Freshers Week saw the spectacular realisation of a collaboration between CKP (Melissa Trimingham) and the Kent School of Architecture (Gordana Fortuna-Giusti and Howard Griffin) on urban walking and urban spaces.
Live- and huge- images of walkers in the city of Canterbury were projected on to the inside of the Westgate Towers, and could be seen from far down the High Street, attracting much attention. Students who had been taking part in a workshop on walking with Torsten Blume, Director of the Bauhaus Stage Workshop, 'walked their walks' across a giant shadow screen. Passers by could watch the live action or take part themselves.
The project was designed to draw attention to the way urban spaces direct our walking, and how we shape those urban spaces. Passers by were filmed and their responses will form part of the analysis. The event demonstrated that urban walking is not a passive activity but one in which we are actively engaged. The project impacted strongly upon the audience that urban design is a social, cultural, aesthetic- and ethically responsible- task.