Social space takes its form at the meeting places, the gathering places, the intersections and crossroads. Our sociability is triggered every time we engage in common activities and seek the pleasure of the company of others, the togetherness. We meet regularly, voluntary and informally beyond the realms of home and work in coffee-shops, bars, squares, streets... OurMeetingPlaces.org prototype web platform reveals the architecture of our meeting places.

OurMeetingPlaces.org is a prototype web platform with integrated data collection. Its mission is to acquire and visually represent favourite meeting places. The project is inspired by the works of Lynch, Milgram, Jodelet, Whyte on social and spatial representations and approaches meeting places and urban space through the concepts of Lefebvre, Joseph, Simmel, Oldenburg, McQuire and Wood. The scope of Our Meeting Places is to enable both qualitative and quantitative exploration of meeting places. The expectation is that statistical analysis would support a cognitive understanding of socio-spatial relations, while interactive visual representations would enhance a participatory narrative of individual stories and create a collective image of the city. Interactive visualization as research practice provides the opportunity to share interdisciplinary research in other forms beyond the written word. To fulfill this scope, Our Meeting Places web platform was designed and developed as prototype in 2014 focusing on the city of Weimar, Germany, as case study. The prototype platform was launched on June 11, 2014 and is available at http://ourmeetingplaces.org.

Details

Building or project owner : Eleni Digidiki

Project artist/ concept/ design/ planning : Eleni Digidiki

Interaction design/ programming : Eleni Digidiki

Descriptions

Participatory architecture & urban interaction

Mediacredits