVED IN …

to say “no”how much

freedom to let

work with the kids

get together

how the process evolves?

to get kids involved

ASSIST IN …COMMON

COACT

how to handle the kids?

PLAN

material enabled improvisation

flexibility

be open

give frame

play

identify oneself

see resulttest ideas

in the model

build part of itmount

set goal: treehouse

HEAD UP

profession

distinctivenessand special knowledge

professional backgound

social skills

regard as an opportunity

1.

2.

3.

3.

1.

TOPOLOGY OF THE PROCESS

LEGEND[IN MYRIAD]

[IN GARAMOND]

[in garamond]

Node concept

Synonym

Definition from the interviews

Link to the synonym or to the related defini-tion

Link to another concept

how the intercultural practice in a sense of dif-ferent professional background was enabled and how project benefited from it?

how to involve the kids

what kind of role material played

Analysing interviews, I tried to find out how the »intervention/participation« and »management« were linked together in the proj-ect. The text of the interviews has been scanned through and then chains of interrelations drawn. Thus the procedures of »interven-tion/participation« and »management« were traced in one single map. As a result topology of the concepts has been mapped. Here, the new »node« of improvisation appeared, because it was noted by interviewees frequently.

The resulting topology gives possibility to question the process and find out underpinning mechanisms. See »Topology of the pro-cess«. In order to find out aspect of the interest, it is now possible to start from any point of the interest and trace its interrelations — thus some »highways« can be distinguished. It should be noted, that the following three »highways« or chains are not the only, but from my perspective, the most complex and multidimensional.

For example, how the intercultural practice in a sense of differ-ent professional background was enabled and how project benefited from it? Magenta »highway« starts from the notion of interaction between individuals with different professional background. This was made possible by means of communication, the derivative of interaction, and was a base for a division of tasks. Division allowed everyone involved to take care of one’s own part and at the same time, everyone knew what others are doing. On the other hand, pro-fession implies distinctiveness and special knowledge, what not in all cases would mean involvement. In overcame this, social skills of participants (to persuade or listen others) were employed. In some occasions, some participants regarded distinctiveness of certain ap-proach as possibility, and the proposed solution was questioned and discussed in a group. It was important step to understand the im-portance of traditional design with scale models in the conditions of limited time and multiple tasks. The work on tree-house on-site was paused for a while to test some design ideas on the model, sug-gested both by the architects and kids, and after that project was enriched by new spatial possibilities. And this would not happen without good interaction within the group, and implies to be open for different views and approaches.

Second crucial aspect, which may be of interest is how to in-volve the kids. Cyan »highway« helps to trace the process of this involvement. It starts from open interaction with kids, the way how they were involved in and became participants. It was started with acquaintance of the kids with the material and call to try to do something with it. Nevertheless, it didn’t returned any fruitful results except confusion of the kids. Still, the assistance, the other way of saying intervening, or directing, the derivative of manage-ment, helped a lot, which gave »a frame« and directed the kids. This frame was rather simple — we asked them to think about how to make a swing, or a ladder from given material, which finally worked.

Another way to involve kids in the process was to enable them to built a part of actual tree-house — a climbing net. First they tested different structural, functional and programmatic possibilities of it on the model, then using some skills of students some nets were built and finally, they had been mounted in the working position in the tree-house. After that kids identified themselves as a co-authors and creators of construction.

And third, but not least, is what kind of role material played? On the one side, the yellow »highway« starts from the notion that material de-fined the very physical outcome of the project — it directed (managed) the result. So, it might be presumed, that conscious choice of material defines profoundly the whole process of the project. From the other side, material enabled improvisation. Here, it should be noted, that first of all, we should have improvised anyway, because the material in a form of fire hoses and lashing straps came in quite unexpected way. At the same time, since both materials were donated, we did not have to care about economisation and careful use, though we didn’t wasted it — nev-ertheless, this together with large amounts of it, enabled free improvisa-tion. Another material-related aspect, also connected with improvisation, was flexibility: both in physical and functional terms. The qualities of material were quite appropriate to the use of the tree-house as climbing installation in regards of safety and comfort. Functionally lashing straps were used as a structural members in very diverse situations and fitted virtually any spatial configuration. It also should be noted, that it was extremely easy to handle it both for us and for the kids. In the meantime, unfinished structure of the tree-house with material scattered around it enabled play, both for kids and adults. Former improvised with ropes and straps trying to fix them on trees and structure; later tried to make use of the material and tested some structural approaches — knots, fixtures on the tree, nets, lashings etc. Eventually, it was possible to learn some new practical, social and physical skills for all involved. Thus, material defined the performance of the project, its temporal development as a cycles of play, design, test and implementation.

CONCLUSIONTo conclude, why should we build tree-houses? Well, if we think of

the practice in the public space, a kind of unusual event, which involves diverse actors and lets them look at their environment from unexpected angle, this was very successful try. And, what is important, not only look, but learn something new. About ourselves: how can we work together? For kids, how to overcome obstacles and accustom to not-that-perfect but nevertheless exciting structure, use their physical abilities, avoid mis-takes and at the same time have an excitement? Finally, maybe, someone has realized, that mundane environment can still be exciting.

ANALYSIS