The autumnal Part 2 Design Studio module – under the heading Reading Rep Engage! – establishes a conceptual and methodological ground for creating and engaging with histories, tools, methods, people-centred experiences.  

Through a series of actions, the objective was to approach the city of Reading as a space for making, performing and connecting with hard-to-reach communities, exploring t experience of occupying and reusing a space for critical creation and the production and communication of social knowledge through art. In this context, the project was conceived as a city activator through an inhabitation project for emerging local artists. In collaboration with Reading Rep Theatre, a local theatre company in search for a community space, performing as “client” of the brief, students worked on a small scale project for an arts community living + working hub. Exploring the coexistence of private and public hierarchies, the concepts of soft city and hygge interlocked with local political history and the Black History Mural of Reading.  

Through the realisation of a small urban intervention in the premises of the old Central Club Site, included in the main Market Conservation Area of Reading, students created proposals that explored the relationship between different social agents and channels that unveil Reading’s cultural identity and civic imaginaries, programme and spatial sequences, inclusive environments and diverse communities, the role of creativity and different bodies moving in space shaping the cultural fabric of the city.   

Module Convenor: Carolina Vasilikou 

Staff: Zoe Berman, Jennifer Forakis, Stephen Gage, Sayan Skandarajah 

Collaborators: Sarah Akigbogun, Rowan Mackay, Laura Mark, Yiorgos Papamanousakis, Sabine Hogenhout, Lorraine Farrelly, Gillian Horn, Peter Corbett, Olivia Marra, Frosso Pimenides