In the yard of the primary school Petar Pop Arsov in Skopje, the urban intervention MOOD Workshop from MELEEM Skopje was recently set up, which is part of the project Architectural Biennale Tbilisi – “What do we have in common?”
This project is a cooperation between four cities: Skopje, Tbilisi, Kiev and Berlin. The project aims to explore what we have in common between these cities, but also what we have in common in public space?
Mentors: Sara Simoska i Ilija Stefanovski
Rhino experts: Kristijan Ristoski
Students: Tamari Kenchoshvili, Anastasia Risteska, Dogan Corba, Zizi Ademia, Anastasia Radovanovich, Natasa Dimova, Elena Nemsadze
Performers: Matea Mijanovich, Mitko Damjanovski, Kiril Velichkov
Photos: Boris Jurmovski
This workshop is organized by MELEEM Skopje and is consisted of two parts: First part was designing an urban intervention in public space in two cities Skopje and Tbilisi during an online workshop, led by mentors from Skopje and Tbilisi. Participants of this workshop were students in architecture from Skopje, Tbilisi and Novi Sad. The main goal was to discover what do we have in common between cities and more specifically: How does public space can have an effect on our mood?
During more discussions with students and their experience in the cities we came up with different parametric test models. This intervention creates a space that is vibrant and dynamic and creates different sitting positions but also movement of climbing up and down.
During the workshop students were thinking about creating some place for sitting, inspired by theater. Place where people can be near to each other, but also distant and respecting the COVID measurements. The goal is to escape from the cllasical way of sitting in the public space, but create different sitting positions where people can create new relations, feel more relaxed and enjoy public space.
The intervention is set in the yard of elementary school on Skopje. On the existing location was found one tree which is passing through the wooden net. At the position previously there were concrete leftovers from previous urban interventions and mood workshop is using this as a basement for settling.
The intervention is transparent from all the sides because of the rhythm of wooden columns which are positioned on distance of 20 cm.It could be seen through and from behind the wooden intervention because the columns are parallel and there are no additional substructers. This makes the intervention easy and light.
The second part of the workshop was its construction, where students could practically learn the process of constructing the intervention and learn new skills while working with wood. The construction on site lasted for 3 weeks because of the complexity of the project. During the construction, children from the school were constantly asking about the project. We believe that is important children from small ages to be included in this kind of projects which can increase their immagination.
The project is cofinanced by the program of the European Union, Creative Europe and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Northern Macedonia.