Maintenance 1:1 – Who Cares?

In the summer semester of 2023, at Who cares? together with students from Leibniz University, Hannover we explored the principle of maintenance and gave central importance to everyday care work.Central themes such as the social, the material and the urban dimensions of “maintenance” were examined. We read, analyzed, debated, designed and built. We collected references of collective actions, care and repair strategies for spaces, and protocols for maintenance. Eventually, we developed our own repair strategies and implemented small design interventions.

During our workshop in Venice, we worked in 1:1 collaboration with ASC – Assemblea Sociale per la Casa, within-and-around the community garden of Santa Marta that needed to be maintained and activated. For many years, the garden was surrounded by a fence, which allowed it to develop into a wild little green oasis. Open green spaces for community use are a rarity in Venice, so the members of the ASC decided to break through the fence and make the garden available for community use. The neighborhood is made up of a diverse mix of older residents and students.

The garden is also home to a variety of plants, birds and insects, especially mosquitoes.

In the German Pavilion, the group worked 1:1 with the material and tools and in the small neighborhood garden in Santa Marta 1:1 with local students and the ASC. Four interventions were designed and built, that foster the interaction between the different user groups, while promoting individual and collective responsibility, as well as the cultivation of oneself and one’s community. With the bat houses, storage structures, and a small fence, this space now serves as a meeting place for socializing, knowledge exchange and promoting multispecies coexistence.

Open for Maintenance was the curatorial concept of the German Pavilion at the 18th Architecture Biennale. The curatorial team aimed to highlight the opportunities and potential of the upcoming tasks for sustainable, social, and inclusive architecture and urban design – and thus translate the Biennale motto “The Laboratory of the Future” by Lesley Lokko, curator of the 18th Architecture Biennale, into practice. Read more about the German Pavilion at the 18th Architecture Biennale here

Alkistis Thomidou together with Ines Dobosic, from the Institut für Entwerfen und Städtebau, LUH, led the seminar and the excursion to Venice. Participants: Alexandra Faix, Marleen Hahn, Marijke Kiparski, Kaya-Sophie Liffler, Marielle Meldrum, Dariia Glimeida, Sina Neumann, Paula Scheibke, Justus Smolnik, Christian Sternhagen, Sophia Tourounoglou.