Zone-S
We are living in an age of radical change. Biology is re-engineering life forms. Physics is redefining elementary particles. Robots are mining Mars while social media forever alter the dynamics of friendship. At the same time, long established social-economic foundations are being eroded, and no new frameworks are available to replace them. The public realm is under attack, and private interests
trump shared concerns. The winds of the fully-connected 21st century hyper-competitive global economy are circulating the globe, and everyone is feeling the pressure.
ZONE-S asks: How can architecture and design respond to these challenging circumstances? What kind of new initiatives and models of shared responsibilities can be developed?
ZONE-S suggests a radical approach to radical times.
ZONE-S is a temporary experimental zone, created to allow for grass roots urban experiments. ZONE-S is an urban situated temporary social contract, not unlike a game, in which participants create a dedicated test zone for the temporary pursuit of a specific goal. Rapid prototyping as urban design.
ZONE-S responds to the need for ‘new contracts’ between all stakeholders in society. No one knows what these new contracts will actually be. But
ZONE-S is one place where they will be negotiated in practice.
ZONE-S initiatives are initiated online and implemented in the physical world by groups of people with particular interests in new urban dynamics. ZONE-S, located in an old factory in Eindhoven, is a place and a set of circumstances that foster experimentation. Need a top notch IT infrastructure embedded in an urban fabric to test your mobile apps? Want to evaluate a new approach to urban farming? Want to test how to organize waste management for kindergartens? Want to understand how pedestrians might respond to a new anti-smog mask? ZONE-S is your destination.
ZONE-S understands that conflict in cities is inevitable, and ZONE-S seeks to use conflict between stakeholders as inspiration. Zone-S seeks not only to be a hub for social urban experiments but also a document in progress and a living repository on urban experiments. The ZONE-S museum maintains documentation on ZONE-S experiments. It offers lessons learned to individuals for free and to commercial entities for a fee. Failures are inevitable, but success will occur.
ZONE-S is a concept developed by: Ellen Holleman, Marc Bohlen, Sander Baumann, Thomas Laureyssens, Lara Simons, Panos Mavros and Nicole Martin.
The first concept was developed during international conference Social Cities of Tomorrow. It was further developed comissioned by Housing Corporation Trudo.
