Other Peoples Dreams

Practice Statement

Other People’s Dreams engages in a critical and durational way with community organisations in the north west of England, exploring modes of participation with marginalised groups, situations and ideas. 

We use model-making as a quick, agile and engaging way to respond to place and communities, as tools for exploration, investigation and participation. Within place-based research, models and modelmaking are use as an ethnographic, situated methodology, documenting, and analysing contested spaces, whether private or public. As a design tool, models are used for quick testing and iterating ideas. 

As a community engagement tool, models are an excellent way of talking about physical things – space, furniture – but intangible aspects of the human experience – memories, longing, rituals. And in participatory architecture and co-design devices, they provide an immediate and engaging device for communicating intentions, desires and ideas. Their potential to reveal tacit knowledge and make ideas instantly tangible, as well as to reveal the beauty of overlooked spaces, make them indispensable in our practice: whether it is pedagogical, artistic, analytical or within the design process.