We inherit a city left to us by our ancestors. As time passes, the specificities of the landscape fade away. We find ourselves looking at traces of functions, at ruins, at artifacts, guessing at their origins. The use of the city is determined by its history, yet every generation adapts it to their specific requirements. Times change, and so does the city, ever so smoothly. 

What if we enter a town without inhabitants, void of protectors. No explanations, no designations, no map or blueprint, no script. Like landing on an alien planet, we are bound to project our habits and points of view onto the unknown environment. Quickly and almost subconsciously, we build up meaning and purpose based on our personal frame of reference, and use this insight to appropriate our surroundings. We assume that the new and the foreign will never diverge strongly from previous experiences. 

With The Village, I want to experiment with the possibilities of assumption and reinterpretation in the urban fabric. Offered a set of pre-defined building blocks, visitors can build their temporary addition to the fort. As a spontaneous installation, passers-by are invited to shape the environment according to their impromptu desires. They can construct and destruct, organize and disorganize. They can choose to continue the existing building or start anew. With every participant, the Village shifts. 

The foam blocks are abstractions of existing shapes within our towns, relating directly to the surrounding heritage. The installation is a physical method of directly relating to the site, which traditionally consists of immovable stones and protected bricks. By making light-weighted, harmless counterparts, the work functions as a carbon-copy of the original, which can then be moved, damaged and lived. 

The result is an architectural and urbanist abstraction of a city. It becomes a testament to the forgetfulness of society and to the pace at which the built, immobile environment is surpassed by its living counterpart. But it also represents the inventiveness of humans, their ability to reinterpret and reimagine and the flexibility with which people claim ownership and responsibility. 

The Village is a social and architectural playground, taking on ad hoc shapes, molded by the direct needs and politics of the people who inhabit it. It is an experiment as much as it is an experience and an exercise in reading the signs and dynamics of other groups of people with whom direct communication is not possible. It is an exercise in the imagination and embodiment of another world — a town which is only an approximation of real life.