This afternoon event consists of guest and student presentations around urban furniture hacking prototypes in Gamle Oslo led by invited guests Bui Quy Son (Architect, curator and artist, co-founder of EXUTOIRE and Safe Space Collective) and Armelle Breuil (Architect and activist, co-founder of JAM Collective, ACT! And Safe Space Collective).

The Academy Assembly series, organized by the Oslo School of Architecture (AHO), will unfold throughout the opening week of the Oslo Architecture Triennale and showcase the work of an international group of 100 students from different countries in discussions with various invited guests.

The Academy Assembly 4: Urban Furniture Hacking for Disobedient Bodies and Behaviors session follows a day of workshop led by Bui Quy Son and Armelle Breuil (Safe Space Collective).

“Hostile architecture and counter-terror urbanism are a materialization of our fear of disobedient bodies and behaviours in public space, such as those of drug users and homeless people. Urban planners, architects and designers have worked together with governments and local authorities to increase security in cities by deciding whom to exclude from the public realm. Those defensive furniture designs (such as anti-homeless spikes, unpleasant benches, automatic lighting in street corners to avoid people staying too long, or blue light bulbs to scare away drug users) are meant to constrain our bodies to specific positions, and to confine our behaviors to the norm.”

After a short introduction of the guests, students will proceed to present their intervention in public space developed throughout the day.

The Academy 2022 workshop: (RE)acting/(EN)acting – Collective Dissidence, Reclaiming the Neighborhood brings together European schools in Oslo in a week-long dialogue and knowledge-sharing experiment. The programme will engage with the Triennale’s curatorial team questioning from an activist perspective. Participants—students, faculty members and invited guests—will address the social and spatial challenges of Oslo’s urban spaces and re-center the discourse around its privileged protagonists, its residents. With a focus on minoritized and invisibilized groups, we will collectively formulate and (En)ACT new scenarios placing inclusivity and community life as primary drivers of neighborhood development.