Aarhus River Bath: An Urban Intervention

Urban Interventions course, Aarhus University 2013

Simon Hnnerup Nielsen 20092847 Kasper Knop Rasmussen 20092826 Morten Kjeldsen Kusk 20073968 Christian Brandt Mller - 20092222

ABSTRACT

As part of an Urban Interventions course at Aarhus University, the authors of this paper have developed and executed the concept of "Aarhus River Bath" at an urban park in Aarhus, Denmark. The intervention relates to the keyword "Rethink" as set forth by Aarhus municipality on their path towards becoming the European Capital of Culture in 2017. Utilizing multiple tactics to create an ambiguous design, the intervention successfully involved citizens in a deep interpretation process and reflection upon the current polluted state of Aarhus River and the their relationship with the river. This paper discusses the design process in detail.
INTRODUCTION

In the next section we will provide an in depth description of our intervention. The second section will cover our iterative design process, while the third section will conclude the paper with a discussion of our intervention.

INTERVENTION: AARHUS RIVER BATH

This section provides an overview of our intervention. This includes our motivation, intention, a description of the setup, a space analysis of the chosen space, and an evaluation of the execution.
Motivation

Each year, the European Union appoints two cities for the role as an European Capital of Culture (ECoC). In this period, the cities will host a series of events for promoting their diverse cultures. Being appointed for ECoC is a great opportunity that often spark development in a city and create cultural, social and economic benefits, while also gaining international attention and recognition [11]. For 2017, Aarhus city has been given this honour. Their vision for ECoC 2017 is to mark Aarhus internationally, while improving the qualities of the city to benefit citizens as well as visitors [13]. Rethink is the keyword in this process. This means rethinking the concept of culture to cover more than just music, performances and museums - it also [...] embraces the notions of where we live, which education we choose, how we travel in the city and how we use the nature around us [...] [12]. The vision of Aarhus municipality is set. However, in order to reach this vision the citizens of Aarhus will need to have a change of mind (rethink) regarding the cultural areas they inhabit daily. As part of an Urban Interventions course at Aarhus University, this paper revolves around an intervention performed at Aarhus River that aims to do so. Through its capacity to trigger disturbance, a certain discomfort in the predefined system [2], the concept of interventions has gained increased attention in recent years as a powerful tool for grabbing people's attention and creating reflection on the idea of an alternative and (often) better world. Examples of envisioning a better world includes The Worlds Deepest Bin [9] and the Bottle Bank Arcade Machine [10], which successfully make it fun to be environmentally aware i.e. a change for the better.

For this project, we have chosen to focus on Aarhus River. Since 1989, Aarhus city has been undergoing a change with the vision of exposing the river to include it more in the city picture and as a foundation for cultural development [14][15]. Based on personal experiences from living in Aarhus for several years it is our impression that most people, living in Aarhus, are very well aware that the river is polluted from being filled with bicycles, shopping carts, signs, etc. It seems that people are rather careless with the conditions of the river as people continue to dump miscellaneous objects in it (see Figure 1), while waste disposal workers from Aarhus municipality cleans it approximately every second month [8] - the proverb out of sight, out of mind seems to fit this context. This is a sad situation as we find the river to be one of the most beautiful parts of Aarhus, which has the potential to be used for so much more.

Figure 1. The result of a cleaning of Aarhus River

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Intention

Space Analysis

The intention was to intervene with the current relationship between the citizens and the river. In relation to the vision of rethinking the concept of culture, specifically; how we use the nature around us, our intervention aimed to create reflection by augmenting how our behaviour towards the river (and ultimately other green environments) have cultural consequences. We wanted to make citizens reflect on how their behaviour limits the possibilities of using Aarhus River as a foundation for cultural activity - a foundation that is only achievable through changed behaviour. Throughout our process we pursued the goal of creating an intervention that sparked a deeper interpretation process and personal relation to the message we wanted to communicate. Therefore, we have put much effort into exploiting the advantages of ambiguity, as discussed by Gaver et al. [5], which the Design Process and Discussion sections will cover in more detail.
Staging Aarhus River Bath

Using Beks five factors of Form, Functionality, Scenographic-social, Iconographics and Aesthetics [1] we will discuss the qualities of choosing Mlleparken as the space for our intervention.
Form

The intervention of Aarhus River Bath was executed by the riverside of Aarhus River in the section that flows through Mlleparken - an urban park in Aarhus, Denmark. The setup consisted of a mix between items regularly seen on a beach or by a pool; a water slide, a rubber boat, a sun bed, a beach airbed, a small table, a boom blaster stereo and then different kind of trash regularly found at the bottom of the polluted river; two rusty bikes, a children's bike, a shopping cart and a children's scooter. The setup formed the basis for a personification of the trash items as they were used as actors that occupied the river bath and used the items that are normally reserved for humans and human activities. The area was demarcated with yellow/black barrier tape with the exception of an entrance, at which a large sign stated: Aarhus River Bath For garbage only (see Figure 2). A boom blaster played beach inspired music to create attention. A link to a video of the intervention can be found in [7].

Mlleparken was inaugurated in 1926 along with the construction of the main library of Aarhus. In 2006, the park undergoes a design change in relation to the vision of Aarhus municipality of exposing Aarhus River [16], as mentioned previously. This change modernised the entire park, which is now full of contemporary modern materials such as granite tiles. The beautiful trees, the large grass areas, and its location next to the riverside affords a warm atmosphere and acts as a breathing space between the trafficked roads in the centre of the city. A pedestrian street runs in the lower end of the park, which follows the river into the centre of downtown Aarhus. The wooden deck between the street and the river, which is the exact location of our intervention, mediates the inclusion of the river as a part of the relaxing space of Mlleparken (see Figure 3).
Functionality

Mlleparken is used for a wide set of purposes, such as the hosting of flea markets, exhibits etc., but above all it is a place for relaxation - especially in the summer. There are several different entrances to the park, which makes it possible for visitors to enter the park from almost everywhere. This affords a high frequency of visitors, but also supports the use of the park as a transport passage, like the pedestrian street in the lower end of the park which is popularly used as a transport passage to the city centre. The park is equipped with a large amount of benches, and with the addition of the wooden deck it urges people to use the space of the park instead of merely a walkthrough. The deck at the river supports the purpose of enjoying the river scenery and it consists of several different layers in different highs, which gives the opportunity of several different groups to use the space without interrupting each other (see Figure 3). Our intervention can benefit from the flow and frequency of the visitors in the park, as we can target a large amount of people in a short amount of time. Additionally, we intervene in the space by blocking out the expected functionality of the deck on which many people usually relax and enjoy the scenery, which will result in additional attention.
Scenographics-Social

Figure 2. Staging the intervention of "Aarhus River Bath - For garbage only"

People are generally, and especially in Denmark, sticking to themselves when in a public space. This behaviour is even more apparent in transportation passages, as people often are in a hurry. The deck and the green areas in the park is affording social behaviour, but the street is doing the exact opposite. However, as the street is located between the green areas and the deck it automatically confronts traversing people with the social life and relaxing

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The aesthetics of the deck makes it a suitable location as it affords a warmer feeling compared to the cold tiles in the street. The materials of deck also brings associations to a wooden pier, and for the citizens of Denmark it brings associations to the well known harbour bath in Copenhagen.

Figure 3. The wooden deck mediates the river as part of Mlleparken.

Figure 4. Iconic similarities between the main library of Aarhus with Mlleparken and a mansion.

atmosphere of the park. Whether this was the intention of the architect(s), this structure unites the different purposes of the park and changes the code of behaviour, when merely using the street as transportation. Mlleparken is an open space with a lot of sun, which gives a feeling of freedom and no constraints in regards to behaviour and mood. The park is placed as an extension to the library, close to Voxhall (a concert hall) and Aros, which are some of the cornerstones of the cultural life of Aarhus. This affects the behaviour of the visitors, as the artistic presence induces a free mind and opens possibilities of expressing yourself, which stands in high contradiction the common way to act in public spaces. The entire feeling of a modern and open atmosphere in the park suits our intervention well, as it helps sets a positive mood for the visitors, thus making it more likely for them to keep an open mind in their interpretation of our intervention.
Iconographics

Execution and Evaluation

The intervention was executed over a two hour session on a Saturday morning in March. As expected, there was a steady flow of people. Roughly 200 people passed our setup out which approximately 120 stopped to have closer look, clearly trying to interpret the situation. Out the remaining people we observed less than ten people ignoring our intervention completely, while the rest turned their head and revealed an interest to some degree. As evident in our video [7], it was clear that our intervention often sparked discussions in groups of people. Further evaluation on the success of our intervention was done in several ways. Our sign was purposefully placed to only be visible from one side as it would then require people coming from the other side to actively turn around if they were intrigued. As this was often the case we concluded that the intervention definitely grabbed peoples attention. The boom blaster we had set up to grab attention with music broke down after five minutes, but this only revealed that our intervention in itself was powerful enough to attract attention. The fact that half of the passers actively stopped for a period of time to interpret the situation confirmed that our intervention did indeed spark a deeper interpretation process. Four people even took pictures, which we can only hope will be used later on as subjects for discussion with friends and families. To evaluate whether the message was understood, we performed six subtle, undercover interviews, acting as if we were just curious pedestrians as well. The interviews were recorded using a hidden voice recorder, however due to strong winds it was impossible to use the recordings in a meaningful way afterwards. Recalled from our memory though, we got very similar answers to the question: Do you know what this is?: ... it is probably to put focus on all the pollution in the river... - Young couple (see Figure 5, left).

Mlleparken lies as an extension to the main library building and even though this building has the appearance of an official building, absorbing the atmosphere of the entire space creates an iconic association to a large mansion (see Figure 4). A mansion often have pools or even a private beach at the end of their massive lot and this is an association that we believe helps give credibility to our story of a river bath in Mlleparken. Furthermore, as both the main library and the park are public spaces it makes sense that to have a public river bath there as well although it is only for garbage in this case.
Aesthetics

Three large grass-covered circles creates a dynamic but united park, while Two giant old trees are planted in the lower circle and acts as a natural point of interest. Together with the river, they give a feeling of being the origin of the space - as they have been there throughout the history of the park and therefore appears as a central signature.

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... yes, it is Aarhus municipality that have created this to show people how much trash there is in the river... - Single woman (see Figure 5, right).

middle of Aarhus. This bridge is buzzing of life, but its main purpose merely seemed to get people from a to b. However, we believed that the space had more cultural potential as it is an open and warm space, which is in striking contrast to the rest of the pedestrian street.
First Iteration

Figure 5. Evaluating the intervention

This concluded that our intervention definitely succeeded in putting focus on the pollution in the river. However, as we were still unsure whether people reflected upon the consequences of this, we conducted an open-ended interview with an elderly couple with our identity as creators revealed. This resulted in interesting statements about their relation to the river: ... it provides such a nice atmosphere in our city. I dont understand why it isnt used with canoes, water cycles or something like that... ... as it is now you cant do much with it. Taking a swim will probably make you sick... Concluding with these statements, we believe that our intervention was very successful at setting focus on the pollution, but extracting the tacit reflections upon the consequences thereof required further discussions with the viewers. Hence, we cannot be certain that our intervention sparks this reflection, but this is also the consequence of an ambiguous design: However it was interpreted, the point is that it was interpreted [5].
DESIGN PROCESS

We brainstormed using generative techniques such as sketching, sketching on sketches and model building (see Figure 6) along with a bodystorming session on site. Many of our ideas included using Aarhus River in some way, which sparked an important discussion about the consequences of its current polluted state and why the situation is so. Bringing focus to these aspects seemed very relevant in regards to the vision of ECoC 2017 of how we use the nature around us [12], so we chose to pursue this as our goal throughout the rest of our process. With the location of Skt. Clemens Bro as the setting we developed a concept called Aarhus Pollute and Take. In short, the idea was to create a put and take area on top of the bridge and having some of us pretend to be fishing in the river from there. However, as fish are no longer present in the polluted river we would be catching bikes and scrap instead (see Figure 6).

In this section we will present our process covering a preliminary research and three important iterations that resulted in our final concept.
Preliminary Research

Figure 6. Model building the "Aarhus Pollute and Take" concept

The start of our design process consisted of an exploration of the rethink theme in relation to the vision of Aarhus for ECoC 2017. Rethinking how we use the cultural areas in Aarhus is a dominant aspect, so we set out to conduct a meticulous field study, covering several crowded places such as the train station, the pedestrian street, parks, city squares etc. This study was carried out using the fly-on-thewall technique followed by a flow analysis to obtain a thorough knowledge of the different spaces and how people traverse them. The result of the flow analysis made us choose an initial space in terms of Skt. Clemens Bro in the -4-

The main purpose of this concept was to inform the citizens of Aarhus of the pollution in the river in a humoristic way and inviting them to help us fish up the trash using fishing rods. Furthermore, flyers would then have been handed out to passers which would show a vision of how the river could be used if treated properly. The vision would e.g. be an oasis or some sort of river bath to intrigue the citizens to reflect upon, and perhaps alter, their behaviour towards the urban environment. Additionally, the flyer would invite people to visit a Facebook page of ours to give their comments on the situation. The page would then act as a

sort of evaluation method, which would make it possible to trace how many people actually remembered and understood our intervention and wanted to support it. This concept was highly inspired by Delman and Nielsens AELIA-model [3] - a framework for involving citizen participation in urban development processes. We designed the concept to follow the framework in the following way: Attention: Seeing fishermen on a bridge in downtown Aarhus is a sensational sight Experiences: Inviting people to participate in fishing for trash is a novel experience Learning: Evoke reflecting upon the catching of trash instead of fish Influence: Participants help make a difference by reducing the trash in the river Action: People are able to express their opinion through our Facebook channel and induce further action from the society The concept was presented during a feedback session with fellow students, which made us realise that the strongest part of our intervention was actually under the bridge, where trash was being pulled up from the water. This would not have been visible for pedestrians on Skt. Clemens Bro unless they would actively go and have a look over the railing. Realizing, that it would probably be hard to make people stray that much from their path, triggered a second iteration in our design process.
Second Iteration

The change in concept caused a shift in initiative as well. Previously, we would be the facilitators that actively included people in the intervention, but in the new concept the intervention would speak for itself without including participants. We would no longer follow the AELIA-model as close as previously, however there would still be a large aspect of attention, experience and hopefully learning if the communication was clear enough. However, influence and action would happen on a meta-level at best. Compared to the direct approach in the Aarhus Pollute and Take concept, where we explicitly delivered our intention through flyers, the intention of staging a decommissioned river bath was to create an ambiguous experience that would leave the viewers with a much deeper interpretation process. Gaver et al. [5] discusses the effects of purposefully creating ambiguous designs and states: By impelling people to interpret situations for themselves, it encourages them to start grappling conceptually with systems and their contexts, and thus to establish deeper and more personal relations with the meanings offered by those systems. We wanted to make use of information ambiguity by only providing a sign saying: Aarhus River Bath - Closed due to pollution. This would result in a loss of information that forces the viewers to make sense of the situation by joining their knowledge of the behaviour of the people in Aarhus with the current state of the river - thus establishing a more personal relation to the message communicated by our intervention. While introducing ambiguity provided our intervention with an appealing effect of a deeper interpretation process it also resulted in a higher level of abstraction. This posed a problem as we envisioned an intervention that could clearly communicate our goal of bringing focus to the polluted state of the river. However, achieving this, while still creating a deeper and more personal relation to the communication, required another iteration.
Third Iteration

With the feedback in mind we chose to take a look at a smaller bridge, Frederiks Bro, 100 meters up the river where the space is much more open and visible. Analyzing this space gave rise to a revised concept of a river bath that had been decommissioned as a consequence of the pollution in the river. We envisioned a static setup consisting of a sun bed, two beach chairs, a sunshade, a water slide and a beach ball. The entire setup would then be enclosed with barrier tape to implicitly communicate its decommission (see Figure 7).

While brainstorming on improving the concept of a decommissioned river bath, we reconsidered the location as well. Upon reflection, we realized that the story of having a river bath in the centre of the city, right next to the pedestrian street, was not credible. Therefore, we turned to Mlleparken which provided a very suitable space, cf. our space analysis. To reduce the level of abstraction, while still inducing a deep interpretation process, we discussed the effect of confronting pedestrians with a clear view of the pollution that is normally hidden away at the bottom of the river. This would most likely make it easier for the viewer to make sense of the connection between the decommissioned river bath and the polluted river. This introduced an aspect of context ambiguity as we Block expected functionality to -5-

Figure 7. The concept of a decommissioned river bath

comment on familiar products [5] by placing trash in a context that is normally reserved for humans and human activity. Furthermore, we chose to personify the trash as we sought to introduce ambiguity of relationship [5] with the purpose of making people reflect upon their relationship and behaviour towards the river. This resulted in our final idea of creating a river bath where only trash is allowed (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. The intervention of "Aarhus River Bath" seen from the opposite side of Aarhus River

the summer, people might think that the bath was simply closed due to the time of the year and not the pollution, if they did not read the accompanied sign. That is why we choose to incorporate an additional layer of ambiguity. By personifying bikes and garbage to use the swimming bath instead of closing it, additional ambiguity of context arises. This is not the context that one is used to see garbage in, and the generated absurdity will serve as an additional attention grabber and at the same time direct reflections towards the pollution of the river. Because of this use of ambiguity of context it is apparent that our intervention would not work anywhere. Had it been placed near a clean river for instance, it would merely be seen as a humorous feature in the daily life, with no deeper meaning, and had it been places in one of the polluted rivers of India, it would merely blend in. Because of this importance of context, we made sure that our space analysis grasped the entire scope of the area. Our intervention might have been physically situated in a 5x5x5 meter space, but it was designed with a 100x100x100 meter space in mind. Finally, we also utilized tactics like pointing out things without explaining why and introducing disturbing side effects to question responsibility [5] (as in the trash taking over the river bath), to provoke ambiguity of relationship, which encourages people to consider the personal significance of their behaviour towards the river. In the early design iterations we followed the AELIAmodel [3], but in our final concept we abandoned the use of influence and action, focusing primarily on the learning experience - the process of rethinking - instead. It can be a risky move letting the learning experience be the outcome of the intervention, since the quality of it depends on the cognitive processes created by our ambiguous design, which - as stated in our evaluation - cannot be fully controlled. It must not be important how an ambiguous design is interpreted, but only the fact that it was actually interpreted. We have discussed our choices of why and how to intervene in the given context. Now is a suitable time to take a step back and ask ourselves: is it in fact an intervention, that we have created? If yes, what qualities does it consist of and could anything have been done different in order to support these qualities? In defining interventions Borasi [2] writes: [...] they contribute to an erosion of some established notions of urban comfort[...] The barrier tape used to outline the intervention has some apparent qualities in the regards of eroding this urban comfort Borasi describes. It symbolizes that something is different - something is wrong - with the demarcated urban space. Placing the garbage and river bath props in this context also challenges the urban comfort: Why is this placed here, and what is the designers intention? By leaving out the why, we leave the viewer puzzled with a

DISCUSSION

One of the primary goals we had when designing our intervention, was to make it fit into the theme of rethinking Aarhus for ECoC 2017. Because of this we focused on why to intervene before how to intervene. We wanted to understand the context of our space in order to generate what Fuad-Luke [4] calls a counter-narrative: Design activism is design thinking, imagination and practice applied knowingly or unknowingly to create a counter-narrative aimed at generating and balancing positive social, institutional, environmental and/or economic change. We thought of this as a good approach, since it involves generating positive environmental and social change, which fits very well with the design intention we settled at after our preliminary research; using the concept of a river bath by the polluted river as a counter narrative to generate a positive behavioural change towards a less polluted river. But setting up the foundations for a counter-narrative is not enough in itself. After understanding why, we have to look at the tools available to us in order to decide how to intervene - how to grab attention and tell the story. This is where we choose to draw on the literature of using ambiguity as a resource for design [5]. Our second design iteration utilized ambiguity of context, by placing it at a polluted river, but ambiguity of information oppressed the design; since the intervention was not going to take place in

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discomfort that is only settled through reflection and sensemaking. Although our intervention possess this quality of eroding urban comfort, we do not believe that it should be the measurement of what is considered an effective nor successful urban intervention. The notion has a negative tone to it, since it slightly suggests that interventions aim at making people feel uncomfortable, which is not always the case. Looking at e.g. interventions from Volkswagens The Fun Theory [17], it is apparent that these interventions aim at breathing fresh air into the everyday life of people, rather than eroding their comfort zone. Therefore, we believe that a more including notion could be: eroding the established urban norms. Another way to define and evaluate an intervention can be through the goals which it is based on. Zardini [6] discusses Latouche's proposition of basing an intervention on eight goals the eight R's: "Re-evaluate, redefine, restructure, relocate, redistribute, reduce, reuse, and recycle." These goals should be the primary focus in the process of replacing the characteristics of our contemporary world, which in our case rests with the characteristics of overpollution. By focusing on generating reflection to make the citizens re-evaluate the current state of the river, our intervention aims at emphasizing the goal of reducing the amount of bikes and trash thrown into the river. Staying within the spirit of re-doing, we conclude this section with a brief notion of what could have been done different. Ultimately, we could have aimed at a higher level of personification of the trash. For instance, we discussed giving the kid bike inflatable armbands and putting another bike in a bikini, contributing even more to the humorous aspect which we already created through the attention grabbing ambiguity. We also discussed breaking with the static display of our intervention, making it more engaging. Initially we wanted to have the inflatable boat floating in the water with a bike in it, but turned the idea down, since the current in the river made the boat float below the deck, making it unnoticeable from most angles. This compromise between augmenting the experience of the intervention and intervening more people, was also apparent to us, when we discussed making the kid bike use the water slide all the way into the water, having us discreetly pull it with a fishing line from the other side of the river. We decided not to go with this idea to prevent other people from experiencing the overall intervention.

ground up on the foundations of rethinking the nature around us in an urban environment. By knowing why to intervene before how to intervene and by utilizing ambiguity in our design, we were able to intervene in the daily life of the citizens of Aarhus in a meaningful and reflective way. Essential to this was our in depth space analysis, which gave us the insight needed to utilize an ever so important context. Evaluating such a qualitative intervention was a difficult task. Nevertheless, we obtained various valuable data through video recordings and by going undercover, but only time will tell if our intervention possessed the power to actually reduce the pollution of the river. One can only hope.

REFERENCES

[1] Bek, L. Arkitektur som rum og ramme en analysemodel. In Bek, L. & Oxvig, H. (Eds.), Rumanalyser, pp. 24-28, 1997. [2] Borasi, G. City 2.0. In G. Borasi & M. Zardini (Eds.) , Actions: What you can do with the city, pp. 20-25, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2008. [3] Delman, T. F., & Nielsen, R. The AELIA-model Involving Users in Urban Development. U-Drive:IT, Conference for User-Driven Innovation from ICT to other Fields, Aalborg, Denmark, 2009. [4] Fuad-Luke, A. Design Activism - Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World. ISBN-13: 978-1844076451, Earthscan, London, 2009. [5] Gaver, W., Beaver, J., & Benford, S. Ambiguity as a Resource for Design. In CHI '03 Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 2003. [6] Zardini, M. A New Urban Take Over. In G. Borasi & M. Zardini (Eds.), Actions: What you can do with the city, pp. 12-17, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2008.
Internet References

[7] Video of intervention: http://vimeo.com/61551828 [8] Trash in the river: http://jyllandsposten.dk/aarhus/article4609921.ece?page=1 [9] The World's Deepest Bin: http://www.thefuntheory.com/worlds-deepest-bin [10] The Bottle Bank Arcade Machine: http://www.thefuntheory.com/bottle-bank-arcade-machine [11] ECoC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Capital_of_Culture [12] Vision of Aarhus for ECoC 2017: http://www.aarhus2017.dk/english [13] Project ECoC 2017: http://www.aarhus2017.dk/projektet-0

CONCLUSION

We conclude this paper by commenting on a satisfying result. Through a fruitful iterative design process, we were able to melt the essence of several design ideas into one successful intervention. An intervention, that was build

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[14] Visions of Aarhus Municipality for the future of Aarhus River http://www.urbanmediaspace.dk/sites/default/files/pdf/visio n-for-aarhus-aa.pdf [15] Project for exposing Aarhus River: http://www.aarhusportalen.dk/frilaegning_af_aarhus_aa.asp [16] History of Mlleparken: http://aarhuswiki.dk/wiki/M%C3%B8lleparken [17] Volkwagen's The Fun Theory: http://thefuntheory.com/

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