Landworkers

I attended the Landworkers Symposium, held as part of the RIAS Convention, at the DCA last Thursday. It presented a series of collaborative projects where the land itself was considered the medium.

I found the first presentation by Gavin Renwick particularly engaging. He showed his work in the Canadian Northwest Territories, and how he had spent time with the local people, and thus built up an understanding of their culture. An interesting insight was the Inuit relation to space. For example he stated that they have no words for inside or outside, as you are always home, as the land is your home.

In a similar vein, the second presentation from Juhani Pallasmaa included two examples of projects he has been involved in. The first was the design of the Siida museum for Sámi culture and the nature of Northern Lapland. The main exhibition in the museum had been spatially organised, where every space had meaning relating to the seasons and work cycle of the Sámi people. The second project was a monument design for a T-junction in Detroit at Cranbrook Acadmey, which they wanted transformed into a feature. The final solution was again rooted within context, with local glacier rock used as the main material, and Juhani described this as a collaboration between architecture and nature and history.

Siida Museum interior

I was lucky enough to meet Juhani the day before the symposium, and this idea of collaboration came up then as well. He talked about collaboration not just being between a designer and users, or a designer and experts, but collaboration should also be with tradition and history, and what has been done before. He also pointed me in the way of some more literature that I might find interesting, mainly in regards to human behaviour and architectural history.

The most significant points that I will take with me from these two days are the concept of collaboration being with everyone, from the people you are designing for, to the client, to the past and all the other people that may be affected. Also empathy for everyone is important, as by understanding how others think it will be easier to interpret their motives and needs.