Social Innovation Expo was a three day interactive event reinforcing social innovations and encouraging active participation. We were invited with Mindful Spatial Experiencing to co-host an architectural workshop developing visions for the Museum square in the centre of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
We worked with the methodology that we have been developing within Mindful Spatial Experiencing called Urban Scanners. Urban Scanners is a participatory sensory-oriented method for analysing space. It is based on a premise that subconscious sensory experience is our first way of communicating with the world. We learn it before the verbal language thus we feel very comfortable with it. It has the biggest influence on how we feel in certain environment at certain time.
As Urban Scanners we establish our interaction with space by moving and by being still mindfully. This brings us in contact with our inner state, which consists of thoughts and feelings taking the shape of memories, associations, stories, dreams and desires.
In the first part of our workshop we exposed ourselves to various sensory stimuli, whereas in the second, we explored space through our sense of touch. As you can see on the photos bellow, the amount of devotion that accumulated throughout the urban scanning process had been overwhelming.
In the third part we documented our sensory experience. Mindful Spatial Experiencing is proposing sensory experience to be integrated with every general spatial analysis. In addition to gathering geometrical and functional information, Urban Scanners gather information transmitted through all of our senses (from what we hear, touch, smell, taste and see), intuition, contemplation and reason.
Sensing and perception are inherently subjective, no matter what reality is, there is no correspondence to reality other than what we experience and there is no truth other than what we as human fellows agreed upon. We are using Mindful Spatial Experiencing as a vehicle to enrich and create experiences that will be “shared” among our “fellow human beings” to come to an “agreement” about.
By unlocking the power of architecture, we release the potential within us. The Urban Scanners method initiates innovative alternatives within the field of architecture. It helps you acquire greater experience and skills needed to increase the potential for architectural advancement. Feel free to send us an email if you are interested in participating in our workshops.
Photo credits: Gregor Verovnik, Anja Humljan