Anthropological Methods of Decoding The Urban Context

"Our projects would be better adapted to local architectural urban contexts if the questions we asked ourselves and those we design for were the following: What do we know about this site? What does life look like in this space? How do different user categories want to live here? What kind of future do they want for their community? What are the current problems and how could we solve them? What connections exist to the past of the site? What value can we bring for citizens/society/vulnerable groups/city halls/companies/creative start-ups?
The aim of this article is to discover together how methods inspired by anthropology can contribute to a better understanding of sites and of the specific contexts they are embedded in – whether this concerns a broader understanding of the behaviours of space users or of the wider social, cultural, political and historical context."