In Sint-Joost-ten-Noode, one of the poorest and culturally most diverse neighborhoods of Brussels, a participatory workshop reactivates an underused part of the public space. Residents are invited to co-design a “common living room” as a patchwork of cultural references, material and immaterial narratives, artifacts and practices of domesticity. Collective authorship encourages collective identification.
But to operate within such a tense and fragile environment produces much more than an architectural installation. Supported by the local community center and with the architect in the role of the mediator, Publieke.Salon.Publique creates a framework for encounter and inter-cultural exchange. It enables a vision for architecture where the creation of public space is primarily understood as the creation of social space. In the era of global migration and exile, it redefines notions such as individuality, togetherness and belonging. Home, beyond just a tópos, it is moreover a practice.
Initial hand-drawings of the participants' own houses, stemming from different cultural backgrounds.
The Home as a Memory Jug: Memory jugs or vessels were prepared in Victorian England as patchworks of objects from the life of a departed person, at the same time constructing and representing memory and identity.
Prototype #2: The Table, is a hyper-object projected into a public square, a continuous furniture/installation which emerges out of the participants' narratives and contains Italian dining tables, Turkish coffee tables, Japanese kotatsu tables...
Prototype #1: The Sleeping Cabin (first image), occupies an empty plot and contains a sleeping capsule, a public kitchen and a table for neighborhood gatherings.
