Dialogue Blocks
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Dialogue Blocks is a grandstand furniture piece and tool developed to experiment and shape alternative ways of dialoguing in Participatory Design processes. It establishes a meeting space and enables the participants to become active agents in shaping their own ways of interacting with each other.
The design is based on Simon Nicholson’s Theory of Loose Parts. Its modular character allows for constant reshaping from e.g. a classic (half) circular set-up into many other possible arrangements, concentrated or dispersed in space, as a way to stage particular ways of interaction between the dialoguing actors. The modularity also allows for including gaps or ‘empty’ spaces between the modules, hence inviting the surrounding daily life - operating on a fictive stage - to enter and feed the debate.
The grandstand originates from Annelies Vaneycken’s PhD project but it is also used for teaching activities within HDK Academy of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg. The design and production of the grandstand is the result of a collaboration with Markus Bergström.