IDW STUDENT WORKSHOPS
Re-Act by Design Workshop with masters students at Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp, 2020 & 2021
Re-Act by Design is an International Design Workshop Week hosted annually for master students of product development, architecture, interior architecture, heritage studies, urbanism and spatial planning. The aim of the week is to explore the power and capacity of design to tackle lines of fracture and socially engagement and to stimulate cross disciplinary boundaries. We conducted interdisciplinary workshops in the 2020 & 2021 programmes under the themes ‘Sound as a Common Language’ & ‘Sounding Place’. These workshops sought to study the experiences of the local soundscape and bring attention to the potential that sound has in the design and transformation of the public realm.
In a week-long workshops students - in collaboration with community groups within the local residential neighbourhood, Luchtbal, designed a sound walk with sound spot installations and an exhibition used recycled, found and reclaimed materials.
We are seldom so aware of how much we hear. But, our impression of a place is enriched and reinforced by the acoustic soundscape. Without sound, we cannot register the feeling we describe as atmosphere. The boundaries of the sonic and the visual are rarely identical. Sound comes and goes, it can be perceived throughout space, even when the source is out of sight. Vision, in contrast, is fixed by the frame of view.
The students sought to explore this using sonic and visual means by reflecting back the visual and sonic environment of Luchtbal. Their installations play with the senses, drawing attention to our unique ability to experience place through observation using our eyes and ears.
