Making Living Places : Craftsmanship, song and imagination

Why do we feel at home in certain places and not in others? Why do certain places and things make us feel more alive? Places that evoke-affect-inspire. Places that nurse and nourish life. Places emotionally charged and sensually enriching, that carry with them a sense of joy, wonder and simplicity. Places that enhance life and feel closer to our heart. Places attended to with care and affection. Where the everyday life takes a lyrical form with a deep personal feeling. The studio unit focused on making life-enhancing places. As an approach, it followed a choice-based pedagogy as far as possible. Exercises were designed in a way that required personal and collective choices to be made at different levels. As part of the pedagogic method, only the premise for an exercise was set, wherein some constants were given and the students followed a path based on a deep intuitive feeling. For every exercise a clear working method was outlined. Subsequent outcomes were compared and collectively judged based on the relative “degree of life” an outcome evoked. From this studio, a student learned to: Describe places Differentiate between a more living place and a less living place. Develop vision of a living place. Create and transform places.