David Barrie

Beauty matters. But experience is all.

Thanks to Alexander Ostrogorsky, I've an article in the March 2009 edition of the Russian design magazine Interni.

The theme: coworking, citizen participation and the future of cities. (and forgive the slightly 'blobby' writing style - but it's for translation.)

In the next few decades, cities are going to become more expensive, complex places and many will shrink.

Money will become a scarcer commodity and as sustainable development and the internet advance, we will need to create and capture assets of urban life other than land, such as energy, food, communications and social relationships. 

In this world, collaboration between people and organizations to create new kinds of urban experiences and economies will be valuable: and co-working crucial.

Co-working is already taking place in many different ways in Russia and around the world. People are creating new ideas online. People are working with professionals and the authorities to design new public spaces and services. And people are working together to create new social enterprises that make a social, not just a financial profit.

There are few barriers to entering in to this social economy. All people need to be able to do is see value in working together and recognize that the design and delivery of small, highly local things can make a big difference.

In my experience, the key feature to a successful, socially entrepreneurial community is one that has a strong sense of identity, purpose, is prepared to experiment and, in the end, not stand in isolated opposition from other communities or the authorities.

But the challenge is to create an architecture within which divergent people, projects and organizations can flourish. Co-working needs to have a larger narrative so that it happens at a scale that is economic and outgoing. Sometimes this can be achieved by designing and establishing loosely-linked networks of initiative. In the future, the internet will unlock many of the challenges.

The outcomes of these efforts need not be aesthetically beautiful. Beauty may dignify but aesthetics is not all.  Lots of drum and bass music is “ugly” – but it doesn’t stop you dancing. Lots of alcohol is bitter – but still delicious. Lots of places are ugly – but they can be overwhelming exciting. Beauty matters. But experience is all. 

Recession, yoga and haikus made from fresh fruit

The Sunday Times in London reports that celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is to organise picnics in the U.K. to which everyone is encouraged to bring home produce.

According to journalist Jessica Brinton, it fits in to a new sobriety:

Fashion girls are retraining as yoga teachers - the same women who were cat-fighting at the Christian Louboutin sale are now morphing into self-styled spiritual entrepreneurs advertising yoga holidays in the Ardeche. Or doing charity bike rides. Or going on protest marches.

Now time will tell whether the closure of fashion boutiques like Paul & Joe and their peasant/boho chic will drive mourners to up sticks, fly to Kiev or Riga and support events that mark the possible collapse of central Europe.

But Fearnley-Whittingstall has cottoned-on to a nice idea.

Last Summer, architects Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn created an event that was part of the London Festival of Architecture called The Continuous Picnic.

It's currently on show at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in an exhibition called Actions: What You Can Do With the City.

To encourage Londoners and visitors to think about urban food production and alternative uses of open space, Bohn and Viljoen and a team of architects, community gardeners and others - including me - organised a day-long event celebrating local food and the city.

For twelve hours only, an area behind the British Museum and an adjacent square became a public picnic area.

People were invited to bring produce that they'd grown within a certain radius of the city to an Inverted Market - a food installation that showed where the food had come from.

Alongside community composting, picnickers were invited to compose fruit and vegetable haikus conceived by architects charlick+nicholson.

The idea behind the event was to promote Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes - or sustainable use of urban spaces for production (urban agriculture, markets, gardening or recycling), connection (walking, cycling), and social activity (playing, working, meeting).

Architecture publishing magnate Peter Murray, Chairman of New London Architecture, was on hand to promote a special edition Continuous Picnic blanket:

And chef Oliver Rowe of Konstam judged the best produce of the day.

Now the Sunday Times says that Money is out of fashion, and we are looking elsewhere to find happiness.

For sure, the Continuous Picnic was a happy event. And it celebrated values other than cash (though I'll always take it, if you are offering).

But rather than a sanctuary for supermodels or happy-clappy empowerment, the event was about something brilliantly obvious and summed up by a bumper sticker found by Debra at Culiblog:

More information available from mail@bohnandviljoen.co.uk

Photographs courtesy of Jonathan Gales, Clare Brass - seed foundation, Richard Kaye, Natasha Nicholson and Irma Irsara.

The Continuous Picnic was supported by Arts Council England, London Development Agency, London Borough of Camden, Global Generation, London Food Link, CEEN, the University of Brighton and the Calthorpe Project.