Utopian Dreams – Real Identities
Utopian Dreams – Real Identities
Unlearning, Imagining, and Integrating
The goal was to engage in discourses on utopias in the context of economic, social, and cultural transformations. The design-minded visionary asked: what are we actually doing, and why might we – in a radical transdisciplinary way – extend our competencies from parts to wholes and ultimately to a model of a way of life that is in sync with our identity.
Towards that end, the module unfolded through two parallel tracks:
A seminar – a series of discussions – where we read and elaborated upon four provoking texts (see Seminar Track). And a project track – a series of laboratories – through which we conceived of a “utopian dream” and designed an “architectural” artifact as a model for an imagined, idealistic “community” and “way of life” (see Projects).
Five tutors presented complementing standpoints and perspectives to the class. They asked four teams to have these integrated into a specific concept and create an artifactual representation of a “utopian dream” (see Framework).
The work unfolded on a 3 plus 1-step process: from analysis to projection to synthesis and eventually communication (see Design Process).
In the analysis phase, teams engaged in 2 activities: first in ethnographic conversations with people on the street to listen to and understand their personal “utopias,” and second in analyzing a utopian case, namely the “Radical Schools of Oscar Niemeyer, Darcy Ribeiro, and Leonel Brizola,” described in the book “Wherever You Find People,” edited by Aberrant Architecture and published by Park Books.
In the projection phase, teams explored various ideas regarding fertile grounds for tangible concepts.
In the synthesis phase, teams designed a concept and a multimedial representation as an exhibition.
The intellectual background was the concept of utopia discussed by Tomás Maldonado (Design, Nature & Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology), and the critical thinking of the radical social and design movements of the 1960s, among them Californian counterculture, Hippie modernism, and Italian design radicalism. The Whole Earth Catalog, Star Trek Enterprise, the Marimekko house and village, and other systemic examples of utopias from the 1960s served as references and examples of utopian communities and ways of life.
Tutoring Team:
Simone Gretler Heusser – HSLU Social Work, Focus Social Life
https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-university-of-applied-sciences-and-arts/about-us/people-finder/profile/?pid=66
Hans Kaspar Hugentobler – HSLU Design Management, Focus Utopia and Radical Counter Culture
https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-university-of-applied-sciences-and-arts/about-us/people-finder/profile/?pid=604
Nadine Jerchau-Gay – HSLU-Architecture, Focus Body in Space
https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-university-of-applied-sciences-and-arts/about-us/people-finder/profile/?pid=1260
Dulmini Perera – Bauhaus University Weimar, Focus Design Fiction
https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/architecture-and-urbanism/chairs/theorie-und-geschichte-der-modernen-architektur/team/dulmini-perera/
https://www.uni-weimar.de/projekte/afterwork/
Sibylle Schempf – HSLU Design Management, Focus Communities
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sschempfforinnovation/