New KIDS around the Block

Typology
Community
Project
New KIDS around the Block 009

year
2017
Location
KIDS - Anlaufstelle für Straßenkinder, St. Georg, Hamburg, Deutschland
- Socio-spatial communication strategy.
team c/o now
Tobias Hönig, Andrijana Ivanda, Markus Rampl, Paul Reinhardt
009
Fig.909
© c/o now
009
Fig.___

Although we are happy that at the end KIDS doesn’t have to spend another winter in containers with blasted water pipes, although we are pleased that we could contribute to loosen the knots on the way to a solution, there are some things that become clear by the example of KIDS: gentrification does not only not stop for people with low or now incomes at all and is therefore anyway a threat to social peace. But if social offers, enjoying enough appreciation by the state that they are mainly financed by the public authorities, do not find space any longer at the areas where there work specifically aims at, then this is a direct attack on social peace. There can’t hardly be something added to the absurdity, that a social offer is one the one hand equipped without enough budget for space to generate its own room by building and on the other hand there are no (more) sites to build on in possession of the public authorities. To economize and to state-economize for one thing, the other thing is the demand of space for social and supportive action. Thereby this question for space cannot be answered by the disciplines of architecture, urban design, urban planning, urbanism or urban research.
© New York Public Library, via: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Petit_mendiant_(NYPL_b14917511-1213050).jpg
009
Fig.911

Basis & Woge e.V. on Facebook:
"It has been in the media - there were speculations - now it is official: Yes – the KIDS has got new rooms! We move to Lange Reihe 24 ( former pharmacy). The rental agreement starts at 1st of June 2017 – we try to be operational by July. We are very happy!"
facebook
009
Fig.907
© c/o now
009
Fig.905
© c/o now
009
Fig.906

Since the announcement that KIDS will have to leave its rooms right next to the central station of Hamburg, all parties made countless proposals for possible alternative sites for KIDS. None of these proposals lead to an agreement, which has many complex reasons. Simply put, the proposals counteracted – to a certain extend - the pedagogical concept of KIDS (e.g. they were situated right next to a methadone-issuing-point or they were so far away from the central station, that contact to more than half of the kids would be lost). Another problem was, that places proposed by KIDS itself weren’t in the possession of public authorities anymore or the rent was just too expensive for a welfare organization. c/o now collected all the proposals and made them a part of the mapping that was done together with KIDS. The proposed locations were collected and presented in a way that made an open and objective discussion between representatives of the state, the city and Deutsche Bahn possible and contributed to the understanding of the complex dependencies shown in the mapping.
© c/o now
009
Fig.904

The kids from KIDS and its team get underway with c/o now on a tour throughout the neighborhood around the central station to explain the architects how many different individual geographies are overlapping there, how they are functioning and how they can be recognized at all. A possible new place for KIDS “xy” might for example be located in range of vision seen from the central station – which is good – but the direct way along this visual connection might also lead past “XYZ-street No. X”, where this or that people are under way that yet literally succeeded every time to lead the kids astray. Already during the first walk the portrayals given by KIDS more and more solidify into a mapping, that makes assets and drawbacks of possible new sites including and all of their complex dependencies visible.
© c/o now
009
Fig.903

Just when c/o now visited the temporary container-home of KIDS for the first time in January 2017, the cold made the water pipes burst and a team-member of KIDS desperately tried to fix it.
© c/o now
009
Fig.902
unknown
009
Fig.901
© taz