The knitting Society

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April 19, 2018 by Liat

Idea: The problems that we found when researching and doing personas were a few that we could relate to. Since we all live in a foreign country feeling misunderstood and not feeling at home were something close to our hearts.

What is something that could make the tenants share their culture and feel at home? And that’s when we came up with knitting. Often related to grand mothers however is used in many different ways and turned modern thanks to the discovery of new materials. Everyone has some sort of ancient knitting from their own country and it was something that everyone had in common. It is relatively easy to learn and there are people that will come in and teach a group that then teach others and so on. Its also an activity that doesn’t require a lot of machines and products around, two things, yarn and needle.

Almost all of the struggles led us to one thing which is one of the biggest struggles in the world and its money. We constantly came back to the issue of money would x it. That led us to our questions:

“How can we bring people together whilst still making a pro t for the building and the individual tenants?” “How can we generate money through activities in bene t for the people?”

Now how could we solve the other struggle with money? Easy! Traditional handicraft knits can be made in to not only clothes but interior, kitchen utensils, accessories and much more. Which the people then will be able to sell on the markets, to friends, family or on the internet. We want to create job opportunities for the population in viale bligny. Our project will eventually enable families to earn a proper income, pay for their children’s education and in time become more integrated into society. It’s a way to share different cultures through a social activity. Feeling a sense of importance and making a living for individuals is what we want to emphasize with our project. Through this way people can see how knitting is not only a hobby but also a way to make a living through a cultural activity.

Function: To begin with having educated people come in for a week and really teach the tenants that further on can teach others. There will be 4 people rotating in a schedule being in charge of the keys. The space is open for two classes a day and on sundays there is a free zone where people can gather and drop in as they please. Every month a list will be published where people sign up for the upcoming lessons. Each lesson will be around 3 hours and cost roughly 2 euros and includes all the tools you will need to start knitting. There are discount cards that will give you the possibility to attend 10 times which will be available at a discounted price. The classes includes of one to two teachers and up to 15 students. You are more than welcome to bring your own yarn and needles as you please. That’s how we started in the beginning. Sharing different techniques and yarns will make a nice and personal touch for the outcome both socially and for the products.

Marketing: We want to market our knitting society with pop-up workshop around the city, showing up on the saturday market and doing collaborations with other knitting cafés. People will get together and have stands in the different markets around Milan. There are of course a way to sell products on the internet through various websites which is mostly for free. Knitting for charity is something that would be a cherishing project in order to help people in need or people laying in the hospital that are sick. Having exhibitions of knitting art pieces around the city or in “spazio nour” could be a nice way to auction the pieces or market the society. The list goes on of what the knitting society could do.

How do we get people that are not interested to go? I think an important factor in our project is that we are trying to give people the respon- sibility and possibility to make money. However it’s completely up to the individual and they have the power in their own hands to follow through and work. We think this will be one of the things that might attract or discard people. It is up to the tenants how much or how little they would like to put in to their “projects”. There is also different parts of the knitting society which allows a various groups of people to join the society. Everything from knitting for charity, personal “business”, socializing or out of pure love.

Form: When we were able to go and visit the space and we envisioned it to be large than it actually was. Since there is only one source of natural light we really had to treasure that and work around it. Dividing it into small areas with fabrics knitted around as a sort of divider made the project even more clear. Here we want to create a space where people can ourish in creativity.

Our Knitting society is about cultural diversity, social activity, making money and it’s for everyone.