FIX YOUR PARK

Markus Ambach

29 September – 01 October 2017

UUF - Upcycling Urban Furniture
A concept for the Bremerstraße in Moabit

Urban furniture and its spaces are under pressure every so often. Whether it is due to vandalism, the attraction of unwanted clientele, improper usage or plain lack of interest, a good idea is often discredited.

The small park at the Bremerstraße in Berlin-Moabit displays several remnants of a once flourishing urban recreational area: various benches, which used to serve common needs for encounter and conversation, are dismantled to their foundations. The pergolas, which surround the entire area, are only partly conquered by nature, and the once prospering flower beds appear abandoned.

The UUF project ventures on an attempt to rethink, reuse and recycle urban furnishing as a common good, in order to give this promising location a new purpose. In a larger workshop together with neighbours, artists, the cities, and other stakeholders, UUF aims to think about the possibilities that this place as a classic urban recreational community area has to offer today, which new functions are needed here, and which progressive and utopian imaginations of urban furniture can be tried out.

It is not so much about the furniture that is supposed to be built here as such. Much rather, it is about methods of participation by local citizens in their own urban surroundings, the adoption of individual and shared responsibility, and their conditions. What do we ourselves expect from our urban surroundings, and which responsibilities are we willing to take over in the spirit of a commonly imagined and created urban space? What might the cooperation of citizens and administration look like, from which a collectively envisioned, viable space comes into being?

The project consists of two workshops in which the first themes for this space are developed and factual ideas for new uses and formats are created. The outcomes are proposals for a one-week event similar to a market or a fair that shows what the square could look like in the future and how it might be used. In addition, suggestions that could conceivably lead to a sustainable new usage of the space are discussed with the city’s administration.

Aktionswochenende
Samstag, 30.9.2017, 16.00 – 21.00 Uhr
Sonntag, 01.10.2017, 12.00 – 18.00 Uhr
Ort: Bremerstraße/Ecke Birkenstraße, Berlin-Moabit