Taking place in the capital’s most exciting venue, the Truman Brewery, a vast reclaimed industrial site in Brick Lane, Tent London is the most comprehensive and diverse design event of the year, showing art and architecture, vintage and contemporary design by emerging and established designers from around the world.

Open Tables is a software application and a spatial environment, which researches and facilitates collaborative working between individuals and groups. The core purpose of Open Tables is to explore the potential for new kinds of collaborative working to emerge in spaces that combine analogue and digital modes of interaction: engaging both the mind and the senses in the navigation and production of information.

Come and see us at Tent London to talk to us about the project. We will be available at the stand throughout the exhibition.

Tent London opening times:
Thursday 18 September: 10.00 – 20.00hrs
Friday 19 September: 10.00 – 20.00hrs
Saturday 20 September: 10.00 – 20.00hrs
Sunday 21 September: 11.00 – 17.00hrs

For more information on Tent London, please visit their website @ www.tentlondon.co.uk
To find out more about our project, please visit project’s website @ www.opntables.com

Open Tables (OT) is an experimental new kind of collaborative working environment. For the Tent Urbantine installation we have defined four research topic areas, looking at contemporary design issues around sustainability, workplace environments, and ubiquitous computing. However, OT can be set up to research any topic depending upon the needs and interests of the client/participant/co-designer – whether bike design or stock markets – and we anticipate producing many OT variations in the future.

At the heart of Open Tables is the OT WebApp, the central repository of discussion material. It’s purpose is to organize information in a way relevant to the topic discussed. Items are collected off the web from a number of defined web feeds. Items are collected and collated into topics using the tags that the describe those items. The WebApp allows OT participants to browse items, filter by topic, tag and mark relevant or rejected depending upon whether you think this item is relevant to the discussed topic or not. You can also leave comments for each item.

Within the OT physical installation the content is interacted with through a series of physical spatial interfaces. The WebApp has a number of XML outputs which allow interface devices at the installation to communicate to one another. Item modified in the physical installation is automaticly updated on the webapp. This also works vice versa. Whilst the information displayed on the webapp is in a particular, already familiar web format, the same information in the installation is displayed through a series of spatial and physical conditions, aimed at promoting social interaction.

On the web, the OT WebApp can be engaged with through the OT website. Feel free to browse/tag/relate items. All information is collected and displayed in the space relevant to generate discussion. If you register you are also able to add items yourself as well as subscribe to our newsletter to be notified where next physical installation will be taking place.

The four research topics that OT is currently running are:

SUSTAINABILITY IN EDUCATION

RESEARCHING RECYCLING

GLOBAL NETWORKS AND THE INTERACTIVE EVERYDAY

COLLABORATIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENTS

If you have a blog, or would like to recommend a website which addresses any of these issues, and you would like to have your content fed into the OT system for the Tent Urbantine installation, then please submit your feed to info@opntables.com

The feeds that you submit to the Sustainability in Education topic will be feeding into a live EU funded research project into design education, and will be shown at the DEEDS 360 degrees conference (http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/events/deeds-360degrees) in Brighton on Saturday 20th September 2008.

For more information about Open Tables, please visit http://www.opntables.com or our blog http://blog.opntables.com or drop us an email at info@opntables.com

Open Tables is a Working Architecture Group [WAG] project. http://www.wag-architecture.co.uk

The design is aimed at meeting a growing niche demand in the housing market. The proposal is an opt-in community for individuals and families who want to take the next step in sustainable modern living. The Social Ecology is organised through the collective ownership and management of a community freehold, with private leaseholds for dwellings. There are shared car pools, rather than private car ownership, and instead of roads, a network of cycle routes and footpaths cross the site. There is an ecology of green spaces – from public to private. There are a range of dwelling types, clustered into groups of twenty units, organised around a linear public park, a permaculture based community school, a market hall and democratic billboard mediaspace. Each co-housing cluster overlooks shared garden, organic food growing and playground spaces. The individual dwelling units are organised around private courtyard gardens, which are treated as an external living rooms.

More information:

Press: For more information and press release material please contact info[at]wag-architecture.co.uk

Technorati Tags: architecture, design, ecology, life, health, innovation, technology, homes, domestic, morphology, sustainability, living

Jury’s report:
The project explored social structures and an approach to tenure rather than architecture or built form. Housing is grouped in small courts with shared community gardens and clustered communal resources. The jury welcomed this holistic consideration and positive vision for medium density housing in the 21st century.

The Milton Keynes Social Ecology by WAG is an urban cohousing permaculture project, aimed at meeting a growing niche demand in the housing market. The proposal is an opt-in community for individuals and families who want to take the next step in sustainable modern living. The Social Ecology is organised through the collective ownership and management of a community freehold, with private leaseholds for dwellings. There are shared car pools, rather than private car ownership, and instead of roads, a network of cycle routes and footpaths cross the site. There is an ecology of green spaces – from public to private. The dwellings are clustered into groups of twenty units, organised around a linear public park, permaculture based community school, market hall and democratic billboard mediaspace. Each co-housing cluster overlooks shared garden, organic food growing and playground spaces. The individual dwelling units are organised around private courtyard gardens, which are treated as an external living rooms.

Click images to enlarge

About Europan:
Europan is a biennial competition for young architects and urban design professionals, under 40 years of age, to design innovative housing schemes for sites across Europe.