[Un]Real Estate

Final presentations and exhibition

2010-02-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, 17 December, final presentations and an exhibition of [Un]Real Estate student projects took place at Konstfack in s6 and Trapp Galleri. The students and tutors thank Henrik Ernstson (Stockholm Resilience Center), Annika Enqvist and Thérèse Kristiansson (New Beauty Council), and Birgitta Adolfsson (Nätverket Årstafältet) for participating in the critique and the course.

	Årsta Field Hairstyle Competition 2009: Social media for participation in the debate by Nina Bacun		Årsta Alteration: Stockholm's Urban Ecotopia by Prang Lerttaweewit
	Mobile Fresh Air: A protest reaction to air pollution in Hornsgatan! by Mahmoud Keshavarz		Rosebud: Editorial identity design by shopping by Martin Jones
	Windswept Guide to Stockholm by Vijai Maia		A Lion in Love: An instinctive fable of the existence, me by Min Cha
	Stuck in a moment, you and me: Control box as an object and its role for pedestrians by Stina Wessman		Conflict fuel: Embodied expression of alternate histories and futures by Anders Mellbratt
	Ad(d) Metamorphosis: Graffiti performance about space & rules in Stockholm by Josefin Vargö		An Audio Walk down Göta Landsväg by Bonnie Swift

[Un]Real Estate

2010-02-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

Today, the value of things and places is coming into question. Traditionally, systems set out by the real estate market has assigned the value of land – however, as exposed by the current economic crises, this value and the way that it is assigned is not stable and can be questioned. While economic, political, and cultural authorities may take charge of the official systems, design might have a role in exposing how these systems are manifested locally and materially, with implications for class and gender, property ownership and social norms, family life and seasonal patterns within a particular building, neighborhood, (sub)urban configuration. Experience design might also be employed to change or re(e)valuate the status and stakeholders in a specific site or situation.

But value can be neither static nor eternal – public spaces have unofficial values, unwritten laws, memory value, norms of belief and behavior, beyond what might be evident from property value or recognition by political or preservation authorities. For example, besides the official environmentalists or preservationists, hunters and taxi drivers have a deep interest and knowledge of the physical and cultural landscape. This raises a range of new questions – how are values created and changed? Who has a role or stake in this? How do values connect to the sensibility/materiality/geography? In a more fluid and emergent notion of ‘value’, other networks of actors and interest-groups have agency, along with other techniques/technologies and alternative forms for materializing and spreading values.

[Un]Real Estate focuses attention on discovering existing ways in which values are set and communicated officially, and unofficially, and about (re)designing systems for altering existing values or introducing new ones. The resulting design proposals should be targeted at specific stakeholders and actors to re-experience the existing from another (persuasive, environmental, humanitarian) perspective.

A Lion in Love: An instinctive fable of the existence, ME

2010-01-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

A Lion in Love: An instinctive fable of the existence, me/10,Dec,2009/Konstfack

see the video here

The project ‘A Lion in Love: An instinctive fable of the existence, ME’ attempts to experiment to get a new experience which being in other existence’s position in one scene of Aesop`s fable; The Lion in Love.
In reality, everyone is naturally tends to be just ‘myself’ and focus on 'my' story, although there are many hidden stories of other characters behind the scene. Every existence gets own life which is full of stories, and life is all about time. Thus I would insist it through this project: Understanding of other existences could be referred to understanding of time.

References
Image: The Lion in Love, 1836, Camille Joseph Etienne Roqueplan
Literature: The Lion in Love, B.C 16, Aesop

Win Årsta Field Weather Competition 2009

2010-01-14T05:33:00.000-08:00

ÅRSTA FIELD WEATHER AS HAIRSTYLIST

Social media for participation in the Årsta Field debate

Årsta Field Hairstyle Competition 2009 was initiated by Årsta Field struggle one of the results of course under the name (Un) Real Estate (Experience design group, Konstfack) by Ramia Maze and Martin Avila.

Scenario for campaign called Win Årsta Field Hairstyle Competition 2009 was imagined as
online competition, communicated through social media.

Where Time is designed through the contribution, participation and involvement in the Årsta Field struggle and debate of its future destiny.

Preserving experience of nature (such as being windswept) in the city, by using Årsta Field Weather conditions as value.

Uploaded photos from the blog www. arstahairstyle2009.blogspot.com were presented at the exhibition, as well as Futureforcast for Årsta Field Hairstyle 2020.

Winnersand awards have been announced.

Click here for more information
http://arstaweatherhairstyle.blogspot.com/

The Rosebud Babygift TM

2010-01-14T04:15:00.000-08:00

Sustainability is not just conservation of the status quo and the preservation of values and rights, but also contain aspects of conviviality, adaptation, development, and many other things. HOWEVER, our search of identity and security makes us remember and conserve memories of time specific events. These conserved mental artifacts can help us find comfort in the constant change of the everyday and function as constants, aiding us to keep a steady course in life and to give us a mirrored picture of our trajectory through life. As in the film Citizen Kane, rosebud is a mental fixed point that controls part of our life by setting values, desires and fueling ambition. This memory can be something positive or negative, but is always consisting of something that has affected us deeply and that will continue to affect us through life. The Rosebud Baby gift TM, is a representation of childhood and the time of optimal innocence of an individual. It is a kit and consists of a traditional conservation jar and an eco packaging protective box. It comes with a sealing fabric to be ritually tied by the giver or givers, around the package when it is filled. This is the ritual functioning as symbol of tying it to time and place. The way the giver ties the ribbon around the gift is the symbol of the way the giver wants to make it into a gift.
The conservation jar is to be filled with earth from the year of birth of the recipient baby. The earth should come from some specific geographical place which will serve as mental anchor point on our physical globe. Maybe this place is the park where the parents first kissed or first met or from some beautiful natural scenery important to the parent(s) or other giver wanting to define the identity of the newborn. The product is numbered and signed by the person who filled it and comes with an ownership certificate, on the package and on a web page (registered by the giver).
Although it is just dirt in a jar, it can carry many intangible values for the individual. It is in the way it is handled and valued that makes it more and more holy as the time goes by. It is a root as long as the person is old and it functions a geographical anchor to his or her place of provenance. So many belongings today are impersonal and devoid of personal meaning. The Rosebud Baby gift TM It is something the individual can keep and think of as a mental stability all through life and which will increase in value with the age of the person. It can also function as a valuable legacy to be kept in the family for generations. In a time when the family structure is weak and many people feel lost and lonely this can unite tribes and families and be passed on as memories of the family. Generation to generation and aid individuals and groups to lift their gaze to long perspectives of time and not despair in the misery of hard time everyday, but feel part in a greater good, greater group and longer history.

Life in a consistent geographical location and with little societal change used to be free. Now it is something INVALUABLE.

The Rosebud Baby Gift TM Kit 895 SEK. It is up to you to make it holy.

ÅRSTA ALTERATION

2010-01-13T18:07:00.000-08:00

an Articulation of Value in Dispute for Urban Citizens that Co-Habit the City

DESCRIPTION:

The Årsta Field conflict aroused as the new Swedish government held architect competition over the field once promised a park.

The landscape park and the winning residential development involve two entirely different sets of Actors, Artifact, and Social Arenas.

This work purposed to prompt an interdisciplinary discussion between stakeholders in order to find agreeable direction for the property development; it needs a clear impression of the field at stakes of activist, ecologist, landscape architect, developer, and Stockholm City.

to CONTEXTUALIZE in prezi

to Academic Portfolio Fall 2009

An Audio Walk down Göta Landsväg

2010-01-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

Take a walk through Årtsa Field and learn about Göta Landsväg, one of Sweden's oldest roads, which dates back to the Bronze Age, or possibly even earlier. This audio tour will be your guide. It contains stories about the natural and cultural history of this place in Stockholm, told by a collection of voices, mixed with sound samples recorded on site, and accompanied by music from across genres. Walking directions and verbal queues are also provided to the listener; these are set to the pace of a slow stroll. This audio would be best if experienced on site, in the darkness of a winter night, but you can listen from anywhere, at any time of day or year. My hope is that this tour will help make you more aware of the plants and animals at Årsta Field, and inform you about the cultural importance of Göta Landsväg.

A few things:

Listen to the first half of the walking tour here, or right click on the red arrow in the bottom right corner, "save this file," and put it on your mp3 player.
Download a map here, which shows the starting and ending points of the walk.
Read more about the research and thought behind this project here.
See how this project was edited, by looking an an explanation of my raw audio file here.

Mobile Fresh Air: A protest reaction to having right for fresh air

2010-01-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

People have forgotten about free access to pure water. They buy mineral water in stores as a habit. They get this attitude as common and they have different choices to buy a basic need, pure water!
Will they forget about fresh air, like pure water as soon as possible? Will they buy fresh air as a product in a bottle with different brand and from some clean and fresh resources in the world?
Will Sweden community as a social society which respect these kinds of values historically and traditionally, react to this protest artifact?
According to experiences of visitors of artifact in stores, most of them, thought no point for having such a this product in Sweden, but maybe in Mexico city! This is the same approach before water bottles get a big daily product in stores over the world.
More about this project

Ad(d) Metamorphosis: Graffiti performance instigating discussion about the space & rules set for advertisement in Stockholm

2010-01-11T03:47:00.000-08:00

Advertisement spaces in Stockholm are very controlled. There are strict rules and regulations concerning who and what is able to be advertised. But who should have the power to decide this? And what do people in Stockholm really think about the stuff being advertised? Should there be more spaces in Stockholm where the citizens are able to put up there own 'advertisements' in the form of pictures, illustrations or messages? Is it necessary for the citizens to have a greater say in what is being advertised in Stockholm?

On December 15th 2009, a grafitti performance took place on Plattan, Sergelstorg, where people were asked to illustrate how they would use the advertisement space if it were their own and what freedom of speech meant to them within this space. This performance questions the power and value of the existing advertisment spaces and its' messages, and uses the power of our body in order to do so.

More information & images from the project here!

STUCK IN A MOMENT, you and me - the control box and its role for pedestrians

2010-01-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

The control box is a very common object that we all share and use in our everyday life. It fascinates me that it has hardly not changed at all during the last 30 years. It is designed in favor of cars I would say. To pursue pedestrians to wait and walk in certain way at a certain time. I wanted to look into this object and see what it mean to us and most of all what it could do.

More info and video sketching on http://stinelin.wordpress.com/

Arstafaltet: Windswept Guide: To Stockholm

2010-01-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

(See the online version of the zine)

Cover of zine, a flag to be used as a guide.

Årstafältet as a narrator and a starting point, giving a nonhuman the right of speech through a fictional plot. Unlike most stories this one is open ended, only with an introduction and later means for the reader to guide itself. It is a jerk, a yank into ones way of seeing modern city life through renunciation of a deemed unproductive space, a gap full of potential, high real estate value, in the middle of a highly functioning city.

YOU ARE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The "guide" is intended to be a catalyst for a open ended experience, in other words its supposed to be similar to a introduction of a book. Within this introduction I have tried to induce a shift of perception of the participants once he chooses to go in the park. Thus making the choice to become, if he is not already, a unproductive member of society. This choice leaves this person without any security nets or any sort of a guide to direct his future actions. The flag used as a sleeve for the zine is a mere symbolic object, a guide that uses the winds in order to give the participant future directions.

More about this project.

SCHEDULE

2009-10-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

Week 47

Nov 16 – 09-10:00, room S3 Intro [MA+RM] – 10-16:00, room S3 Lecture and field trip [HE]	17 – Students work on experiments	18 – Students work on experiments	19 – 09-10:00, room S3 Blog session [MA+RM] – 10-16:00, room S3 Translation and reflection [HE, MA+RM]	20 – Individual documentation (post on blog by Nov 23)
Week 47 is with Henrik Ernstson – details HERE.

2009-10-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

Week 48

Nov 23 – 09-10:00, room S3 Intro [MA+RM] – 10-16:00, room S3 Part 1 & 2 [AE+TK]	24 – Part 3 Students work on assignment	25 – Part 3 Students work on assignment	26 – 13-17:00, room S7 Part 4 [AE+TK, MA+RM]	70 – Individual documentation (post on blog by Nov 30)
Week 47 is with Annika Enqvist and Thérèse Kristiansson – for details go HERE.

2009-10-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

Week 49

Nov 30
–
10-11:30, room S7
Lecture 'Material morals' [MA]
–
11:30-15:30
Assignment
–
15:30-17:30, studio
Discussion and design brief [MA+RM]

Dec 1
–

2
–

3
–
10-12:30, Studio
Student presentations (10 min each)
–
13:30-17:00, Cafe
Individual tutorials (20 min each student) [MA]

4
–

2009-10-30T03:30:00.000-07:00

Week 50

Dec 7
–
10-12:00, room S7
Lecture 'Experience Prototyping' [RM]
–
13-16:00, Cafe
Tutorials [MA+RM]

8
–

9
–

10
–
10-15:00, room S7
Crit: Student's experience prototypes [MA+RM]
–
15-16:00, room S7
Lecture 'Representing Time' [RM]

11
–

2009-10-30T02:30:00.000-07:00

Week 51

Dec 14
–
10-12:00, Cafe
Tutorials [MA+RM]

15
–

16
–

17
–
10:30
Exhibition opens, Konstfacks TG (Trapp Galleri)
-
10:30-16:20 Final presentations, room S6 (schedule posted above)
-
16:30-17:30
'Mingle' in the exhibition space

18
–
17:00
Students take down exhibition

2009-10-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

Week 52

Independent work

Week 53

Independent work

Week 1

Independent work

Week 2

Independent work

Jan 14
–
Final documentation and portfolio piece (due by email to course tutors)