Their project derives from Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling’s segregation model about the influence of individuals’ relocation decisions on residential segregation. According to Schelling, even a mild preference for neighbors of similar race can lead to highly aggregate structures and thus to ethnic divides within a city.
The large scale of this sociological model is now transferred to a small-scale structure set up in the foyer of HKW: RESOLVE invites members of local communities as well as visitors from Berlin to create synergetic effects and knowledge transfer and to overcome small-scale segregation. According to RESOLVE: “In this way, design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for socioeconomic change.” Visitors explore ideas of separation, migration, and “home” by interacting with a world of storytelling, poetry, and music that they can climb on, sit with, think through, and reconstruct.
Off Grid is in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Thierno Diallo, the community empowerment group Schilleria, the migrant-focused magazine NANSEN, and the African soul band Fulani.
The project is partnered with Future Architecture Platform.