Urban Climbing for Higher Education

Urban climbing is a group activity, participants engage with architectural
features and street furniture creating a change in perspective and a
sense of multiple possible modes of engagement with the built environment.
Experienced urban climbers Kate Rich and Lottie Child * propose urban
climbing as tutorial*, a platform for investigation, analysis and
discussion - a unique pedagogical format for integrating intellectual and
physical engagement with architecture.
Activities take place no more than a few meters off the ground, no equipment
is used and only the most basic level of physical ability is needed, the
climb is scaled to the ability of the individual participants.
During a climb a group dynamic is created where the practical dynamics of
the team-building exercise are combined with the particpatory structure of the tutorial.
Intimate and expansive understandings of the built envirnment are
produced.

EXPERIENCE
2002 / Rotterdam / climbing public sculpture
2004 Copenhagen, Monument, Urban Climbing Event
2004 Stockholm, Urban Climbing Tutorial
2004 RISK London, Urban Climbing event

Detail
Tour de Fence Bristol 2002
An interrogative tour of Bristol fences, examining the craft and placement of
contemporary fencing via developing methadology for climbing them.
Participants included representatives of cultural/media
collectives Twenteenthcentury, Mute Magazine, Cube Cinema, Bureau of Inverse
Technology, Irational.org http://irational.org/fence∞

Monument 2004
Copenhagen one day climbing survey of public sculpture in Central
Copenhagen, part of Monument public art exhibition.
http://www.mapbureau.com/usersites/lottie/copenhagen∞

Social Climbing Rotterdam 2004
Outdoor and vertical tutorials conducted via climbing on public sculpture with
MA Media Design students and staff. This programme was developed as part of a 3
month research fellowship at Piet Zwart Institute for Postgraduate Studies and
Research, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam
http://www.bureauit.org/data/social/climbing/rotterdam∞

Urban Climbing Tutorial 2004
Stockholm, tutorial taking in Stockholm's high up places with students
from the Royal College of Art, part of a talk on the University of Openness
one of a series of events on self organised educational models.

RISK 2004
London, group investigation into the built infrastructure of the City
of London in terms of its potential for play, part of research residency
with the Camden Arts Centre.

CV
Lottie Child http://malinky.org/wikka.php?wakka=LottieChildCv∞

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