Raum(Zeit)Kleider centres around performative and participatory strategies for spatial production and the concept of a changing, multi-dimensional understanding of architecture and space. In this context it becomes evident that the concept of the architect needs to be expanded to include the role of initiator of events, who provides a system that is open to changes. In this paper I propose the design of a spatial system that can be folded and transformed from a two-dimensional element into a three-dimensional module, incorporating different functions from clothing to urban furniture and shelter. This approach seeks to produce transformations through intimate, often physical contact and participation. The use of soft materials, such as woolen felt, makes us deal with alterable materials as a membrane or a second skin around our bodies, which forms the walls of our own architecture and furthermore makes statements about identity, desire and intent. Modules will be able to interconnect with others, to form a new kind of urban fabric that is animated and inhabited by its users.

Architecture becomes a public statement in which notions of the body, collective living spaces and temporary or mobile shelters produce ideas about personal boundaries as well as urban/human scale, and where the second skin becomes an envelope for self-expression and an extension of the body.

tactile space as public interface
Raum(Zeit)Kleider activates public space by creating transformative devices that create performative spaces in the existing (sub)urban fabric. Not only the body is used as a „site“ for these interventions, but also specific (sub)urban locations and elements (street corners, park benches etc.) can become locations for actions. Conceptually those „second skins“ can be both clothes and architectural/urban space and cannot be clearly designated as either architecture or fashion. Furthermore, the subtle blurring of the border between the second (textile structure) and the third skin (urban fabric) points to the most important social transformation processes of our era – such as steadily growing mobility, and questions of blurring borders between public and private space. Clothes-like structures that can be transformed into small spatial urban structures represent the most extreme shift between public and private (body – clothes – shelter – urban space). This clearly correlates with the deviation from defined private or public spaces, and the global drive to make outer and inner space uniform. The proposed temporary textile structure which can be worn is a hybrid: functionally it is a third skin, which encompasses a new type of space, but in a structural sense it is categorized in the broadest sense as clothing.

Raum(Zeit)Kleider are ephemeral structures that will open up an elementary consciousness for performative potential of tactile and sensuous qualities of space. The end product has been eclipsed –processual qualities and the action of designing and usage have now become more essential. Through the project, new areas of action and active shaping of space are created; furthermore, conventional perceptions of architecture and urban space are exceeded and questioned. What evolves is a kind of initial architecture that is built upon the creativity of its users (usage and appropriation), and that is open to social changes, participation and the power of changeability in everyday life. As a modern person´s dimension is the body, these temporary habitats will reflect identity and belonging through the appearance and rituals of the body. As mentioned before, the objects will be able to stand alone, individually, but will possess the ability to interconnect.

We think of ephemeral experiences as temporary ones, though of indeterminate length. However, although they may be brief in duration, their impact can be lasting. Heidegger believed that anywhere on earth and under the sky became our dwelling-place, once we became capable of dwelling – the whole world became part of our „inside“ space; dwelling did not need buildings to take place. Once the pragmatic need for shelter has been met, architecture then serves other purposes such as identifying place, belonging and ownership. The experience of making is significant, especially for those involved in the process. Ephemeral interventions have a special value in contributing to our understanding of the built environment, which has been created over centuries. Furthermore, the condition of being ephemeral resides in the techniques of construction and also the concept of materiality – my thesis is that the soft geometries and textural surfaces of textiles implemented in an urban environment will allow different social spaces and interactions to emerge. The proposed textile structures will construct transience and have the potential to allow something temporary to unfold. The soft materiality has become an instrument of open possibilities of construction, and leaves time and space for improvisation and invention.

The limit of a person is not the outermost layer of skin. Therefore, these spatial structures de-limit the surroundings of the body, marking out a territory in the public urban fabric that allows a person to reappropriate the notion of living and where architecture is brought back into the realm of the everyday.