PARTICIPATE, BUILD, HAVE YOUR SAY!

In the summer semester there will be a seminar in cooperation with the chair of social science urban research under the direction of M.Sc. Anton Brokow-Loga. The mobile participation lab will be used for the first time with the students in Weimar and in the region. We are also looking forward to exciting impulse lectures and workshops with actors from the participatory practice. In the region we will prepare projects with cooperation partners or even already implement them. A special highlight will be a network meeting, where both uni-internal and especially uni-external partners from the region are invited to network with each other to find out what we could do together. Preferably with our mobile setting, of course!

It was great to be able to invite to a first small party and to celebrate the days of hard work together. Despite the semester break, some people came to see the progress of the construction. It was nice to hear that some people were interested in using the vehicle. So we should think about a booking platform as soon as possible. We still don't have a name, but we had a great afternoon together! We already have a lot of anticipation for the next semester. Let's see what will be created there! We are also looking forward to further inquiries and ideas on how the Mobil could be used in the region.

Two weeks of intensive building are behind us. The construction team consisting of 6-11 students, 2-3 people from the Construclab collective, Grit Koalik (drawing documentation) and the three-person coordination team has screwed, sawed, painted, etc. quite a bit. Now the trailer - which can be completely disassembled with a few hand steps - is on campus waiting to be used! After an introductory class at the wood shop and an examination of the planned building design, they got started. Thanks go to the staff at the university's workshops for their assistance with the craftsmanship of the design. Many of the students had no experience at all with tools and the like, but the result is impressive! We are looking forward to the topping-out ceremony, where we will celebrate the next phase with interested parties!

From January 16 to 19, the compact week of the mobile participation lab took place in the cafeteria foyer and in the M18. The goal was to evaluate the impulses of the kick-off event, to develop them further and to translate them into a prototype for a mobile setting. We chose the cafeteria foyer because both teachers and students come there to eat and thus have the opportunity to get involved. However, it was already noticeable that many of the people were in delivery phases and had little capacity to get involved during the lunch break. We tried to make the best of the situation: First, we filtered out the important key points and discussed the existing statements and sorted them accordingly. Interested people were able to join us again and again through the public working group and leave their impulses. On Monday and Tuesday we worked very much on the conceptual side, and then on Wednesday and Thursday we started building a prototype. The system we came up with (with the help of Alexander Römer from CONSTRUCTLAB) is boxes of different sizes that can be connected to each other with tension belts in such a way that a suitable shape is always created, depending on requirements. So compact, or large etc.... With this we rolled around the campus as a test drive to see what the response was like. We have already had a few interesting conversations. Another advantage of this modular design is that the mobile can still be further developed in the coming semesters. On the digital project pinboard, university-internal persons can find the process presentation and the results so far. The prototype is currently located as an information table in the entrance area of Amalienstrasse 13. The time before the real construction workshop (6.-17.3) we want to do more campus actions to draw attention to the project and to inspire a few more to participate. Matching the occupation of the students and the problems/demands that become visible from it. Maybe we will be able to pick up more impulses for the next steps. The team is already looking forward to the talks!

On Dec. 16, 2022, the kick-off workshop was held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the beautiful Van de Velde Building. The sun shone into the large room with the participatory parkour. About 60 people dropped by within the time window to talk to us about the questions that were actually in the room. Each question had been given space on a bulletin board. People who were unable to come were able to answer the same questions via a digital bulletin board. A highlight was the punch booth at the open space pavilion on campus. Here, those who were on campus were enticed to participate with a hot beverage. By the end of the event, the bulletin boards were well filled and much more tangible. We are now preparing the next format in week 3. A compact week to become even more concrete together. Invitation follows!