While a traditional mock-up is understood as a full-scale prototype used for instructional or experimental purposes, a performative mock-up goes beyond mere representation – it becomes a shared experience that reveals the interplay between behavior and spatial configuration. By creating spatial situations that foster diverse interactions among participants, these reversible installations encourage spontaneous and unexpected encounters, transforming them into moments of collective learning.

Description

Unlike the student's typical approach of first planning and then creating models for review and visualization, the performative mock-up embraces uncertainty and finding comfort in not knowing. It is a 1:1 prototype of an installation used at the beginning of the design process in order to learn from its performance and the reactions towards its form, function, placement, idea etc. When used as a research medium, reactions to such an installation can often reveal people's needs and interests more effectively than direct questioning, as participants may not have been fully aware of them beforehand. Experiencing spatial change firsthand can be provocative, uncovering unconscious behavioral patterns and making them more tangible. The performative mock-up thus becomes the focal point of discussion, where diverse spatial experiences take shape and crystallize. Experiencing the transformations in situ, with their whole bodies and senses, allows participants to recognize the added value of these interventions—an impact that extends beyond spatial improvements to include social, structural, and psychological benefits.

How to Use

The performative mock-up played a central methodological role in the two “Informal Learning Spaces” studios, during the fieldtrip in “Studio Plovdid” and the free master Thesis “Lavadouros”. Rather than relying on verbal explanations, the projects were demonstrated through embodied experiences of transformation. Instead of merely listening to the description of the design proposals, participants engaged with them physically, either by performing them or allowing them to perform. These choreographed review situations became collective sensory experiences, encouraging a diversity of stakeholders to feel the potential of change rather than just discussing it. The idea of the performative mock-up was additionally exhibited during the 

 at Swiss Architecture Museum (SAM) in Basel.

Context

[Studio Informal Learning Spaces Team] Grégoire Farquet, Charlotte Schaeben, Seppe De Blust, Beatrix Emo, Freek Persyn, Momoyo Kaijima,

[Studio Plovdid Team] Michiel van Iersel, Ellena Ehrl, Ina Valkanova, Freek Persyn

[Master Thesis Lavadouros] Students Chiara De Libero and Maria Margherita Innocenti, supervised by Lukas Fink

Credits

Formats

The Performative Mock-up

The “Room of Entanglement” is a scenography which shows a variety of analytical and propositional work in relation. It is constructed as an immersive spatial setup which acts as a playground for discussion. The exact form of the “Room of Entanglement” can vary, as long as the room is the central element (of a design studio) where all individual contributions come together.

The “Room of Entanglement” serves different purposes on various levels. In relationship to practice it is a setting to inspire and to stimulate various actors – students, practitioners and stakeholders involved in urban transformation – to transgress current ways of thinking. By showing different contributions in parallel, the room encourages to think in relationships, to think beyond the plot, and to think in different time spans.

On a pedagogical level the room becomes a collective output and the “boundary object” of the studio. This means the main focus is not the individual “project” as such, but rather the setting where these proposed interventions – as well as the assumptions, emotions and world-views they are based on – are communicated and discussed. Here, the role of the design proposal is rather to activate the setting, to become an object and tool for dialogue and to help others to engage. Arguments, design details, maps, metaphors or renders are no longer there to convince but to invite to add, change, execute, test, cherish or play around with. The fact that students do not present their project in isolation can help them to learn from and with others. It helps to enhance the ability to think about the relations between different projects and to relate an individual contribution to a larger narrative.

Besides, working on the “Room of Entanglement” means that each student or participant takes up different roles: Next to the work an individual contribution one becomes scenographer, production assistant, host and much more.

The concept of the Room of Entanglement as a collective output and structure of the semester was the central element of our spring 2022 design studio on Zurich Altstetten. During this studio we tested four different alterations of the Room of Entanglements. The guests we invited to these sessions rather became active contributors than visiting “critics” or experts.

Room No. 1: For the first room we invited developers, citizens, gardeners and activists engaged in Altstetten. They are all closely related to a specific ongoing transformation project in Altstetten. The goal of the room was to enrich our reading of Altstetten. In an immersive setting of drawings hanging from the ceiling, guests could choose what relates to their stake, focus or interest and new material and layers were added.

Room No. 2: For the next room we invited planners, architects and colleagues from ETH to refine and test the elements, developed by students, and to introduce a map as a common layer. During the session we co-created a first draft of the collective map.

Room No. 3 & 4: Room number three served as a rehearsal for the fourth and final room. For these rooms the map was further developed by students and all the studio’s elements were brought together in a collective performance, including a kind of “live power point” presentation. For this session we invited the city administration of Zürich to test the Room of Entanglements as a setting to discuss the densification plans of the city.

Afterlife: A later and more detailed version of the Room of Entanglements and the map was made within the context of an exhibition at ZAZ (center for architecture Zurich). This alteration of the room and the map became the starting point for another series of discussions on urban transformation with a variety of stakeholders.

[Studio Team Altstetten] Seppe De Blust, Lukas Fink, Chloé Nachtergael, Freek Persyn

Urban Practice

The Room of Entanglement

Motivated by the works and ideas of the students of Studio Tirana, Sotiria Kornaropoulou addressed this letter to the Palace of Brigades in Tirana in 2020, recounting her only visit and the profound impressions it left on her

I visited you only once. I just recall that I located you on the map, and was driven to you by a driver who didn’t speak any English. The car seemed to leave the city and drive on a motorway, along a very long fence. I remember us stopping on an empty driveway, the driver and guard communicating at length, asking for my passport, and finally getting to enter your gates.

Your gardens felt rich, endless. Your melancholic interior sometimes felt charming, sometimes simply old, but all in all it felt very intimate. More than your architectural or historical value, what I most appreciated about you was this sense of intimacy. The visit felt like, what in French would call a “dépaysement”; a feeling of having gone somewhere far. I came out lightheaded as if I’d just awoken from a dream. I later realised that this place, which had the capacity for taking me ‚elsewhere’ for that little while, was just a 30’ walk from the central square. Seemingly, you are not bothered with confronting anyone with your parallel reality, although it could not leave anyone indifferent.

Lately we have all been forced to experience a certain form of isolation, so, as unspectacular as it may be, the word resonates right now. It is not easy to embrace, all the more for knowing Albania and its complexity a little. It’s a bit of a struggle, isn’t it? Trying to break free from one’s isolation, all the while, while discovering oneself in it. When dropped off that day at the entrance of what seemed to be a cared-for but empty place, empty of life but for our short presence, isolation and connection could have meant different things. A bridge over a river is a connection, but so too is a shared moment, a shared purpose, a recurrent something. I connected to you in that brief moment. Or at least, I connected to discovering you. It seemed to me that you wanted to be discovered, but not invaded – not even temporarily, like many other places more symbolic, magical.

In these times of extreme exposure and exacerbated loneliness, my question to you would actually be: can you give us tips on how to keep the intimacy and the connection to our own distinctiveness, whilst being open enough to the world? Can you help us to understand where to play along, yet without compromise; what is it to be alive, but not to conform... Do you mean that isolation and freedom are about to what you relate, and from what you are (fully) separated?

Entering your territory was quite a ritual. Is this what you are looking to share perhaps? Should we look for your rituals? Should we take off our shoes? Wear a uniform? Do you want us to play a role? Or are you perhaps into choreography? Those choreographies of life where time changes limits? Like, a part of you breathing in and expanding with the presence of others, then breathing out, changing form, giving space to something else? Oh, I think this could be nice. I would not be able to predict what to expect from you next time; returning to you would become discovering you all over again. Your otherness would then perhaps be safe; you would set the rules of our coming to you.

In any case, I hope I can visit again soon. Take care ‘til then.

Sincerely,
Sotiria, Brussels, October 2020”

Dear Palace of Brigades

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