Georgia

InBetween This film idea came to mind after going through different concepts. I kept coming back to one idea that I hadn’t fully understood but had in the back of my mind through the concept development. At some point during the night, in-between ideas and sketches I figured out what it was - what I wanted to say by creating the film.  Many public spaces exist in the city, but they are hidden by some constraints. They are not easily reachable or popular, but they exist. I believe if we look deep enough, we will discover them and enjoy their existence. We do not have to create a new one, instead, we can re-create what already exists.  ‘Is there a single correct interpretation of space and place?’ (Ali Madaripur)

Hong Kong

An intergenerational design research project that brings virtual reality and video gaming technologies to local communities in public housing as design communication tools. During a series of interactive and engaging co-design activities, youth and older adults are taken as co-researchers to critically reflect on public spaces and give agency to everyday knowledge. Participants are empowered with techniques of digital tools that help them to generate shared expressions of spatial needs and develop a mutual understanding of community interests. The participatory tools and processes are evaluated and published as open-source educational materials, together with the analysed co-design outcome.

Nepal

Siddhipur is small traditional settlement in Mahalaxmi municipality. People from Siddhipur always have to go to major city center for emergency health services. Mainly during the major crisis like earthquake and covid, the community realized a need of affordable health care center in case of emergency. To address the need, community member came together with the idea of building their own community health center. As a result, with the support from various agencies, community of Siddhipur was able to have their very own community health center where everyone has access to the health services they need, without suffering financial hardship. Now, no one needs to be deprived of the health services in Siddhipur.

Azerbaijan

The film highlights the citizens' struggles related to the sidewalks, certainly in the central streets where sidewalks are very narrow, cars are allowed to enter and parking is chaos. Many citizens who walk the streets where the film is made encounter different challenges. Particularly, for those who are in a hurry or coming back from shopping with some bags. Cars barely move due to the congestion, making the situation even worse for people to pass by. The narrow streets in Baku cover a huge area behind the central area from Hazi Alsanov to Bashir Safaroghlu street where plenty of shopping centers, entertainment and leisure facilities, local shops, business centers, embassies, and hotels are centered. The area requires access to a big number of citizens every day and the situation with the sidewalks demotivates many to walk around these streets. In return, people tend to take cabs to their destination and it creates a vicous circle where the cabs worsen the traffic and eventually the overall situation. At the heart of Baku, many are left without a pavement/sidewalk, and the film portrays the real every-day struggles of citizens.

Azerbaijan

Most streets of Baku are unsafe and hostile for women and queers due to their design and location. There is a cultural practice that women* need a company to go out in the streets in the dark or even sometimes in daylight to have more security. Unfortunately, there are many reported (and mostly unreported or uninvestigated) cases of women* facing harassment in public spaces in Baku. Most of the incidents happen in side streets with poor lighting and narrow sidewalks. Also, the local chaikhanas (where mostly cishet men come together to play board games and drink tea) cover the corners of the inner streets of suburban areas, making it very hard for women to pass by due to the risk of harassment or general discomfort of being subjected by men.

USA

The film aims to repurpose 2000 acres of underperforming and marginalized land for shared timber farming to enact a more adequate synergistic relationship (socio-economically and environmentally) between the built space and the fragmented Hudson Valley’s forest. In Hudson Valley, most of the trees are privately owned, growing on land at the fringe of urban development- Wildland Urban Intermix (WUI). Tackling the large-scale U.S. monopoly of engineered-timber products, the project envisions a bottom-up timber economy- a vertically integrated, resilient timber supply chain- as a way to incentivize private landowners to sustainably manage their own forests while directly accessing a shared infrastructure of researching, harvesting, manufacturing, and retail, waste-recycling, and branding for their timber product. By creating shared collaborative infrastructure for local forest and small-timber-business owners and entrepreneurs, new social partnerships and equally-distributed amenities will be created, boosting local economies while preserving the local and regional forest ecologies. By sustaining long-term forest-plant-based economic development through this shared co-op system, Hudson Valley’s scaled-down timber industry will be funneled while a more socially adequate distribution of profits between diverse communities will be achieved. Composed of four entities, the Center for Resilient Forestry, which is clustered with Wood Innovation Facilities, the Certification Centers, the Sawmill and Distribution Center with additional facilities for Recycling and Storage and Renewable Energy Generation, this project provides a lasting infrastructure that promotes a holistic framework for profitable and sustainable timber agroforestry that ensures the wellbeing of both the forest and its inhabitants.