Dietmar Offenhuber
[idioma original: inglês] Dietmar Offenhuber - Loop City - http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~didi/
Entrevista realizada por email por Karla S. Brunet - Outubro 2005
Where/how did you come up with the idea for Loop city? Were you interested in cyclical events, social architecture? Were you stimulated by other collaborative projects?
Dietmar: it is part of an ongoing interest in urban research - i already touched the topic in my previous work - wegzeit, where i made a map based on way descriptions over phone (see residence.aec.at/wegzeit) the disadvantage over other projects is that it was not really a collaborative project, i had to ask for interviews. Similar projects conducted by a group (such as the glowlab etc) can develop more dynamic, thats the advantage.
What are the goals of Loop city? What do you intend with it? Is there a cause behind the project? An ideology?
Dietmar: the utopian goal is a connected (by place) narrative network describing a city. I think it is not enough describing the material parts of the city, a city consists of humans.
Why did you choose to use a collaborative platform on Loop city? I mean that by the interviews people send by the Internet.
Dietmar: I cannot imagine any other way to do it efficiently :)
How to you attract/achieve collaboration? What do you do to captivate people to participate? Events you've participated can be an answer?
Dietmar: workshops, working with students, approaching people "in the field"
How long do you plan to be on the net with Loop city? Is there a fixed time for its duration or not? Any future features to be added? I say that in a way because an active website is time consuming, so do you plan to be involved with the project forever? Project lifetime is something that matters for you? People can always send interviews?
Dietmar: It is still a sketch, I learned from a few mistakes (i.e. never try to get as much as possible from one interview) so I will come up with a new version hopefully by the end of the year. Simpler interviews etc. the level of participation was difficult in Japan because of the language barrier.
