Abstract
Neighbourhood Labs aims at researching and supporting socio-material infrastructures2 on which urban collectives can operate on and evolve. The nucleus of this project is the Berlin neighbourhood Fischerinsel, characterised by high-rise apartment buildings. The project questions whether design can foster civic engagement, break down communicative boundaries and deliver tools for changing the social and political situation.
Purpose/aim of the project: The purpose of the project is the participatory development and design of infrastructures, in which citizens are empowered to tackle issues concerning their real life contexts and their neighbourhoods. One main aspect for making this comprehensible is the notion of the 'Publics' according to John Dewey,3 which comes into being when individuals or groups organise around issues and concerns in order to influence them or their consequences. In line to that, we aim at providing infrastructures for citizens as empowering frameworks in the improvement of their very own social fabric in their respective local settings. Hence, the project aims at designing infrastructures that enable and foster self-organised collaboration on central issues in and within the living environment of the acting subjects.