Designa agens
The project is an extension of RE-Café, a grassroots initiative started in 2024 with the aim of bringing life back to an abandoned university café through interventions, participatory workshops, and social events. This project explores how the café can be handed over after a participatory process, with the aim of enabling students and staff to continue caring for and activating the space over time.
For parts of the project, I worked together with my classmate Johanna Mellbourn, whose degree project is also based in the café. At a co-craft workshop in the café, we developed with other students a physical calendar and booking system to make the café easier to book and use. We also organised events in the café, such as Jazzcafé and wood-whittling lunch, to explore how students can develop a sense of belonging to the space.
The project includes spatial publications that invite people to learn about the space and its history. I have also worked with making resources accessible in order to support agency and encourage continued use of the space. The project investigates how design can function as a method for creating sustainable places together with those who use them through placemaking.
These interventions aim to create a sense that the resources belong to the place and have been thoughtfully designed with care—shaped by the needs of its users and developed specifically in relation to the site. Through the speakers, the cup rack, and the publication, the project seeks to make students and staff feel acknowledged in the space by creating clarity and by caring for the additions made to it.