Lilly Ellen Dormeier
Being together in public interiors
Richard Senneth wrote in his essay “The Open City” from 2006 ‘(…)the problem of citizen participation is how people can feel connected to others, when, necessarily, they cannot know them’.
My degree project “Beisammensein”, the German word for ‘togetherness’, questions our contemporary ways of living next to each other.
It explores the questions of how spatial design can let us feel connected, when essentially, we are living in a ‘connected, yet disconnected’ world.
Drawing from reflections on shared presence, the project translates these explorations into the familiar spatial setting of the public interior of a café. Through a reimagined spatial arrangement centered around a community table, it explores how spatial design can foster meaningful interaction without obligation, creating a better “Beisammensein”, shaped through directed presence and a renewed sense of proximity.
It takes the human body as the scale and the human presence as the point of departure.
