Our Urban Kitchen – cultivating social infrastructure through narratives

Johan Campanello

Tutor: Katja Pettersson

Secondary advisors:

Martin Ávila, Jenny Althoff, Sara Kristoffersson, Maria Perers, Gunnar Söder

Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Design

Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts & Design

Stockholm, Sweden

2021

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ABSTRACT

In the age of urbanisation and digitalisation it is easy to forget how important physical

meetings and interactions are for our well-being. Open for anyone, the purpose of Our

Urban Kitchen is to bring people together around the act of cooking and eating.

The kitchen is to be situated in the future park Fållan in Slakthusområdet, Stockholm. A

site that has been central for the meat production of the city for the past hundred years

is now changing from an industrial area into a new urban neighbourhood. As meat

production moves out of the city it inspires our food culture to change towards a more

plant-based diet. Our Urban Kitchen aims to bring the heritage of cooking meat into a

vegetable-based kitchen in the public space.

The kitchen is an assembly consisting of five different actors (products). In this project

I have chosen to focus on the main actor - the smoker. The role of the smoker is to

communicate the site’s narrative and pass on its history to future generations. In

addition to the smoker, I have conceptualized four other actors and their roles in the

kitchen. The fireplace (Beacon) that provides heat, a place to cook as well as activate

the site; the seating furniture that provides a place to gather and somewhere to rest;

the workbench that allows preparation of food; the water tap that provides water to

drink and to cook with.

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PROLOGUE

In the last year of my master studies, I have focused on the development of products

in the public spaces and have realised how important they can be for the social

sustainability in urban areas. I claim that the products in the public space play a key

role when innovating the way we are using and developing our cities. In my previous

project “BEACON - A starting point of a social infrastructure”, I created the fireplace

beacon (Fig 1.) as a first step to activate the park Fållan in Slakthusområdet, Stockholm.

My intention was to open up for a multi-year project where the park was developed

in consultation with users and stakeholders of the site through culture as a way to

challenge the rational and rapid development being common in these kinds of areas.

When lit, Beacon activates the site and opens up for year around activities that allows

people to get to know the site and each other before taking new steps to develop the

rest of the park. In my degree project I am inspired by this project – I work from the

same site and use part of the research. I see Beacon as a part of this project – it will

have the same role but given a new context, this time I have a new angle where I use

a method focused on the site’s narrative to challenge the way we are using our public

space.

Fig.1. Rendering of Beacon.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

Design Issue

BACKGROUND

Social infrastructure – the importance of creating a sustainable public space 5

Away from the moving city – from pathways to destinations 6

The site as a narrative of a future development 8

OUR URBAN KITCHEN

Workshops 10

Workshop 1 – basics 10

Workshop 2 – developed 11

Searching for Narratives – Finding the essence of the kitchen 13

Time as a perspective – looking in to the past to predict the future 14

THE ACTORS OF OUR URBAN KITCHEN

The actors 16

The smoker – form follows architecture 17

The smoker - gallery 20

APPENDIX

Design 23

Exhibition 26

Feedback 27

NOTES 28

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INTRODUCTION

Design issue/ inquiry

According to the United Nations 68% of the world population is projected to live

in urban areas by 2050.1 To deal with the rapid migration to these areas, the amount

of fast-growing urban development projects are increasing around the world.

Urbanisation has led to a process of exploitation that is blindly driven by profit and

efficiency. People’s presence in the city is deprioritised, making the development of

the places that bring people together outside the commercial context rare. During my

degree project, I have explored how to develop the physical places and organisations that

shape the way people interact – the social infrastructure in fast-growing neighborhoods.2

My project is situated in the future park Fållan, Slakthusområdet (The Meatpacking

district), Johanneshov, Stockholm, an area that is undergoing an urban development

process. I am using this site as an example to show an alternative way to develop

products through a site’s narrative to develop the social infrastructure. The question

I bring with me from the site is: how can one preserve the history of a place that has

been so important to the culture of the city when the culture itself is changing?

With this in mind, I have formulated my inquiry, which is inspired by sociologist Eric

Klinenberg’s research: Is it possible to cultivate a social infrastructure through objects,

in a public space, in a new urban context through the site’s narrative?

1 United Nations, 68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN, 2018 https://www.un.org/ development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html (Retrieved 2020-11-23)

2 Eric Klinenberg. (2018). Palaces for the People: How to build a more equal & united society. London: Penguin Random House UK.

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BACKGROUND

Already in my previous project Beacon - A starting point of a social infrastructure I opened

up for the fact of how important it is to develop, maintain and preserve the social

infrastructure for our citie – this is something that I bring with me into my degree

project. In the next chapter, I will develop why the awareness of social infrastructure

is so important as well as invite you into a typical situation in a newly developed

Swedish neighborhood; give you a glimpse of history of the meatpacking district, its

current state and how its narrative can contribute to a new building block in the social

infrastructure of the future area.

Social infrastructure – the importance of creating a sustainable public space

Eric Klinenberg talks about the importance of developing, maintaining and

preserving public spaces in his book Palaces for the People and uses the term – ”

Social Infrastructure”. As an example he talks about a heat wave in Chicago in 1995, a

disaster in which hundreds of people died. After the disaster, Klinenberg started an

investigation in which he mapped where in Chicago people died. Among others he

compared two areas:

Consider Englewood and Aburn Gresham, two adjacent neighborhoods

in the hypersegegated South side of Chicago. In 1995, they were both 99

percent African American, with similar proportions of elderly residents.

Both had high rates of poverty, unemployment, and violent crime.

Englewood was one of the most perilous places during the disaster,

with 33 deaths per 100,000 residents, making it the most resilient place

in the city (…) By the end of my research, I’d discovered that the key

difference between neighborhoods like Auburn Gresham and others

that are demographically similar turned out to be what I call social

infrastructure: the physical places and organisations that shape the way

people interact.3

3 Eric Klinenberg. (2018). Palaces for the People: How to build a more equal & united society. London: Penguin Random House UK.

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With this example, Klinenberg shows that social infrastructure is not a privilege

but actually constitutes a difference between life and death. A functioning social

infrastructure consists of multiple building blocks which vary depending on the

culture and/or location. Playgrounds, libraries, organisations are some examples that

often play a crucial part in social infrastructures.

Away from the moving city – from pathways to destinations

Hammarby sjöstad is a newly developed urban development project and a

neighbouring area to the meatpacking district. Visiting this area makes it obvious that

most of the activities are planned around the lake Hammarby sjö – all the paths in

the area lead to the water. Boardwalks around and bridges over the lake makes it easy

to access in various ways. You see a lot of people strolling around and enjoying the

environment around the water. When analyzing the activities it becomes obvious that

the majority are walking, running or biking. Someone takes a break on a bench but

most people are on the move. The example from Hammarby Sjöstad is a good example

of the public space situation in many of Stockholm’s neighborhoods – activities

designed around movement. I found an exception in the area – the playgrounds.

The playground is a common meeting place and an important part of most Swedish

neighborhood’s social infrastructures, it’s a place to gather and interact around an

activity. The municipality of Stockholm has guidelines that say that it should be no

longer than 200 meters to the closest playground from any accommodation, making

it one of the most prioritised public activities in the city.4 The activity of playing at

one specific place opens up for meeting people in the same target group. The act of

walking, running or biking makes it considerably harder to spontaneously interact

with other people. When looking at the future meatpacking district, I am inspired by

the qualities of the playgrounds – an activity available for anyone and a place to gather.

I decided to find a common activity accessible to a wide target group. My intention

4 Stockholms stad, Södermalms gröna vardagsrum del 2. Stockholms stad. 66–68.

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is to challenge the way we are planning the activities of our cities, from pathways to

destinations, where we gather around activities in a developed social infrastructure.

In my opinion, several urban development projects have succeeded in creating a

sustainable social infrastructure by having an activity-centered focus. Such an example

is Superkilen in Copenhagen - an important part of the neighborhood Nørrebro’s social

infrastructure - created with over 100 different activity-based objects collected from

50 different countries with the help of a whole neighborhood.5 Allmänna badet in

Gothenburg - a social infrastructure cultivated long before the surrounding urban

development project began, is centered around the activity of bathing. 6 I am inspired

by the user-centered perspective, the awareness of the site’s narrative and how the

focus is centered around activities allowing people to interact in these projects.

5 Superflex (2020) tools/Superkilen. https://superflex.net/tools/superkilen/image (Retrieved 2020-10-30)

6 Raumlabur (2020) archive/bathing-culture. https://raumlabor.net/bathing-culture/. (Retrieved 2020-10-30)

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The site as a narrative of a future development

In 1912, the meatpacking district in Johanneshov opened to regulate the handling

and slaughter of livestock in Stockholm. Thanks to new modern building materials

such as steel and cast iron, the slaughterhouse was one of Europe’s most modern

when it opened, and it has until today been northern Europe’s largest wholesale area

for meat and charcuterie.7 Even though the industries are decreasing in number, the

meat industry is still present. The first thing you meet when approaching the area is

the smell – a smell of smoked charcuterie that extends far beyond the border of the

area. When you enter the area you pass a gate with a large blue sign that extends above

the road with the text Slakthusområdet (the meatpacking district), a leading entrance.

If you visit the area on the day when the industries are open, you will most likely

be passed by a forklift loaded with cut up animals. Workers take breaks outside the

industries, sometimes wearing blood stained white coats and white caps. When you

look in through a window you see animal parts hanging on hooks in a conveyor belt in

the ceiling.

The site is located in the fast growing parts south of the inner city and due to its

attractive location, a decision has been made to change the purpose of the area.8 The

real estate company Atrium Ljungberg has acquired large parts of the area and is

estimated to invest SEK 8 billion in the area over the next 10 years. Their plan is to

build 4,000 new homes, create new job opportunities in tech, design and innovation

and create a 24-hour city where food, culture and experiences will be of great

importance.9 The project is one of Stockholm’s largest urban development projects in

modern times.10

Developing a new urban district within such a tight time frame, as well as having a

private stakeholder with massive influence and strong financial interests risks creating

a culture-less neighborhood without any connection to its history. For example, in the

7 Anders Brundin, Anders Johnsson, Eta Kroon. (2012). Kött och blod: Slakthusområdet i Johanneshov 100 år. Stockholm: Stockholms stad.

8 Stockholms stad (2019) Avtal om Slakthusområdets utveckling till beslut. https://vaxer.stockholm/ nyheter/2019/02/avtal-om-slakthusomradets-utveckling-till-beslut/. (Retrieved 2020-10-30)

9 Atrium Ljungberg (2020) Slakthusområdet https://www.al.se/stadsutveckling/omraden/stockholm/ slakthusomradet/. (Retrieved 2020-10-30)

10 Anders B.; Anders J.; Eta Kroon. (2012). Kött och blod: Slakthusområdet i Johanneshov 100 år. Stockholm: Stockholms stad.

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transition where the meatpacking district will be developed from an industrial area

into an urban district the narratives of the meatpacking district will disappear. Even

though some people may welcome that the smell, the blood-stained white-dressed

workers, and the presence of meat will disappear, it is a fact that the area’s presence in

the city has been important for the city’s culture.

Looking into the future the meat culture will have to change. The area’s importance

for Stockholm’s food culture has been central as meat consumption in the city has

steadily increased since the area was built. According to the Swedish Environmental

Protection Agency, an average Swede consumes 66% more meat today compared to

1960.11 According to the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change),

among others, a key factor for us to be able to reduce our climate impact is that we

greatly reduce our meat consumption.12 In the article “How much meat is too much?”

Bee Wilson says that instead of a meat-free day a week the true ratio required for a

future of sustainable meat-eating would be something more like one day a week.13

When the meatpacking district changes and meat production leaves the area, the meat

should also leave our culture or at least be given a much smaller role. The question I

bring with me from this is: how can one preserve the history of a place that has been so

important to the culture of the city when the culture itself is changing?

I am developing products around the activity of cooking and eating, activities that

reflect the site’s narrative. This is planned to be reflected in the future area, which is

described as a ”gastronomic center”, where food plays a central role and is seen as a

commodity.14 I want to emphasise food as a narrative of the site and challenge the

commercial aspect.

11 Naturvårdsverket (2020) Svensk konsumtion av köttprodukter per person. https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Sa-mar-miljon/Statis-tik-A-O/Kottprodukter-konsumtion-per-person/ (Retrieved 2021-03-25)

12 IPCC (2020) Climate Change and Land. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ (Retrieved 2021-03-25)

13 London Review of books (2014) How much meat is too much?https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n06/bee-wilson/how-much-meat-is-too-much (Retrieved 2021-03-25)

14 Karlsson, Anton. Staden vill omvandla Slakthusområdet till gastronomiskt centrum. DN. 2019-11-02 https://www.dn.se/ sthlm/sta-den-vill-omvandla-slakthusomradet-till-gastronomiskt-centrum/ (Retrieved 2020-12-12)

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OUR URBAN KITCHEN

In this project, I propose a new building block in the social infrastructure in the future

meatpacking district where the focus is on the activity to gather around cooking and

eating in the public space.

In the next chapter, I will tell you about the methods I used to anchor these values in

my project. From workshops that generally examine cooking and eating in the public

space to finding the site’s narrative by making decisions driven by intuition.

Workshops (WS)

Throughout this project I have implemented a series of workshops (WS) with the

theme “cooking and eating in the public space”. The idea was to start with a basic

experience, with very simple and common tools and food. The learning outcome from

the previous WS helped me develop the next one. After the WS were done it helped

me define some of the products important for the kitchen.

WS 1 – basics

During my first workshop I brought a very simple grill and vegetarian hotdogs to

start from the very basics of outdoor cooking and dining (Fig. 2). It was executed at

the end of December with -1C° and sunshine and a total of 6 participants. Together

we agreed on a spot in the public space that we found suitable with a nice view and

a public bench. The grill was prepared beforehand so it was easy to start the fire and

shortly thereafter start to grill the hotdogs. The grill did its job as a cooking device but

barely spread any heat to keep us warm. We were mostly standing during the whole

experience since the public bench provided was covered with a thin layer of frost and

seemed too cold to sit on. It was a comfortable experience as long as we had something

to do, when we had eaten we wrapped up and ended the session. The total length of

the experience was approximately 45 minutes.

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Learning outcome: The actual activity of cooking and eating was the goal and what

kept us outside together even considering the cold winter conditions. Learning from

this I provided more heat and made the cooking a bit more complex in WS 2.

Fig. 2. Picture from WS 1.

WS 2 - developed

Before the second WS I considered two things, 1: a new location that enabled a larger

heat source 2: a more advanced dish that allows more people to participate in the

cooking, but also to push the limit of what is practical to cook outside. The place I

chose is a permanent fireplace in a medium-sized park in a Stockholm neighborhood.

We made tacos with homemade tortillas, a medium ambitious dish for a group of

seven people. There was snow on the ground and -4C° and the sun had set. This

time we needed more equipment, but it was no more than we comfortably could

carry. When we started, everyone had something to do, some lit the fire, while some

others prepared for cooking. Initially it was cold but after only a few minutes the fire

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started to heat up. The fireplace was free-standing a few meters away from a dining

area with some tables and benches that became the preparation part of the kitchen.

Quite quickly we realized that the distance from the fire to the dining area was a bit

of a problem as the heat from the fire did not reach there, making it cold to prepare

food. As a result we also decided to eat standing up around the fire. After the dinner

we stayed at the fire place until the fire went out. To put out the embers we used snow.

When we packed up we realized that the dirty dishes were a bit of a problem, we had

forgotten to bring something to carry it home which resulted in us having to carry it in

our hands on the way home. In total the workshop lasted 2 hours.

Learning outcome: Compared to WS 1 the larger heat source and the activity of more

complex cooking made a big difference. We stayed outside comfortably more than

twice as long. Lighting a fire and maintaining it as well as using it to cook becomes an

activity and a gathering point, something that everyone participated in. The distance

from where we prepared the food to the fire was a bit of a problem. The same goes with

the dining experience, if we were able to sit around the fire it would have been a much

better experience.

Fig. 3. Picture from WS 2.

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A discovery I have made in both WS so far is how important the availability of water

is when cooking. When cooking at home it is so easy to take water for granted, it is so

accessible that I hardly think of how much I use it. The fact that we had to bring water

to the WS made it obvious how often it was needed. The examples are many: drinking,

boiling, rinsing vegetables, washing dishes, putting out the fire etc.

At this stage I had collected five values (fig. 4.) that framed the products important for

the urban kitchen. A big enough fireplace to radiate heat to both the workspace and

the seating area, a place to sit near the fire, a dedicated workplace as well as a source of

water.

Fig. 4. Diagram explaining important functions in the kitchen.

Searching for Narratives – finding the essence of the kitchen

After my workshops, I realized that I was missing the product that makes Our Urban

Kitchen site specific. My workshops dealt with cooking and eating in the public space,

a general activity that could be conducted anywhere, however, the value that anchors

Our Urban Kitchen to the site was missing, I managed to find that product through the

sense of smell.

Throughout the project I have spent a lot of time in the meatpacking district, I have

taken hundreds of photographs, observed people, features of the architecture and

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the presence of meat production, but to find what I was looking for I needed to use

a different sense than the sight to analyse the site. When I realized that the site’s

narrative was missing in my project I decided to revisit the meatpacking district. I had

a camera with me to continue collecting visual impressions, something of a routine

at this stage. I took the tram to the site and when I arrived at the stop and the doors

opened I was met by a very familiar smell, smoked charcuterie, at the same moment I

realised that I had found my narrative - the method of smoking food.

Adding a smoker to the urban kitchen both anchors the kitchen in the site’s narrative

but also opens up for a development of the food culture. Smoking food is associated

with cooking and preserving meat in the Swedish food culture but inviting the

method to a plant-based diet creates opportunities that open up to remember a meat

culture as well as develop a new plant-based food culture.

In a conversation with Hans Svalin, a teacher in EKO vegetarian food at Vårdinge By

folk high school, he talked about how they are constantly experimenting with the

method of smoking food in their education. We use the method as a way to reintroduce

qualities to the food that we lose when we now move in a direction towards a more plant-

based kitchen, says Hans. They experiment with everything from making substitutes

like pasta carbonara made on smoked zucchini instead of bacon to smoking and

fermenting sprouts which they then make pesto with. That the method can be used in

a plant-based kitchen both to remember a meat culture as well as to develop a new one

is a fact and something with great potential according to Hans.

Time as a perspective – looking in to the past to predict the future

As I mentioned in the introduction, due to rapid migration to cities, urban

development projects are increasing around the world. This has led to a process

driven by profit and efficiency. In this project, I aim to question the short-term urban

development by using time as a perspective.

15

The urban development project Råängen run by the Church of Sweden in Lund, used

time as a perspective when setting the framework for its project.15 A 900-year old

cathedral became a benchmark for the new urban district with a 900-year perspective.

Inspired by Råängen, I have chosen to use the same principle in my project. The

meatpacking district is 110 years old, and I therefore also want to plan for an activity

and product with a 110 year perspective.

15 Råängen (2020) About/Råängen https://art.raangen.se/ (Retrieved 2021-03-25)

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THE ACTORS OF OUR URBAN KITCHEN

Fig. 5. Concept illustration of Our Urban Kitchen.

During the workshops and site visits to the Meatpacking district, I discovered

functions and values important for the kitchen. In this chapter I will explain how

these are translated into five products (actors) and how the architecture of the site has

inspired the physical form of the products. The five actors reflect the history of the site

and form a new building block at the Meatpacking district’s future social infrastructure,

together they form Our Urban Kitchen.

The actors

The kitchen is an assembly consisting of five different actors (Fig. 6). I use the term

actor to describe my products as I argue that each of them carries an important role

in communicating the site’s narrative. In this project I have chosen to focus on the

main actor - the smoker. The role of the smoker is to communicate the site’s narrative

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and pass on its history to future generations. In addition to the smoker, I have

conceptualized four other actors and their roles in the kitchen. The supporting actor –

the fireplace (Beacon) that provides heat, a place to cook as well as activate the site. The

extras – the seating furniture that provides a place to gather and somewhere to rest; the

workbench that allows preparation of food; the water tap that provides water to drink

and to cook with.

Fig. 6. Conceptualisation of the five actors of Our Urban Kitchen.

The smoker – form follows architecture

The architecture in the meatpacking district is unique, it is a rich mix of houses from

different times and ideals, a site that reflects the Swedish industrial history from

its early years until today. Gustaf Wickman designed the first buildings that were

inaugurated in 1912 (Fig. 7), most of which will be preserved in the conversion of the

site. Houses with unique detailing, large rounded windows and soft edges. Facades that

are lightened with English bond brick patterns, and interiors enriched with daylight

and carefully curated details.

In order to emphasise the site specificity of the smoker, I have chosen to bring

some characteristics of the houses into my design. I am especially inspired by the

juxtaposition of heavy materials and light shapes. I work with round shapes that reflect

the design of the facades, a shape that also repeats in the sports arena Globen with

its constantly present silhouette in the background. The grids are inspired by brick

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patterns (fig.11) and the meeting between the door and the body of the smoker is

inspired by details in the columns in the interior of the buildings.

Our Urban Kitchen is a place to gather and interact, an important part of the

meatpacking district’s future social infrastructure. The form of the smoker reflects this,

it opens up for meetings with a welcoming shape that you meet around that have no

clear direction. The doors that open up in two directions as well as the four levels allow

many people to interact with it at the same time (fig. 14).

In the last chapter I talked about time as a perspective, and that I wanted Our Urban

Kitchen to last for at least 110 years. This is reflected both in the activity of cooking

and eating as well as the chosen materials. I have chosen to work with three materials

in the smoker: I used cast iron in the main body, the doors as well as the grids, (fig. 10

& 11). A material used in the construction of the buildings from 1912, it is robust and

has potential to last for generations; In the lower unit I have used Bohus granit (fig.

13) that is a Swedish stone that communicates weight and reliability and can be found

in sculptures depicting bulls in the entry of the park Fållan today (fig 8); In the door

handles (fig. 12) I used larch wood that is a durable type of wood, thanks to its natural

large proportion of heartwood it can withstand weather and hard wear.

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fig. 7. The meatpacking district March 1913, houses designed by Gustaf Wickman.

Fig. 8. A sculpture of a bull from the park Fållan in the meatpacking district. Captured december 2020.

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The smoker - gallery

Fig. 9. Rendering of the smoker. Doors closed.

Fig. 11. Rendering of the smoker. Detail, cast iron grid.

Fig. 10. Rendering of the smoker. Detail, meeting between doors and body.

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Fig. 12. Rendering of the smoker. Detail, larch wood handle.

fig. 13. Rendering of the smoker. Detail, Bohus granit lower unit.

fig. 14. Rendering of the smoker when open.

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fig. 15. Photography physical model of the smoker. Scale model 1:2..

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APPENDIX

In the Appendix I will clarify how I have developed the design of the smoker since my

75% presentation, my thoughts behind the design of my contribution to Konstfack’s

spring exhibition 2021 as well as reflect on a recurring question I have received

throughout this project.

Design

I have made some modifications on the design of the smoker since the final hand in of

the thesis. I have changed the scale and developed the details to communicate safety

features as well as the semiotics to better rely on and understand the functions. One

of the discussions that came up in connection with and after my 75% presentation was

how the size of the smoker would be perceived by the users. I therefore decided to do

studies with full-scale prints as well as 3-dimensional paper mockups to understand

the size. My conclusion was that the size felt a bit intimidating and the smoker needed

to be scaled down. My goal was to find a scale that relates to the size of an average

person. I wanted it to become a character that one feels safe to interact with (Fig. 1).

I also decided to develop the details and focused on three things – how the smoker

meets the ground (Fig. 2) to create stability in the shape and an affiliation to the

ground below; I developed the handle to create a direction in the grip (Fig. 3); as well

as a heat shield that reflects the heat from the outer walls of the smoker (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 16, smoker in context.

Fig. 17, how the smoker meets the ground.

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Fig. 18, the developed handle.

Fig. 3, heat shield.

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Exhibition

When I developed the exhibition (Fig 4.), I worked with the perspective of time. The

spring exhibition has a lot of visitors and a large number of exhibitors. My starting

point when designing my exhibition was that the visitors as a default would spend

very little time in my exhibition. For that reason I used a method to ”trick” the visitors

into staying a bit longer. I based my exhibition on three levels – the intuitive level, the

eye-catcher that creates interest from a long distance that makes the visitor curious

to learn more about the project, here I worked with a concept color on the wall that

originates from a central concept illustration in the exhibition as well as a scale 1:2

model of the smoker that was given a dominant role in the exhibition; the guided

level, here I worked with easily accessible information such as pictures and headings

that allow the visitor to easily create an understanding of the context of the exhibited

product; the in-depth level, explanatory texts connected to the guided level allowing

the viewer to form a deeper understanding of the project. During the exhibition, I had

the opportunity to observe many of the visitors and was able to conclude that a large

number actually followed the preconceived pattern, from guided to in-depth level.

Fig. 4, my contribution to Konstfack’s spring exhibition 2021.

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Feedback

I have received positive and constructive feedback as well as suggestions on possible

changes from both tutors, opponents and visitors during the spring exhibition. In

this paragraph, I want to reflect on and give an answer to a recurring question I have

received. The question concerns the smoker as a product specifically designed for

the Meatpacking district, how would it be perceived if the design was reused in other

situations such as other public spaces or even in a private context? To understand

my standpoint on the issue, I have gone back to the very core of the project: social

infrastructure. I have challenged the way we build public spaces by developing a

method that explores a site’s narrative to create new site-specific activities to cultivate

a possible culture for people. This method allows for a city with a diverse selection of

activities made for a broader target group. If I were to place this product in a different

context, this would have counteracted my own method and the core of my project.

Therefore, my answer to the question is: reuse the method of developing an activity

that is sustainable for the specific site in question instead of reusing the design of

the product. I claim that in this way it is possible to develop a diverse and sustainable

social infrastructure throughout the city.

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NOTES

Anders B.; Anders J.; Eta Kroon. (2012). Kött och blod: Slakthusområdet i Johanneshov 100 år. Stockholm:

Stockholms stad.

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