Forums

Street-work meets architecture
The main question in this forum is whether public spaces can be so designed that they also suit the needs of young people. The practical part of the forum will be walkabouts on Jakominiplatz and in the Augarten park.We will start with a presentation of our work at the Caritas Youth Streetwork Center. We see our work as “outreach social work” that orients itself on the young people’s actual life situation. There will be individual walks around Jakominiplatz and time to talk about what we have seen there.

The second main issue considers evaluation of the built-up space that constantly surrounds us. Spaces and places influence us in many ways but we are often only aware of this as a diffuse feeling. Even if we are asked to give an opinion on architecture, it is difficult for us to find words that go beyond questions of taste. During our walk through the Augarten park, we will work together to create criteria for evaluation that will let us take a more differentiated view of man-made structures. This could stand us in good stead in future conversations with architects and others who are responsible for the design of buildings and public spaces.
In this context, we will also talk about “involvement,” which plays a central role in the planning of public spaces.

Street-work meets sociology

The Forum will take place in the Rosegger Garden.

Urban sites have a kind of identity that determines how people use them. Their formal functions are identified and apparent from their structural form: bus or tram stops, streets, parks, monuments, market places and event sites. Besides these formal designations, there seems to be unwritten access laws that determine the fate of these places. Some waiting areas are not accepted and some monuments remain unnoticed. The use of public areas is also a question of power and territoriality. From time immemorial, the centers of larger cities have been used in the most different ways by different segments of the population, and even today, the class- and group-specific forms of occupying and using public space are in competition with each other. In the course of history there have been a number of conflicts and forms of regulation that had the aim of excluding “undesirables.” This form of exclusion often has the effect that the socially weaker persons avoid the territory of those of superior status; the excluded look for niches in which they will be tolerated or overlooked. In the city of Graz, these processes can be exemplified by youth subculture groups that mainly occupy public spaces.

The second part of the forum will emphasize the experience of the world that young people live in. The Rosegger Garden and its immediate vicinity will be explored and viewed from the young people’s point of view.
Further, the working aims and approach of outreach youth social work will be presented. A final discussion should bring both parts of the forum together to form a total picture.