FIRST ISSUE #1 - PLAY - includes an article on skateboarding as a critique of architecture and the city, an interview with experimen-tal design collective OH.NO.SUMO, a discussion with Rob Mac-donald of LJMU about play and radicalism in the city, two caution-ary tales, and an introduction to the work of the Situationists… + comics, illustrations, photographs, stories and all things RAAD.

HELLO.

WE ARE RAAD.A LIVERPOOL-BASED ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN COLLECIVE WHO PROMOTE CHANGE THROUGH ACTIVISM, DIRECT ACTION AND INTERVENTION.

THIS ZINE IS SELF-PUBLISHED BY US TO DOCUMENT OUR WORK AS A COLLECTIVE - AND SHOWCASE THINGS THAT INSPIRE US.

THIS ISSUE (#1) IS BASED ON THE SITUATION-IST IDEA OF PLAY. THANKS FOR READING.

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IN THIS ISSUE...

SMALL GESTURES & SPECTACULAR INTRUSIONSAn introduction to the RAAD collective.

SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLEA quick look at the work of the Situationists

URBAN POOL PARTYWe discuss skat––eboarding as a critique of architecture, capitalism & the city

O H . N O . S U M OWe speak to the experimental design collective about their architectural interventions into public spaces

A CAUTIONARY TALEWe present two future projections - will you approve?

NEWS FROM NOWHERE 3000We speak to Rob MacDonald of LJMU about play in the city

+ PHOTO’S, ILLUSTRATIONS, COMICS & ALL THINGS RAAD

IN THIS ISSUE...

SMALL GESTURES & SPECTACULAR INTRUSIONSAn introduction to the RAAD collective.

SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLEA quick look at the work of the Situationists

URBAN POOL PARTYWe discuss skat––eboarding as a critique of architecture, capitalism & the city

O H . N O . S U M OWe speak to the experimental design collective about their architectural interventions into public spaces

A CAUTIONARY TALEWe present two future projections - will you approve?

NEWS FROM NOWHERE 3000We speak to Rob MacDonald of LJMU about play in the city

+ PHOTO’S, ILLUSTRATIONS, COMICS & ALL THINGS RAAD

#1 PLAY

We discuss skateboarding as a critique of architecture,capitalism & the city

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SMALL GESTURES & SPECTACULAR INTRUSIONS

An introduction to the RAAD collective.

As a collective we believe in a do-it-yourself and just-do-it approach to architecture and urban design. We propose a radical network of artworks, projects, events, interventions, happenings, small gestures, and spectacular intrusions over time - using strategies such as activism, direct action and tactical urbanism to re-activate the vacant and under-used spaces of the city; acting as architectural provocateurs.

We are an alternative to the ‘old boys club’ of RIBA and the architectural establishment - free from the red-tape and bureaucracy of local authorities and ready to act.

We are influenced by the work of Guy Debord and the Situ-ationists (see next chapter) and philosophers such as Henri Lefebvre - who envisaged an urban environment collectively shaped by its community, inhabitants and users - through active participation and inhabitation of its public space.

You will see more of us in the coming months. Watch this (public) space.

You can find out more about us and our work at www.raad.uk.com - or follow us on twitter (@RAADcollective).

How would you use this space? #thebombsite

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RAAD undertook a street art intervention in the form of a large Google pointer supergraphic to highlight a city-centre site that has been used as a ‘temporary’ car park for over 60 years - since being bombed during the war. Our aim was to high-light the site and promote future public use of the land as the commercial district has a distinct lack of usable civic space.Both Liverpool City Council and the Business Improvement Dis-trict have marked the site as being in need of future regenera-tion however no action has been taken due to land ownership.

The pointer intervention lasted for only 14 hours and was torn down by the car park attendant the next day. However, in this short amount of time, RAAD generated enough attention to the site to attract the attention of developers Capital and Centric, owners of the adjacent Churchill House (shown left).

RAAD will begin occupation of this building for a month this October in a project that will introduce the notion of urban play to the site and the wider commercial district of Liver-pool through a series of low-cost temporary interventions until redevelopment starts on Churchill house in November.

#1 The first intervention uses the principles of tac-tical urbanism - removing unnecessary and ob-structive street furniture and cleaning up the site.

#2 Large-scale pink vinyl stickers will be placed on the win-dows of the concrete Brutalist building - subverting the tower into a giant noughts & crosses game and advertising future development by Capital and Centric. Moveable game pieces on the ground floor windows will allow passers-by to inter-act and play. Users of Moorfields Station and the business district will be able to see the window graphics from vari-ous locations, encouraging them to view the city differently.

#3 A series of street art interventions will be undertaken around the wider commercial district subverting area and pro-moting the idea of ludic play. Graphics will be sprayed onto the floor using stencils and a high pressure water cleaner in order to prevent any permanent damage being done to the floor surfaces.The street art interventions will invite the participants to view the fabric of the city differently for the purpose of fun, and also will direct the users to the Church-ill House site where the fourth intervention will take place.

#4 On the Churchill House site, a series of temporary architec-tural interventions will provide a space for play for office work-ers and passers-by. Swings will hang between the voids of the concrete columns on the ground floor - whilst recycling will be explored through a series of games in the space. The aim is to promote a time in the day in which progress, achievement and purpose are unnecessary and workers of the commercial district can engage in their environments without competition.

SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE

A quick look at the work of Guy Debord and the Situationists.

The Situationist International was an organization of so-cial revolutionaries originating in Paris, the exclusive membership of which was made up of avant-garde art-ists, intellectuals, and political theorists, active from its for-mation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. They believed capitalism had spread to every aspect of life and culture.

When the Situationist International was first formed, it had a predominantly artistic focus with that focus gradually shift-ing more towards revolutionary and political theory dur-ing the 1960s. Their most influential texts were written in 1967 and 1968 with The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Va-neigem. The expressed writing and political theory of the two texts, along with other situationist publications, proved greatly influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 riots in France; quotes, phrases, and slogans from situationist texts and publications were displayed on post-ers and graffiti throughout France during the uprisings.

In The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord stated that so-ciety has begun to equate free time with consumption and consumption is engaged in as a product of frustration at the lack of any creative or human initiative. Degraded spectacluar representations are mystified by increasing their separation from society. Television has an isolating effect on the audi-ence who are separated from participation and participation is replaced by viewing moving images to stimulate emo-tions. It argued that capitalism had turned all relationships transactional, and that life had been reduced to a “specta-cle”- an inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people. The term “situationist” refers to the construction of situa-tions and the situation was seen as a tool for the liberation of everyday life, a method of negating the inescapable al-ienation that accompanied the spectacle. The construction of situations was defined in the 1957 founding manifesto of the Situationist International, Report on the Construction of Situations, as “a moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambi-ance and a game of events.” They believed situations and temporary environments should be constructed as a way to remedy capitalistic desires and to work instead for the favorable fulfillment of true and authentic human desires.

Find out more by reading Society of the Spectacle.

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Speaking of Paris, the famous ‘les bouquinistes’ bookstalls along the River Seine were initially an illegal spontaneous intervention by the local community - as a boat carrying a shipment of books sank near the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The interventions have a history of radicalism over the cen-turies- The political and religious events in France at the time led to the development of the bouquinistes’ discreetly sell-ing pamphlets targeting both the government and church. They had no fixed selling point and were able to pack their pamphlets and quickly evade capture when they saw the authorities approaching. Their subsequent success over the centuries however meant that legislation was eventu-ally passed to allow for their permanent use in the space.

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URBAN POOL PARTY

Skateboarding as a critique of architecture & the city.

Skateboarding is perhaps an unusual object for study in re-gards to architecture and urban design - yet it is an act that through engaging directly with its everyday spaces, simul-taneously offers both a critique of the capitalistic spaces of the city - and searches for new possibilities of represent-ing, imagining and experiencing them; skateboarding has a deep appreciation and understanding of architecture, regardless of how unconventional or subversive it may be.

The act of skateboarding has always been about the rec-lamation of urban space - skateboarders implicitly realize the importance of the streets and neglected architecture as a place to act - using the forgotten, abandoned and gener-ally discarded spaces of the city. Emerging from the beach cities of California - spaces of the city were re-appropriat-ed; emulating surf moves on the hard surfaces of the city re-imagined as a concrete wave. Acting without license, authority or permission, spontaneous ‘urban pool parties’ were held - occupying abandoned and drained backyard swimming pools - exploiting the ambiguity of the owner-ship and function of public spaces and redefining them.It is this notion of the ‘urban pool party’ that offers a model for spatial appropriation for architects, urban designers, town planners and urban dwellers - promoting active participation through direct action. Skateboarders are among the most so-cial and spatially aggressive group to reclaim the city for their own appropriation - giving new use to to forgotten spaces. Applied to architecture, public spaces must be reclaimed, urban spaces of the city re-appropriated for new uses and vacant areas reactivated as contemporary urban pool parties - spaces for the flow of ideas, events, activities and temporary architectural situations - to explore building and spaces of the city not as a clearly defined and fixed product or an object - but as the production of emotions, actions, effort and play.

The most notable and successful example of this can be found at the Southbank Undercroft, London. Occupied by skaters in the early 1970‘s it is now an extraordinary colli-sion of Brutalist architecture and splashes of colour - its juxtapositions creating an amazing lived-in architecture. Its walkways and ground-level spaces appropriated by skat-ers provided exactly the eruption of creativity that the area needed for its re-activation - creating a vibrant, festival-like ambience and a thriving artistic community and a public space which is a free experience for both those watching and undertaking, and free of the constraints of profit or commer-cial gain. Recently, plans to extend the adjacent Southbank Centre at the expense of the undercroft were met with over 60,000 signatures in the form of an online petition from the

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#longlivesouthbank campaign - stalling the proposed devel-opment; a community having a say and active participation in their public space - preventing its redevelopment into generic commodified retail spaces. Similarly the New Bird skatepark in Liverpool - which began as a DIY project by local skate-boarders - with support from the local skate shop Lost Art - is now surrounded by the creative spaces of the Baltic Creative.

The act of skateboarding in itself is the embodiment of the Situationist idea of ludic play - it rejects capitalism and the pre-determined uses of urban space through its every-day practice. It involves great effort, but produces no com-modity ready for exchange. It is highly visual, but refutes the reduction of activity solely to the spectacle of the im-age. It allows a person to assume the position of a crea-tive adaptive user of a space, rather than a compelled con-sumer - providing new and distinctive uses - through play and creativity -other than the original function of the space

It is through these ideals of skateboarding and skate culture, that when applied to architecture and urban design - can present new ways of design thinking for the future city; re-considering conventional conceptions of urban space. Thus just as the practice of skateboarding began in the beach cit-ies of California - we are reminded through it that the urban spaces are a playground - carved out of the city as a kind of continuous reaffirmation of one of the central notions of the 1968 Paris protests and revolts - that ‘au dessous les paves, la plage’ – beneath the pavement, lies the beach.

O H . N O . S U M O

We spoke to Sarosh Mulla of New Zealand-based experimental design collective Oh.No.Sumo about their architectural interventions into public spaces.

RAAD You talk about being provocateurs and place makers within the city; What has led you to take the route of a design collective as opposed to a traditional architecture practice?

Sarosh Mulla We all work in traditional architecture practices as well as within the design collective, but there is substantial freedom in being ‘outsiders’ in that sense. The collective al-lows us a degree of design freedom which is not always avail-able within the profession. In some ways it is harder than pro-fessional practice as you have to conjure your designs from very little, often in the wee hours of the morning. It is as such a format within which experimentation is not only accepted, but demanded.

RAAD Who and what would you say are your philosophies and inspirations?

SM We all have different design outlooks and heros. This means that there is constant debate and discussion around the appropriate solution to a problem. I think what we do come together on is a shared understanding of archietcture as more than just the physical space. It is program, experience and activation of latent potential for all of us.

RAAD What success stories have you had in terms of small scale interventions?

SM Our installation work has been well received and we’ve been happy to see our students also take up similar ap-proaches. I think really the success of any project is just see-ing people use it and enjoy it. Beyond that, we like to feel as though we pushed people to think of their spaces differently. RAAD What difficulties and problems have you faced in real-ising your projects?

SM Time, money, stress. All the usual stuff of architecture. It’s all been worth it though. For every problem we’ve had, we’ve always had a moment of luck, or a helpful friend.

RAAD How do you deem and judge a particular project to be a success and achieve its goals? SM We talk about what we want to achieve through the pro-ject during the very first stages of the design. We also talk a

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lot about how the project fits (or doesn’t fit) with our previous projects. For us the consistency of a line of research is im-portant. The criteria for success are as such specific to each project, but making it fun to experience is always at the top of the list.

RAAD What were these goals?

SM For the Stairway Cinema, we wanted to discuss how we curate media in the modern age, while simultaneously activat-ing a forgotten space in the city. We always aim to show the latent potential of a space.

RAAD What importance do you believe small and unexpect-ed interventions have in the urban place?

SM They act as agitators. Small, quick installations make us think about how we could change the city for the better. These small moves are how big ideas take hold. RAAD How do you view ‘play’ in both the design process and the end result/use of a design?

SM Play is a tough concept to design with. For instance, if you design something to be specifically be playful it can of-ten fall short of the target and instead be regarded as twee or disingenuous. For us, instilling ideas of fun, discovery and immersion in the process of design tends to lend to more suc-cessful outcomes. In the end, you have to be really enjoy the work yourself. RAAD How do you believe people should play in the city?

SN They should be like children. Imagine the spaces as what they might be, not simply what they currently are.

RAAD Why do you believe it is important for people to en-gage with architecture?

SM People have no option but to engage with architecture. It is literally everywhere people are. So we feel it is up to de-signers to push for an engagement which improves their lives, which makes them happy and which encourages them to de-mand more from their public spaces.

You can find out more about Oh.No.Sumo and their work by visiting ohnosumo.com.

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‘‘THESE SMALL MOVES ARE HOW BIG IDEAS TAKE HOLD’’

RAAD have designed a moveable wooden structure – a nomadic, wandering spectacle that will pop-up and dis-appear at various locations across the city over time; providing a flexible space for various types of events.

The design consists of 50 reclaimed plastic crates; fixed and secured together in a number of configu-rations with colourful ratchet straps to create flex-ible seating and workspaces. Large lasercut wooden panels provide an architectural element that can be orien-tated depending on how the space is being used.

It will first appear for the Abandon Normal Devices Festival on 3rd-5th October 2013 - occupying FACT’s ‘Beta’ space near the front entrance for a three day exposition of perfor-mances, debates, live events and independent filmmaking.

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A CAUTIONARY TALE

We present two future projections - will you approve?

FUTURE CITY #1 - SKY CITY

The city is broken into pieces, each piece purchased part by part and privatised.

Another plot of land is bought, another retail develop-ment planned and another commercial space created. Property developers chase the greatest capital; con-structing schemes to generate the largest profit. The pro-jects become grander and grander, swallowing larger amounts of space with each retail heaven that is created.

The city becomes a place for one goal and one purpose; to buy and sell. Control tightens as the people are directed through the city from one retail space to another. People map their city to the shops they know, offering directions by way of those recognis-able logos. They are told this is what they need, this is what they work for and this is their paradise; repeated again and again.

Life in the city becomes a machine, each individual a cog in the cash-flow projections of the reproducing retailers. Any free thought is slowly being drained as acts if adventure are deemed inappropriate and against regulation. Skating, protest, play and any act that does not fall under shopping is banned.

The people begin to protest on land that guises as pub-lic; their efforts are crushed by the authorities but their message still occupies the mind. Any act deemed in-subordinate is arrested as quickly as possible.

The ground is realised to be toxic and the people take action; taking to the sky and moving upwards. Floating their homes, houses, dwellings and spaces towards the sky to inhabit a place where any act of expression can occur. Free space to create and play in; experimentation and imagination that leads to adventure. The grey and lifeless ground is now shadowed by a colourful sea of bright balloons. Each connected and teth-ered to one another; a sky city circulating over the retail city.

FUTURE CITY #2 - STEAL CITY

The restrictions are growing; development ceas-es as buildings are purchased and left to decay.

Property developers buy more and more buildings without the intention to utilise them. The legal loophole is exploited as the property owners claim to have schemes and pro-jects to reuse and revitalise these once occupied places.

The illusion of construction is kept behind a veil of scaffolding.

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Time and money fall into nowhere and no results are seen but the stop in the cities growth. Culture is lost as promises are made to the public to preserve and re-store artefacts and historical fabric; masking the real intentions between developer and authorities deals.

Sporadically the scaffolding is removed to reveal a tesco, costa and other homes to commercial giants. No genuine progression is made, only capital gain.

Years are taken over the advancement of the cities transport with the inclusion of a new tram system. Materials are bought and plans are made that achieve nothing; halting progres-sion to all in the planed line of the tram. Their value drops and interest is lost as the spaces are left in a state of limbo. The local authorities continue to discuss and debate; filing the required papers as the debts increase to the millions.The steel purchased for the trams tracks lay unused and untouched. As time passes the facade of progres-sion thins and the people take notice.

More and more money is taken to fund unfinished ideas as the city is taken over by controlled commercial and private space. With no space to grow and room to evolve the peo-ple take the steel they jointly paid for and begin the build. The structures surround the buildings they were prom-ised and engulf the failed authorities’ schemes. Free space is created that anyone can use. A second layer to the city is created, a new city that shells the old and corrupt one.

DO YOU APPROVE? You shouldn’t - these urban scenarios exist now. In the city you live in - Liverpool. Our cautionary tales may appear to be complete fantasy and fabrication - yet they are only an exag-geration of current events - this is happening now. Liverpool One is privately owned - not by the city - did you know this? The global ‘Occupy’ movement has highlighted the some-what ambiguous nature of much of what is considered pub-lic space in the modern city - space that is often described as public. What happens when there is no public space left? Where will people protest? The council is still in debt by 50 million, an extra 20 million having been paid off already for the planning and purchase of materials for the Mersey tram. This scheme has now been abandoned after 13 years of talk; during which people’s property became useless with its future uncertain. Buildings such as that on Seel Street, sur-rounded by scaffolding to satisfy the local council to make it appear that the structure will be restored, continue to go on unused. The Whitehouse pub - home of the Bansky ‘rat’ - is rumoured to soon house a Costa. Promises were made to restore and preserve the art but it has been removed and surrounded by scaffolding. This is happening in Liverpool.

NEWS FROM NOWHERE 3000

We spoke to Rob MacDonald of LJMU about play, radicalism, DIY architecture and growing up in Liverpool.

RAAD What was your DIY City project about?

Rob MacDonald DIY INTEGRATED CITY is a multi-faceted exhibition, book and online e-publication. It’s objective was to encourage and invite various urban communities to engage with and design their own neighbourhoods. The exhibition was two years in the making and involved numerous design workshops. The exhibition was assembled in Liverpool Daily Post Atrium and it comprised a large democratic scaffolding structure (see left). All exhibits were displayed on the scaf-folding. The exhibition and publication showed what can be achieved if integrated communities can collaborate and adopt a citywide approach to urban issues

RAAD How can the message of DIY architecture be spread?

Rob The DIY message can only be spread further by building on the various practical and theoretical DIY projects. More DIY local workshops could be organized. RAAD and groups of young architects, planners, sociologists, historians and Ur-banists all need to collaborate with local communities. A DIY citywide conference/symposium could be organized inside a Large Village Hall eg a recycled building.

RAAD How has the city evolved or changed as you have grown up here?

Rob I was born in Toxteth in 1951. Lodge Lane was a thriving shopping street in the late 1950’s with The Pavilion Music/ Variety Hall, swimming bath, wash house, library and nu-merous pubs. I was brought up in a small 3.5m wide terrace house with a back yard and outside toilet. This typology of terraced housing remains an issue in Anfield, Kensington and the Welsh Streets. The terraced house could provide a potent modern typology for the 21st Century.

RAAD What do you see in the future of Liverpool?

Rob I see Liverpool as a multi-cultural city. When I was young, Granby Street was a busy street of many cultures. My fam-ily used to go down town to China Town for dinner. North of London Road you could find Little Italy and Little Germany. We knew an Ice Cream man called Joe Vario; he had an Ice Cream Parlour in West Derby. My favourite Liverpool Street is Bold Street and is a sign of future times. It’s interesting to compare Liverpool One with Bold Street. Historically Bold

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in our education. I still play with words and drawing.

RAAD Is there any act of radicalism that has inspired you?

Rob To me Radical means asking fundamental questions at the root of issues. Sometimes they might be uncomfortable to ask.

There was an Irish Liverpool architect called Brian Anson - he started his career in Liverpool (actually Bootle). At the time there were Organisations like The New Architecture Move-ment and The Architectural Revolutionary Council. Brian An-son described himself as a “Wild Duck”, the Duck that flies in the opposite direction. Brian went on to teach at The AA in London and he participated in the campaign to save Covent Garden. He wrote a book called “I’ll Fight you for it !” When I was at Liverpool University my first tutor was an Urban Sociologist called Frank Horton and he encouraged me to think about architecture from a sociological and anthropologi-cal perspective. He introduced me to the Cambridge Marxist Raymond Williams who wrote an important book called “Key-words” and The French Urban Sociologists.

Of course, the late 1960s was a great time of Radicalism when students of architecture took over their own education. I suppose my own radicalism is reflected in my work with dif-ferent urban communities; Glasgow with ASSIST Architects, Liverpool The Weller Streets, Dingle Residents, Southern Crescent and The Eldonians. I have always tried to put “The Community” first in my work; and “ Professionals on Tap not on Top”

RAAD How can architecture be made more accessible to people?

Rob I suppose accessible means enabling people who might be excluded, by architecture, from places, spaces and build-ings. We all have different ‘disabilities’. Just read “The Eyes of the Skin” and realise to be a good architect we need to ap-preciate architecture; eyes, hearing, smell, touch, we need to use them all. I have been involved with Designing a Centre of Excellence for Autism and this has made me aware of the Au-tistic Spectrum. Also I am a Associate Director of DIMHN (De-sign Mental Health Network ) and this has introduced me to a whole secluded world of mental health. Some people might be excluded because of race, colour or creed. Its only in the last few years that The USA has had a Black President. It’s fifty years since Rev.Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington DC. Most of The British Tory Prime Ministers went to the same School and the Higher Lev-el of British Education is dominated by two Universities. We all face exclusion through ageing and increasingly dementia is challenging the practicalities of adapting existing hospitals and housing. Accessible architecture will be the big issue for

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street changed and has known much variety; once it was called The Oxford Street of The North. I love walking up and down Bold Street; it reminds me of The souks of North Africa with all the multi-ethnic vintage clothing, food and the variety of shops and restaurants.

RAAD Is there any particular place or space you think is wast-ed in this city and how would you occupy it?

Rob This is probably the hardest question because Liverpool has so many vacant buildings and derelict brownfield sites. Looking to The North of The City, towards Bootle, there are many shot buildings and sites. I often take the 53 bus from Waterloo through Seaforth, Stanley Road and Scotland Road. All three places offer prime opportunities for spatial interven-tion and community involvement. I would propose a linear project to link all three places and spaces.

RAAD What role do you believe play has in creativity?

Rob Play is the most creative activity that architects can do and RAAD and Colin Wards “Child in the City “ have recog-nized this. As a child I played indoors in the house; in the Street or Back Entry; or in Sefton Park. Games indoors com-prised playing with ‘forts cowboys and Indians’ using my im-agination to invent stories. I really liked to draw and a book called ‘More Things to Draw’ was influential, I still have the book. Wherever I went I took my drawing book and cray-ons. Behind our front door there was a square mosaic of tiles and this pattern was a great source of attraction. My favour-ite Super Hero Comic was Batman and perhaps this became my fascination with Black? I have written design programmes called “Gotham” City.

The Urban Street, ‘walk on a line and break your spine’ or ‘step on a crack break your back’ and hop scotch still reso-nate. There were places in The Urban Playground were you could sit with a friend on a step wide enough for two and im-agine that you were on top of a Stagecoach . Today , I still see children, in another world , walking lines of brick paving and patterns on the pavement.

The other day I watched the Tales of Narnia and the World through The Wardrobe. I had lots of boxes under my bed and most Sunday afternoon they came out; boxes are infinite play tools of creativity. My earliest reading was The Hobbit and Animal Farm; both had a profound influence. Of course all this was long before Steve Jubbs was a twinkle in his parents eyes. My young nephew Ben Ryan Lodge is a Space Travel-ler of his time and he plays and creates, in another new world of his imagination. His world is Skylander. He sits in a reclin-ing chair, facing a video screen. With his many controls and he negotiates rapid obstacles to reach level 40. We should never lose sight of the importance of imagination and play

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‘‘TO ME RADICAL MEANS ASKING FUNDAMENTAL QUES-TIONS AT THE ROOT OF IS-SUES. SOMETIMES THEY MIGHT BE UNCOMFORTABLE TO ASK’’

the 21st Century. RAAD How can people play a more active role in architec-ture?

Rob More active people will start at a younger age; nursery, primary, junior, secondary schools. Why is architecture not represented at school ? I have been involved With “Places Matter” and their Children’s Workshops. “Compact Liverpool” arrange for different professionals to work with children in Pri-mary Schools. Design workshops in schools will help. Archi-tectural projects and WEA Workers Education Association will help. As the more active people become and live longer we need to cross the generations with architecture workshops for the over 70s . There is a role for The University of The Third Age U3A in encouraging a more active participation in archi-tecture in the future.

Google ‘DIY Integated City’ to find out more about Rob Mac-Donald and his project.

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“THE ONLY SUCCESS THAT CAN BE CONCEIVED IN PLAY IS THE

IMMEDIATE SUCCESS OF ITS AMBIENCE”

- SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL