Collaborative Atlas 1st meeting - URLab

As part of the OpenCCCP Erasmus+ program, that deals with open practices of knowledge transfer, the first local training lab with the title “Collaborative Atlases for Heritage and the Commons“ took place in our office and the area around in Berlin-Schöneberg. On 19th and 25th of September Fourteen people attended two workshops constituting the first module dedicated to Urban Reconnaissance.  The participants come from different cities in Germany, but also from other countries including Italy, Spain, Belgium, Canada, and have diverse backgrounds in urban planning, anthropology, arts, graphic design, geography, engineering or sociology.

On Saturday 19 we had a packed day with presentations and introductions to the methods and theories we use and time to discover the neighbourhood. Therefore, the participants were send out in groups of two on “secret missions”, each aiming to investigate a different layer of the city, inspired by the Urban Reconnaissance platform. One mission could be to especially look out for heritage, places for children or representations of power. Finally, the outcome was gathered and links between the observations were made.

The following week the outcomes of the individual mission were presented in a more structured way, and the discussion went on what aspect were still missing to build a collective representation of the neighbourhood. The next step will be the development of a common online exploration report, that will constitute the baseline representing the initial perception of the neighbourhood that will be further investigated through the collaborative mapping and collective storytelling modules.