SPACES feb issue 2017

News
POP-UP
P
op-up” is a retail sales and
community activities phenomena
that is currently popular in North
America and Europe: “open today
and gone tomorrow” shops, markets,
restaurants, art galleries, play spaces
and parks. Generally small in scale,
“pop-ups” are a means of quickly and
inexpensively creating market interest
in a product, be it commercial,
cultural or, as with short duration
schools of architecture, educational.
“Pop-up schools of architecture”
takes its inspiration from three
sources. First: Finland’s innovative
Arkki School of Architecture for
Children and Youth – a hands-on
learning organization. Second:
the ‘pop-up’ phenomena currently
popular in North American and
European retail sales. Third: the
scavenger architecture-as-art of
Kathmandu International Art Festival
2012 artists Janice Rahn and Michael
Campbell from the University of
Lethbridge, Canada.
The pedagogy of the first “Pop-up
School of Architecture” is “discovery
by experimentation”: scavenging
for discarded natural and manmade
materials to create architecture.
Nine cognitively creative girls aged
12-18, three of whom are mobility
challenged, will participate in the
5-day studio. Participants, individually
and as teams, learn to appreciate the
inherent goodness of, and to creatively
imagine ways to improve, their built
environments. This event was held on
January 3, 2017.
Background
In April 2015, Nepal was ravaged
by earthquake and summer 2016
has brought devastating monsoon
floods. These are but two events in a
never-ending series of geological and
climatic situations faced by children
and youth. Particularly affected
are those born to be mobility and
cognitively challenged. Challenged
or not, post-trauma stress inhibits
the development of young minds.
Consoling friendships, meaningful
diversions and learning about ways to
advantage oneself of Mother Nature’s
unhelpful doings can bring comfort.
Experiencing the architecture of urban/
rural planning, landscapes, buildings
and interiors can be a foil. •
28 / SPACES February 2017