This workshop for young people deals with a range of themes related to urban planning and participation to explore the decisions made in the creation their built environment. By means of a brief presentation, a discussion begins the workshop – exploring how the built environment grows and develops over time within a specific context, and the range of housing types which relate to historical cultures and / or moment. Using this point of reflection to take account of the world heritage site of the Chilote Churches as an example, within a rapidly changing local context of modern development, the question arises of how, why and where we choose to construct buildings and spaces, and what forms of participation we can use to influence these processes.

 

The activity for children to construct, using paper nets which take form into the traditional architecture of the Chilean island of Chiloé, quickly raises a number of questions to be challenged to addressed. Using the paper sheet as an empty space to be occupied with colours, textures, materials, writing, drawing, the skin of the folded structure could express an identity, superimposed on to the resulting familiar three-dimensional form of the Palafito (houses built on stilts over state-owned costal land) or the UNESCO world heritage timber churches. Taking decisions of how and where to locate these structures in the context of lakes and rocky, windswept islands, and establish a relationship with new 'neighbours' of structures built by other participants, stimulates controversial yet important discussions. Ideas about land use ethics, our relationship with fauna and flora and how others choose to define and occupy territory are explored through negotiations and taking actions.