BRANDTILST

In spring 2001, we handed in our proposal for the competition ‘The New Suburb’. Our proposal was created in collaboration with architects Lars Jensen and Johannes Pedersen. The proposal was named [brandTILST], referring to a large suburban area outside Aarhus, Denmark.

The proposal addressed a number of issues in the perception of the suburbs and the role of urban planners in contemporary planning processes. [brandTILST] illustrated how trends and conflicts on several levels and scales and with a multitude of participants and actors creates new potentials and relationships by transforming the intrinsic energies of the conflict into concrete proposals and priorities. The idea was to bring the static and hierarchical layers in the planning process together by introducing a navigation tool: A new dynamic tool that could illustrate the suburban stakeholders and activities across scales. The navigation tool was, in other words, a method that allowed for different interpretations and translations of suburban activities and consequently strengthened the basis for formulating new objectives.

The project was in line with contemporary urban theory and a suggestion on how to create a tool to operationalize urban theory through a 'neo-pragmatic optic'. The aim was to create a dynamic tool for planners, politicians and users to be used in their efforts to reach common visions for the new suburb. The proposed "product" was not a plan, but a sketch for a tool that aimed to produce many plans.