Why do we tell a story?
A story creates connections. That goes the same for stories of the city, architecture. If urban stories and acts are understood, conditioned and produced, assimilated, became tools for conventions, unknown futures, events of architecture; then they are integrated as imagined reality and as sustainable urban realm.
Why do we tell a story when we are talking about architecture?
Havik says that using narration allows us to include sensory experiences in design. If we want to understand these everyday practices of the city of De Certau,
Chapter III
the way that we sometimes use the city is informed by these stories of the city. So it is condition as well as production.
Creating a story is also a tool to deal with an unknown future, imagining new situations in architecture. Havik uses ‘1984’ by George Orwell as an example of fiction, which is a direct respond to reality.
Finally, Tschumi claims that there is no architecture without events. Architecture only starts when the construction is over. Then, life and the stories are written, played and screened within them. So, I will keep on writing and screening the imagined reality with and for a sustainable and sensory urban realm.
Manhappen Studio
Formed in 2018, Manhappen Studio was a collective urban practice.The members of Manhappen Collective were Alessandro Caputo, Alessandro Cugola, Nam Doan, Charlotte Gaubert, Melissa Jin, Aslı Eylem Kolbaş, Pedro Akio Hasse, Sarah Manderson, Patricia Marco, Pawel Matacz.
The North Quarter bears the scars of 50 years of demolitions, expulsions and speculative developments in service to small group of elite property owners. The spectacle of Expo 58’ ushered in a modernising project via ‘The Manhattan Plan’ (actually modelled on Houston, Texas) and in the decades following, thousands of households were cleared and over 55 hectares of vibrant neighbourhood reduced to rubble. Yet the failures of this grand plans are visible for all to see.
The face of the neighbourhood is changing, but who knows about it? Can we imagine something different to what exists or what is planned? Communicating probable, possible and imagined futures via simple graphic posters is used as an accessible and inclusive way to bring the contemplation of the future city into the public realm. Imagining something different doesn’t need to require grand proposals but simply a new perspective, one which unlocks the potential to see things as something other than they are. Addressing sites throughout the neighbour hood that reflect the mismatch between static master plans and the dynamism of lived space, a visual catalog of small changes projecting different possible futures is offered as a contribution to the collective urban imagination.
Several sites are chosen for small interventions. A small abandoned house on Avenue d’Heliport 96 is recognisable in an old picture, showing the building behind what was the first public railway track of the European continent. When such a forgotten information is shown on the face of the inhabitants through a big print of the same picture a dialogue can start. An apparently irrelevant information about the history of house helps us to understand the relevance of the building as a milestone of the neighborhood. Furthermore, possible and alternative uses of the building are printed and showcased on the bricked-up windows.
ACT I: Le Petite Maison Bleue
In an analogous way a useless plot at Avenue de l’Héliport 31 is re-occupied by the collective to show a possible use of the emptiness, to start a discussion with whoever walks by this space every day. The discussion becomes a fundamental way not only to tackle the issue, and thus to understand regulation and speculation concerning the land (half public and half privately owned), but also to position our practice and to question the efficacy of planning rather than the sometimes illusory limits of participative practice. By using simple messages questions are posed, addressing a citizen to claim or be interested in a piece of their neighborhood. Collages help us to visualize possible alternative uses of the land, as imagined by the collective or as suggested by the nearby school.
ACT II: Trashed Garden
The square in front of Saint Roch Church, re-shaped during the Manhattan plan, lost its name during the re-planning of the area, becoming an extension of the Chausseé d’Anvers. “Give a name to the square” started as a way to understand how the inhabitants referred to such a civic yet anonymous space. This ceremony became the occasion for the collective to exhibit the work done in the neighbourhood, release two publications and films and engage with the inhabitants. As a collective, nine problematic sites have been chosen to make interventions, all aiming to spark an interest and provoke what could be a possibility in that specific location. These contextual and contemplative approaches were including hanging up quotes, questions or collages on the walls of these sites while also actively asking the users questions, letting them participate in the process of a possible change aiming more inclusiveness of the actors in these spots.
ACT III: The Square
