This Take is about your own motivation and your first approach to the format »Urban Types: Of houses and people«. While the subsequent stages will involve in-depth research and the creation of house and housing biographies, our first step is to ask about your own housing history. Please take an iterative (repetitive) approach. Collect and go through your material several times and interpret it from different perspectives and at different times of your biography.
Ask yourself: What does (or did) housing —and specifically communal/shared housing—mean to you? How do you define this notion? Where and when do people live? How have you lived, how do you live? How and where do you want to live? Which situations occur to you spontaneously when you think about your own living situation? What memories do you have of your housing? Collect material (thoughts, memories, notes, narratives, stories, photographs, ...) relating to either of a housing situation in your childhood (past), your current housing situation (present) or a projection of a possible or desired housing situation (future).
In your descriptions (Geertz 1983; Spittler 2011) include both the built structures and the people surrounding you as well as the relations you have with them. Sketch the situation in both text and visuals. Describe a situation in either 2 sentences or up to 500 words (or more) and select a meaningful image (Pink 2013). The image can be a photograph, an image from another context that represents the situation, or a collage, drawing, or sketch you have created that shows one or more aspects or important details of your living situation that are special to you.
Then go back to your collected material from your own living situation in a second step and try to make it more precise: Do you notice anything particular, something that repeats itself, something different, …? What do you find interesting? Which aspects come up again and again? Where and how is that visible? Try to articulate these aspects and to translate them into one or several questions. Make a note of these. In a third step, examine your collected and analysed material: What is central in your descriptions? What is important to you? Which aspects are essential? Consider and examine what and how you describe and narrate the specific situations. Think about which aspects you publish and which aspects are too personal for you to share with the class/ the public. Then revise your complete material accordingly. Compile the materials onto a single A4 sheet in portrait orientation.