Taking back the city: Self-initiated practices

2018

In the contemporary city, the forms of re-appropriation of degraded and abandoned urban spaces by citizens have profoundly changed. Usual antagonistic forms of citizens' self-organisation have been increasingly replaced by new forms of interaction between citizens and institutions. These have arisen great enthusiasm as innovative urban policies that seem to open up the possibility of recovering abandoned urban spaces, which was unthinkable in the logic of top-down or dialogic approaches. In many cases their transformative potential was taken for granted, and has not been explored the possibility that such policies become means of control and injustice, and spaces where 'citizens' are used to offset the disappearance of opportunities for urban democracy and social support through the welfare state. Assuming the program of Apulia Region "Urban Laboratories: old buildings for young ideas" as case study, our paper reflects on the ability of these interactive forms ...

2014

Dimensions

This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free...

2012

During the past few years, Human Cities as a project and as a network, has aspired to come to terms with the gap between the practice and the theory of urban issues. This online publication is no exception; it is rooted in actions initiated by the civil society to reclaim public space. It continues its way along academic and professional thoughts about this phenomenon and we hope it will enlighten and empower all kinds of people working with public spaces. It is an attempt to describe, analyse, evaluate and disseminate initiatives started by citizens, in order to foster imagination, creativity, collective experiments and criticism in contemporary cities. Indeed, as the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey put it, we strongly believe that researchers “must accept reality as they found it and try to shape it toward positive social goals, not stand aside in self-righteous isolation.” This publication shows many aspects and viewpoints of public spaces. It allows different profiles to meet in the same book and by this expands the field of discussion, as well as refines the attitudes towards the subject.

Back to the Sense of the City: International Monograph / International Conference Virtual City and Territory - 11th Congress Virtual City and Territory, Krakow, 6-8 July 2016, 2015

The concept of adaptation currently seems to best embody the specific nature of contemporary transformations of urban structures within the context of concurrent changes generally taking place in civilization, economics, and society. Cities since their very beginnings have adapted and transformed their structures to the current needs and conditions of every era. Today however it is difficult to conceive of broad, all-inclusive improvement projects: the focus has shifted in the direction of creating strategies, laying out goals and their means of achievement, and then the flexible adaptation of said means to the dynamically changing conditions of cities. In the transformations of today's Western cities the voice of urban residents has become louder and louder over the years, and the practice of participation has been known for decades. This issue has only recently become publicized in Poland. The author of this article would like also to bring attention however to other types of citizen participation in the transformation of public spaces, a kind of micro-adaptation, actions by which people spontaneously on their own initiative have always adapted to and adapt to the space that surrounds them. The following article discusses selected Polish and foreign examples of grassroots movements in the process of the " production " and adaptation of urban space 1 , in addition to diverse ephemera: spatial events initiated by bottom-up community users of public urban space. The author's contention is that in today's intensely expanding urban structures, which often tend to lose their human scale, an important aspect of the development of public space will not only be the voice of users, but also bottom-up micro adaptations and often temporary social-space interventions whose growth are a sign of our times.

JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM, 2014

Contemporary living is increasingly marked by different kinds of associationisms, collective but not necessarily longlasting actions, and either little or very determined communalities. This article will discuss forms of living that reject individualism and shy away from communities. Indistinct forms, based on living “side by side, walking in step” which Bauman (2002) described as “a desperate need for networking”; and Sennett (2008) said was “the force of wandering emotions shifting erratically from one target to another”. Characterised by values such as ecology, frugality, reciprocity and solidarity. We believe that the key issue is to understand whether these forms are capable, as they say they are, of metaphorically rebuilding the city. In other words, can they implement a different concept of urbanity and public space by adopting the role played in late capitalist cities by conflict, rationality, functionalism, and the market. To tackle the problem we must first understand how ...

Elke Krasny, Theresa Dillon and Rosario Talevi, Acts and Activities: Care, Repair and Recuperation.’In Make City. Stadt Anders Machen. A Compendium of Urban Alternatives, Berlin: Jovis , 2019

With contemporary urban development primarily driven by fast-paced growth and innovation imperatives there is also a pressing need to engage with longer-lasting dynamics, such as maintenance, repair, recuperation and care, in the production and reproduction of space. In this two-part interview, an epilogue to the public conversation "After the revolution, who's going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?" 1 held during Make City Festival 2018, architect Rosario Talevi talks to urban researcher Elke Krasny and artist Teresa Dillon. They discuss the potential of architects and urbanists to act as caretakers in the ongoing recuperation of climate and communities.

2021

Urban scholars and policy-makers are still searching for innovative models that can allow symmetrical cooperation and partnerships between citizens, institutions and public authorities. In this book one can nd several approaches as how to grow coalitions, sometimes not more that rst steps in the right direction, others are more structured processes backed with nancial structures. This article explores possible models that allow for that active civic cooperation to be tranformed into sustainable collaborations. DESIGNING TOGETHER The creation and management of public spaces should go beyond consultation: people should not only be heard but also be allowed to co-create urban spaces. But how can citizens identify themselves with their city if they are alienated from its development and management? As previous chapters showed, an inclusive city starts with designing and developing from diversity. Including citizens in the city development process fosters a sense of belonging and a sense of ownership. Belongingness is key if we want citizens to care for their city the way they care for what they nd important in their daily lives.

Brazil’s recent political, social and moral crisis has shaken the country’s democracy and affected its citizens’ belief and trust in the decision-making processes that impact their lives and cities. At the same time, a recent phenomenon happening in many cities around Brazil, and particularly in Brasilia, has given rise to new forms of citizenship. It has been through the reclaiming of public spaces, for social, cultural, economic or environmental purposes that social movements, community organizations and cultural producers have been creating new spaces and new means for action, experimenting with different collective forms of democratic governance and communal decision-making. By appropriating, transforming and/or reclaiming public spaces for mutual benefit, different actors are engaging in the social practice of commoning, reclaiming their right to the city and redefining citizenship. In this context, this project proposes to leverage the existing initiatives by visualizing, translating, interpreting and representing them in what Teddy Cruz calls ‘tactics of translation’. Under these circumstances, this design proposal is a strategy for the democratic governance of public space. Through different scales, it is meant to reveal and connect the existing practices in order to coordinate and synergize their efforts; it translates and shares the found protocols to amplify and replicate these initiatives; it leverages the existing spaces of collective action as legitimate grounds for decision-making; and, finally, it provides means for a more inclusive and plural governance of public space. Reimagining public space and its governance is inseparable from reinventing the scope of democratic participation and control over our living context. These strategies are meant to gather voices and envision possible futures for Brasilia, designed by and for its inhabitants. It also encourages people to use public space and start caring for, reflecting on and demanding urban and social changes.