The Intimate City hosts Dining in the Urban, a design competition that offers the opportunity to explore domestic rituals in Skopje's public realm. The brief uses the knowledge gained from domestic rituals to expose the current social and physical forms, unveiling the boundaries between the public, communal, and private within the city. Aiming to reveal social and physical latency the brief is an experiment that acknowledges form as a social commitment in order to mediate the tension in the city.

Skopje is full of tension, the city of has had many contradictory images over the last century the most recent make over is Skopje 2014: a government plan to rebrand the city through neo-classical facades and monuments. Alongside influential organisations, individuals try to implant their image within the built environment to generate a sense of place. From monumental facades to small everyday appropriations within the public space; the city is a collection of narratives, translated through form, claiming authorship over space.The brief asks for an intervention within Mother Teresa Park, Skopje, to invite the public to dine in the urban. Through dining, we can explore ingredients from the local landscape, food preparation, and social gatherings - revealing cultural knowledge.

Competition aims:

1. Create awareness of common groundThis brief requires domestic rituals to be integrated into the public realm. Exploring the jump between habit and inhabitation through an engagement with a wider context. When we interact with our context our habits may not fit perfectly; through restriction, of context, we are challenged and become aware of our social and physical environment, creating knowledge through inhabitation.

2. Interrogate the boundaries of public - communal - private.The brief utilise the knowledge gained from domestic rituals to expose the current social and physical forms in the Skopje. Aiming to interrogate the boundaries between the public, communal, and private spaces in the city, allowing the interventions in the city to reveal social and physical latency.

3. Embrace diversity of knowledge and interpretationThrough an understanding that nothing is absolute and promoting the unfinished. The competition aims to explore, reflect and investigate through collaboration; with the ultimate goal to grow social and cultural knowledge through architectural interventions.

Download the information related to this competition here.