When does the stop appear?

Kids think deeply. To skim sensitively the surface of their brilliant ideas is the half of the process our Architecture [kids] fund volunteers need to perform in order to create something special. This time we’d like to share some experiences of conceptual and practical tribute of young people for their village community in Visakio Ruda. It is already common for the Travelling Architecture Workshop to search for places and spaces that need to be tamed so on August 10-13 volunteers of our non-commercial educational project visited this small Suvalkija village. Together with local youth and kids we analyzed the built environment and made some projects using easy accessible materials and converting them into useful items.

In the evening of August 10, our little green van was greeted not only by village community chairman and the Church Pastor, but also by big rainy clouds that probably had scared kids away. However, all the upcoming days were much better weather-wise so we had a possibility to work to full extent.

Although the first workshop morning was pretty chilly, curiously gathering kids cheered us up. We divided kids into two groups with two different tasks: to analyze built environment of the village from the perspective of incoming and outgoing. ThT is how we had touched a significant urban element of the village  - the bus stop. While glancing at the road kids were thinking through the meaning and the purpose of the stop so we started to ask a bit rhetorical questions to each other like “when does the stop really appears – when you put a sign or when people tread down the grass of the roadside while waiting?”

Such reflections have led to increased focus on two interesting objects: strongly expressed bus stop with a modernist pavilion and the ‘invisible’ stop – the treaded down roadside marked by waiters. We had called the latter a ‘park stop’ as many elderly people would stand here under the trees to wait for a bus instead of going pretty far to a real one, the one which was better equipped but lacked of cosiness and tidiness. Thus the two stops joint project was born.

Children did not forget their playground as well, which at the time seemed to be “tired” and faded. It was decided to revive it, and to combine all the spaces using colors and some new parts as bins and bicycle stands. After completing the design process, we picked up all the old gutters and took a look at the recyclable wood the Pastor had had and then kids spilled in the village with paintbrushes in their hands. They had colored parts of newborn objects such as bins, benches, etc.

During the final discussion of the project participant shared their experiences and claimed they were going to miss the hustle and bustle of the workshop weekend. Kids had promised to take care of their environment so our volunteers couldn’t stop smiling as the main goal had been achieved. As a thank-you gift our TAW volunteers constructed swings they hadn’t time to build during the workshop. This is how, already in the darkness after official presentation, there were swings hanged on for diligent, cheerful and creative kids of Visakio Ruda. Thank you all, you were great!

Višakio Rūda (Kazlų Rūda municipality, District of Marijampolė),

August 10-13, 2013

RESULT: Adopted bus stop: the space was arranged, the bench was colored, some additional seating, bins and bicycle racks were designed, a game on the sidewalk was painted. An ‘invisible’ stop was created with a new bench, a bin and a seating on the old demolished base. A playground was updated: stand for basketball and volleyball were colored, a game platform was cleaned up, a broken bench was fixed, bins and bicycle racks were designed.

VOLUNTEERS: Birutė Petruškaitė, Karolina Štreimikytė, Linas Kazlauskas, Margarita Kaučikaitė, Norbert Tukaj.


IN-PLACE COORDINATOR: Loreta Matusevičienė.


WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS: Asta, Viktorija, Miglė, Silvija, Samantas, Deividas, Deivydas, Augustas, Džiugas, Silvija, Rūta, Rūta, Karolis, Laimis, Erika, Justė, Brigita, Roberta, Emilija, Gintarė, Ernestas, Augustina, Tomas.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jankai Day Center, people of Visakio Ruda. 

Travelling Architecture Workshop - the first large-scale project by Architecture [Children] Fund, which took place in 2013 during the summer holidays. It aims to draw children and village residents attention to the everyday human environment. The project seeks to demonstrate that to take care of the public environment and to foster real changes could be done without a lot of material and human resources.

Architecture [Children] Fund is a volunteering based initiative that develops and implements educational programs for children and youth about architecture and living enviroment.