Between Buildings

Exhibition Curator of Desk Design Collective Team - Public Space Exhibition

Gdynia Design Centre based in the Pomeranian Technology Park invited DESK to create an event for the 4th birthday anniversary of the organization. My position in the project was as curator of the research exhibition “Between Buildings”.

We collaborated with the Social Innovation Center that provided us with a study on Gdynia district called Witomino. We investigated the neighborhood, talked with its residents, and analyzed the research. As a result, we came up with six study cases. We became so inspired by the work of Jan Gehl, Christopher Alexander and Jane Jacobs that we dedicated all the walls of the exhibition to share their most influential thoughts and quotes with the public.

We wanted to create an environment that would invite to debate and be a great starting point for implementing new public interventions in the area. On that basis, we constructed a big comfortable platform of furniture with a small urban library and exhibition stands to convey several functions. We built portraits of design personas (in scale 1:1) to describe the resident's daily routines, allowing the audiences to link with them and their problems.

Issues that concerned the local community were presented as urban design opportunities together with inspiring existing sample solutions from around the world.

Desk organized workshops, led by professional urban space designers and young students to come up with possible new solutions to the case studies that were also presented during the exhibition. It was a very enriching experience, it provided me with great understanding of urban design and how to use its potential to enrich and shape people's lives.