Jose Luis Vallejo will be giving a lecture next week at the ia&l (Institut für Architectur und Landschaft) from the Graz University of Technology. He will also take part in the “Urban Legends” workshop as a guest:

More info:

ia&l website: ial.tugraz.at
A recording of the lecture will be available at e-presence server TU Graz

The CITY KIT hybrid game by Hybrid Space Lab

CITY KIT

CITY KIT is a combined urban-computer game to upgrade your neighborhood. The CITY KIT project was developed for the Hong Kong Social Housing Authority with as a target group young people that are familiar with computer games but hardly play outside.

This hybrid game revolves around city planning and urban redevelopment. CITY KIT turns the residents into the “makers” of the city, providing thus a bridge between the users of the urban environment and the experts – the architects and the urban planners.

The CITY KIT hybrid game by Hybrid Space Lab

Playing the CITY KIT game, the residents can adapt and improve their local physical environment by building a digital version of their neighborhood. Using modular building components that can be moved around and fixed in certain places in the environment, users can build micro-stages, exhibition decks, floating bars and theatres, swimming pools and other recreational facilities that make living in the neighborhood more fun.

The CITY KIT hybrid game by Hybrid Space Lab

CITY_KIT is an open-source medium in which participants can add elements and share their designs. An online platform in the form of a website allows residents to actively take part in the game. All it takes is a simple click of the mouse to interactively test your own virtual version of CITY KIT.

Residents and game users can design their own objects and facilities and can realize their ideas: A ‘real’ object, an analog version of the proposed CITY KIT element, can be built at the chosen location.

On the website, the user can also pinpoint exactly where a digital object should be located in the analogue world. This can be done using a mobile phone.

The CITY KIT hybrid game by Hybrid Space Lab

The goal of CITY KIT is to help you revalue your local surroundings and incorporate the new, imaginative layers created in CITY KIT’s virtual world. Making small modifications to the personal, physical environment in digital space changes the experience of living in the real world.

DIY Pavilion at the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture 2009-2010. Photo by Andy Tam

DIY Pavilion

Outcome of the CITY KIT project was the DIY Pavilion, first presented at the waterfront promenade of Hong Kong within the framework of the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture 2009-2010 and later set up at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre and at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong.

DIY Pavilion at the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture 2009-2010. Photo by Andy Tam

Following the CITY KIT concept, users can co-create their design of the pavilion. The pavilion’s architecture is based on an architectural design principle with a flexible structure that can adapt to site and program requirements, to different content, context and spatial situations. The structure of the pavilion architectural design principle makes it possible to involve the users in the design, building and transformation of the pavilion.

‘Build Your Own Pavilion’ at the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture 2009-2010

The pavilion consists of triangular plywood plates sown together with the help of cable binders. It is a flexible mobile structure to be easily disassembled, transported, reassembled and sown together again, adjusting to the size of the site and the local requirements.

Detail of the DIY Pavilion by Hybrid Space Lab; photo by Andy Tam

Videos on urban issues were projected on the triangular crystalline structure of the pavilion’s interior as the pavilion travelled to the different locations for community education.

Model of the DIY Pavilion by Hybrid Space Lab. Photo by Julian Roeder

SIMPLE CITY

Both projects, CITY KIT as well as the DIY Pavilion, were recently presented within the framework of the SIMPLE CITY installation by Hybrid Space Lab at the MAKK Museum of Applied Arts Cologne from May to August 2012 and at the first issue of plan – Architecture Biennial Cologne (plan – Architektur Biennale Köln in German) in September 2012.

The SIMPLE CITY is an interface for the participative development of urban projects by professionals and laymen. The design of this simulated urban environment can be broken down to simple elements that can be copied and modified by the users of the city.

SIMPLE CITY installation by Hybrid Space Lab at the MAKK Museum of Applied Arts Cologne from May to August 2012. Photo by Hybrid Space Lab

Laymen and city-users by copying, pasting and modifying the basic elements can easily adapt the urban design in order to develop new urban settings.

With its modular setting SIMPLE CITY corresponds to the serially produced, global, generic city (with all the instabilities and breaks). SIMPLE CITY therefore refers to the city of the industrial age that was intrinsically related with the system of serial industrial mass production. The city of the industrial age was serially produced as the addition of generic urban elements. Therefore the model elements of the SIMPLE CITY installation were built with the help of modular building bricks that were sponsored by the Danish company Lego.

SIMPLE CITY installation by Hybrid Space Lab at the plan. Architecture Biennial Cologne, Sept. 2012. Photo by Hybrid Space Lab

SIMPLE CITY is an interface that enables the communication of dynamic and networked information on urban projects. It forms an environment for interactive collaboration and for communication of process-oriented urban and architectural projects. This includes projects on the energy and material cycles of the city, on urban conversion and on networked participatory urban and architectural design, such as the CITY KIT and the DIY Pavilion projects.

Networked Participatory Design Systems Today

The projects described above stand in the long tradition of participatory urban design, in the long tradition of the efforts of inserting the voice of the public into the process of shaping cities. Today these networked participatory design projects, such as CITY KIT, DIY Pavilion and SIMPLE CITY, are part of a general trend and of a paradigm shift.

Networked organizations and systems are today transforming our society in general. With new technologies and digital media currently transforming production and social communication, urban and architectural design is being redefined in a new context.

Participatory urban and architectural design systems are gaining –in the context of a networked society– in relevance. This is a general phenomenon as networked co-operation and open-source are to be found in many contemporary social and cultural expressions.

Current social-political are using social media tools and mobile media networks. Fluctuating networked political forces distrust established political parties and contest the concept of the ‘political expert’, creating independent self-publication channels and demanding ‘direct democracy’.

Networked systems are also transforming knowledge production; think of the Wikipedia, ‘the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit’. Co-operation, co-authorship and open-source are to be found in many contemporary cultural expressions and phenomena, such as, for example, Wikimedia Commons, the free media file repository making available public domain and freely licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone.

Users, aided by improvements in information-communication technology are increasingly developing their own new products and services, ‘democratising’ innovation. These innovating users often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons.

The word “prosumer” is used in this context to describe the type of consumer who becomes involved in the design and manufacturing of products, so they can be made to his individual specification. The word “prosumer” blends the roles of producer and consumer and was first coined in 1980 by the futurist Alvin Toffler in his book “The Third Wave”.

Today the “prosumer” can be engaged in innovation and design as well as in the manufacturing of products that fit his individual specifications and needs. In the last years 3D printing has developed to a low cost technology that everyone can use to produce objects. 3D printing allows industrial production on a desktop scale enabling autonomous production for individuals and designers. This development of object production is enabled by the Internet and by the acceleration of technological developments and open source communities. The digital blue prints of objects are designed in 3D software and can be shared via digital networks. On special Internet platforms people share these open source 3D designs that can be produced via rapid prototyping with 3D printers.

Networked participatory design systems are replacing the logics of the industrial age, where the creative one designed for the non-creative masses. The architects and urban designers focus is shifting from designing objects and spaces to programming processes in interaction with users. The task of ‘designing’ processes for networks of people involved on the development of the urban environment is gaining in relevance. This means a shift from centralized to (distributed) participatory systems with ‘enabling solutions’ that involve users. This includes solutions and platforms that ‘enable’ users to interact, integrating users as participants into development processes of the urban environment – such as the CITY KIT, SIMPLE CITY and the DIY Pavilion.

Originally published at world-architects.com

Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar founded Hybrid Space Lab, a R&D and design practice focusing on the hybrid fields that are emerging through the combination and fusion of environments, objects and services in the information-communication age. The scope of our development and design projects ranges from those on urban games and planning to buildings, architectural interiors and industrial design applications and wearables.

Hybrid Space Lab is an interdisciplinary environment with an innovative and integrated approach to spatial issues. The focus of our work lies in fusing digital and analog environments, in embedding media networks in urban/architectural, social and cultural spaces. Hybrid Space Lab is a lab and a network in which architects, urbanists, landscape architects and environmental planners, designers, soft- and hardware engineers collaborate in the development of projects for combined analog and digital, urban, architectural, design and media spaces.

Hybrid Space Lab recently developed visions for the program of the new institute that will be formed by the merger of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (Nederlands Architectuurinstituut), the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion (Premsela) and the institute responsible for digital culture (Virtueel Platform). For an English text see here.

A los de Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas ya los presentamos aquí el año pasado, así como también su proyecto de Glosario Abierto. Toda su web forma un “observatorio” que trata de reconocer y dar visibilidad a aquellas iniciativas de transferencia de innovación social que ayudan a fortalecer el empoderamiento urbano de la ciudadanía.

Así es como presentan ellos las cuatro áreas que cubre la wiki:

Glosario Abierto para la participación de todos en la definición de los nuevos términos que definen los procesos de innovación social y sus transferencias al espacio público

Agentes un atlas de agentes donde no están todos… en proceso, donde seguir actualizándolo. Pronto será un espacio wiki, donde recopilar, modificar, y actualizar los agents provocateurs que como ciudadanos que buscan la co-responsabilidad para una ciudadanía más abierta que cree en una ciudad más común.

Lugares  donde se producen las transferencias de la innovación social al espacio público y digital.

Iniciativas Ciudadanas  son procesos informales de práctica ciudadana que modifican de forma resiliente y adaptativa el entorno urbano. Son prácticas auto-organizadas, colectivas que trabajan por el empoderamiento urbano de la ciudadanía y desarrollan procesos críticos sobre la ciudad actual. Entendemos a las iniciativas ciudadanas como agentes que promueven la innovación social en los entornos donde operan.

Actualizada de forma colaborativa, la wiki se ha ido convirtiendo en un enorme índice con más de 20 lugares, más de 60 agentes, más de 300 iniciativas y cerca de 70 definiciones en el glosario en la actualidad. Una página de referencia, digna de estar bien arriba en la lista de favoritos, junto a otros repositorios de enlaces o recursos como Spatial Agency o Project for Publis Spaces, con la particularidad de que esta nos resulta mucho más afín y cercana.

Os invitamos a revisarla de arriba a abajo, y por supuesto, a contribuir a aumentar su base de datos con vuestras aportaciones, que precisamente para eso es una wiki.

Más información:

Fuente: Artículo en la web de VIC
VIC en Twitter: @desdevic
VIC en Facebook: VIC ViverodeIniciativasCiudadanas

El pasado día 30 de agosto fue la presentación del curso, el llamado “lottery day” donde todos los estudiantes de la escuela asisten a las presentaciones de los profesores invitados cada cuatrimestre y después eligen su grupo favorito. Esta vez, compitiendo por el favor de los estudiantes, podíamos encontrarnos con estrellas del firmamento arquitectónico de las últimas décadas (Nathalie de Vries de MVRDV, Christian Kerez, Ben van Berkel, …).

Esta es una foto del momento de la presentación del curso #networkedurbanism que nos hizo Blanca Abramek (@tendrebarbare) desde el auditorio:

Finalmente nos eligieron un grupo de estudiantes con perfiles muy distintos e interesantes, una mezcla de arquitectos, landscape architects y planners.

Si queréis estar al tanto de la producción de los estudiantes podéis seguir el curso en el blog del studio www.networkedurbanism.com donde estamos compartiendo enlaces y referencias. En Twitter podéis seguir #networkedurbanism donde estamos compartiendo información permanentemente.

Os dejamos con el brief del curso y la presentación. Enjoy it!

Course Description

The boundary between public and private is shifting. The one between personal and professional is becoming increasingly blurred. This rapid evolution has led us to conceive and experience physical space differently than in the past. Real-time connectivity, ubiquity, unlimited access to large flows of information and knowledge, have also altered the way we relate to and work with each other. However, despite those rapid social and technological changes, city planning processes worldwide remain dull, bureaucratic and insensitive to how humans experience the city.

This studio will bring an alternative to the traditional way of designing cities from a bird’s eye view, and a single designer’s perspective. It will not only examine the physical dimension of the city, but also its social processes and fluxes.

Students will be encouraged to use this data to develop individual and collective initiatives that generate spontaneous transformations and set up conditions for change instead of delivering a completely finished product.

In a connected world, an urban design should be the result of an open and multilayered network of creative designers, technical experts, citizens and stakeholders. The studio will challenge the students to develop designs that reconcile the existing physical conditions—that respond to lifestyles from the past—with the emerging needs of the citizens through network design thinking.

We will also explore the new role of a designer as an activator, mediator and curator of social processes in a networked reality in which citizens have shifted from being passive receivers or consumers to active producers or prosumers.

Main topics will include: communication and information technology, open data, mobility, open source, transparency/mapping, activism, design thinking and environment awareness.

La presentación original consta de una serie de GIFs animados que se reproducen en bucle mientras se explica cada apartado. Aquí, por facilidad de comprensión, hemos puesto cada animación por separado, acompañada del texto correspondiente de la presentación (en inglés).

00 #networkedurbanism
We are presenting our option studio called Networked Urbanism:

01 What?
Urbanism is the mirror where other aspects of society and layers of information reflect. Architects, Sociologists, economists, geographers, seem to be cloistered in their specificconceptual worlds and focus on developing only certain aspects of the problem linked to their interests and profession:

We believe that in today’s connected world, an urban design should be the result of an openand multilayered network of creative designers, technical experts, citizens andstakeholders, combining design with data, needs, inputs. As David Harvey states in his article The Right to the City:

“The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right tochange it after our heart’s desire”

Within this new context, it is necessary to explore the new role of the designer as an activator,mediator and curator of social processes in a networked reality in which citizens haveshifted from being passive receivers or consumers to active producers or prosumers:

In addition, Internet is the “space” where the most successful models of collective creationand self-organization are taking place. Internet is the most democratic space, the platformwhere every citizen can express him/herself freely and horizontally, the space where ideasflow in every direction.This studio will bring an alternative to the traditional way of designing cities from a bird’s eyeview, and a single designer’s perspective. It will, not only examine the physical dimension of the city, but also its social processes.Students will be challenged to develop designs that reconcile the existing physical conditions-that respond to lifestyles from the past- with the emerging needs of the citizens throughnetwork design thinking.

02 How?
In contrast with a more traditional way of teaching in which information goes unidirectionally from ‘knowledge-owners’ to ‘knowledge receivers’. We do apply the concepts of active learning, which focuses the responsibility of learning, on learners; learning by doing, an active constructive learning process, and networked learning, a process of developing and maintaining connections with people, information and communicating in such a way so as to support one another’s learning. The central term in this definition is connections. Connections among students as well as connections between students and information:

We will become a networked group using a studio Twitter network for sharing knowledge,experiences, references and comments throughout the whole process.

This course is for active, curious, versatile, open minded and creative people regardless their previous background, experience or computer skills.

We understand our role as designers is challenging since one has to overcome all kind of obstacles. So we want to make of this studio a training experience.

You could either be a MacGyver type of personality, being able to implement amazing devices from a piece of cardboard, a chip and chewing gum; or a computer geeky updated version of NEO in the movie Matrix, working on his own individually in a room but actively connected to the network community. You are all welcome.

From all the possible /fascinating cities worldwide, we decided to explore the city that surrounds us: Boston.

04 Where?
Students will be encouraged to explore and discover its community, economy, social networks, environmental challenges, digital layer, physical infrastructure, public space, and more. Creating connections and links between existing initiatives and their own projects.

Instead of experiencing just the physical sphere of the city, we will arrange an anthropological tour to meet interesting professionals who are dealing with urban issues in different ways and by different means. This will give us a different perception of Boston, revealing layers which are currently invisible to us.

05 When?
Instead of air-commuting, parachuting and landing every two weeks, we decided to camp this time.
We will be based in Boston to share the experience with you and make the most out of it, so we will be available every week with studio meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There will be both collective and individual sessions.

In addition the group will be real-time connected with Twitter.

06 So what?
Outcomes from our different teaching experiences are diverse: from socially engaged projects working with the community to designing a responsive interactive façade and building a prototype of it. From working with Arduino electronics, to instantly transforming a deprived corner of the city by hand work getting new reactions from people.

From creating a digital interface to enhance community networking to building a mobile kitchen as a catalyst for the activation of a central city square.Spain, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Bahrein, US … different environments and different cultures but always a lot of shared energy and enthusiasm. We are very happy to say that some of these projects developed within the studios grew beyond the academic boundaries becoming professional investigations and businesses:

ecosistema urbano is a Madrid based group of architects and urban designers operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering and sociology. We define our approach as urban social design by which we understand the design of environments, spaces and dynamics in order to improve self-organization of citizens, social interaction within communities and their relationship with the environment. We have used this philosophy to design and implement projects in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France and China.We have a background in architecture and urban design and we build buildings, we organize demonstrations, we design urban strategies, working in both the physical and digital spheres. We are currently exploring new ways of engaging citizens into urban design matters.

DREAM YOUR CITY is our latest project, developed for the city of Hamar in Norway. It was officially presented short before at the opening of the Biennale of Architecture in Venice:

We hope you enjoy it and get some inspiration for the Fall! We are thrilled to be back here at the GSD and we are looking forward to start!

From past August 27th to November 25th, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, titled “Common Ground”, is open to visitors; and so is SpainLab, the Spanish pavilion, in which we were invited to take part for this edition.

The curators Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa proposed us to show the way we work, according to the “lab” approach of the pavilion. We decided to do this with a single project, Dreamhamar, which incorporates many of the concepts, objectives and means that Ecosistema Urbano has been working on and is currently experimenting with: urban development, advocacy, citizen participation, workshops, digital tools, design, open culture, network learning, urban actions, network design…

We understand the role of the architect and urban planner is undergoing a huge transformation according to the new needs of contemporary society. This forces us to redevelop a whole “set of tools” to be able to meet these new needs and challenges. Under the title of DREAM YOUR CITY we explain these new tools or methods we are dealing with and the way we think network design can be applied to socially engaged designs for the creation of city spaces. This 90 seconds movie illustrates how we understand network design and how we specifically implemented it in Hamar or how it could be applied somewhere else.

Video by ecosistema urbano + forma.co

Considering the ephemeral nature of the exhibition, we chose to make it a simple, lightweight installation, consistent with the way we are used to work in this kind of projects: trying to get the most out of minimal resources and low-cost means. Almost all materials needed for the installation were taken to Venice by ourselves, as checked-in luggage.

The paint that covers the floor and the walls, made by urban artists Boamistura, transforms the perception and character of the space with a single intervention, bringing to the hall the look and feel of the previous PaintHamar urban action in Stortorget, the main square of Hamar. The natural light, the seats integrated on the floor and the trampoline all recall that outdoor public space and invite visitors to occupy it with their minds and bodies.

Seven small screens show videos telling different aspects of the network design process we deployed in Hamar, giving the visitor some brief glimpses of the variety and complexity of the project without trying to explain it thoroughly –which will be done soon in a more suitable format.

A series of real-scale pictures of various day-to-day objects that were used during Dreamhamar, some of them being physically on display, show the variety of work/life situations that the team had to cope with while working in this project both remotely from Madrid and locally in Norway. From the more disciplinary tools to objects related to social life or cultural events, they evoke the changing role of the urban professional.

Here are some quick photos we shot during the process, taken from the Flickr gallery.

Esta vez con el tema “Hacking the city” que sigue la filosofía hacker de aprender, intervenir y reescribir el “código” establecido de la ciudad para poder modificar su funcionamiento.  Compartir, lo abierto, lo descentralizado, el libre acceso y la mejora del entorno son principios que complementan el enfoque del urbanismo táctico en la ciudad.

Dirigido a apasionados de las nuevas tecnologías urbanas; practicantes espaciales y culturales de la ciudad; estudiantes, interesados y profesionales de la ciudad; técnicos de entidades locales y asociaciones que quieran innovar en los procesos de participación y acción ciudadana.

La participación de gente como Oscar Martínez @sarok (Trànsit Projectes), Zuloark @zuloark, Nacho Dominguez–Adame @nachetz (radarq), Domenico Di Siena @urbanohumano y Paco Gonzalez @pacogonzalez (radarq) nos hace prever que el taller va a ser uno de los más interesantes que se hayan hecho últimamente sobre este tema. ¡Para no perdérselo!

Temario: Comunidad expandida, Urbanismo emergente, Escenarios de ciudad, Urbanismo Táctico
Horario: del martes 25 al jueves 27 de setiembre de 2012. De 15.30 a 21.30 horas
Inscripciones hasta el 15 de setiembre
Hashtag: #hackcity

Más información, becas y matrícula.

El título del option studio es Urban Social Design II, una continuación del taller que realizamos en 2010, donde exploramos la construcción de un nuevo espacio público aumentado fruto de una nueva relación entre lo físico, el espacio digital y el ámbito social. Los estudiantes trabajarán en el desarrollo de nuevas herramientas que posibiliten una mayor y mejor participación democrática en la vida urbana como una respuesta más eficiente a los nuevos problemas urbanos contemporáneos. Y como caso de estudio… la ciudad de Boston.

A continuación os mostramos uno de los proyectos más interesantes realizados en el Taller que allí realizamos en 2010.

Mike Styczynski -estudiante del GSD Harvard- crea con Actual Air un proyecto híbrido entre instrumento de medición, base de datos y red social. Detectando altos niveles de asma en un barrio de Boston, se plantea profundizar en este fenómeno, sus causas y consecuencias. Para visualizar, registrar y denunciar los alarmantes niveles de contaminación, elige un elemento de uso cotidiano en la ciudad, la bicicleta. Actual Air es un dispositivo plug in que se acopla fácilmente a cualquier rueda de bicicleta, monitorizando la calidad del aire a través de distintos sensores. Un piloto de iluminación LED varía de color en función del grado de contaminación y dicha información recogida en tiempo real, es volcada a una base de datos en la web, mapeando los niveles de contaminación urbana, y visibilizando un problema hasta entonces ignorado. La información, así accesible, es un instrumento al servicio de la comunidad para potenciar la controversia.

Por acción o por omisión, cualquier iniciativa ciudadana tiene significado político. El geógrafo y teórico social David Harvey habla de la necesidad de acostumbrarnos al conflicto continuo que promueva el consenso para generar entornos urbanos saludables. Por ello, debemos percibir como positivas las iniciativas de carácter reivindicativo que activando a los ciudadanos generan ese clima de debate.

Mike ha continuado con el desarrollo de su proyecto más allá de GSD, lo cual responde a la actitud proactiva que intentamos potenciar en los estudiantes, con el desarrollo de nuevas herramientas que les capaciten y conecten con nuevas posibilidades de desarrollo profesional.

Estamos entusiasmados con esta nueva etapa en Harvard. Y si estás por Boston el próximo otoño, ¡te esperamos en el GSD!

Página oficial de Harvard GSD
Si quieres saber más sobre el proyecto: ActualAir.org o en Facebook
Fotos cortesía de Mike Styczynski

El taller no sólo busca dirigirse a arquitectos o urbanistas si no sobre todo a cualquier ciudadano interesado en la participación activa (bottom up) como forma cambio, relectura y desarrollo de su ciudad.

La ciudad, el lugar donde vive más del 85% de la población en los países desarrollados, ha pasado de ser la receptora de las crisis a ser su generadora, hecho que se percibe fácilmente observando cómo se ha producido el crecimiento urbano de los últimos 30 años.

Sólo es posible afrontar un futuro de ciudad sostenible si la ciudadanía actúa colectivamente. Y ello pasa porque los ciudadanos aprendan a diseñar cómo organizarse e intercambiar experiencias, por la apropiación de espacios de intercambio de conocimiento que, con tiempo y trabajo, produzcan innovación y acción social en la ciudad.

Os dejamos el vídeo de presentación:

El equipo de facilitadores estará formado por Paco González (@pacogonzalez), Nacho Domínguez-Adame (@nachetz), Oscar Martínez (@sarok), Enric Senabre (@esenabre) y Ethel Baraona (@ethel_baraona).

Fechas: Del 12 al 15 de Marzo. Inscripción hasta el 5 de marzo.
Ubicación: Sede Tecnológica de la UNIA, Málaga
Más información: web de la UNIA
BeCity: becity.info

Following our last week’s post on Place au Changement, and still in the frame of our placemaking series, we were curious to meet with collectif etc. From the other side of the Pyrenees, we managed to contact them on their Détour de France, so they could share some impressions about their experience in Saint-Etienne, and ideas about placemaking.

placemaking | Collectif etc from ecosistemaurbano on Vimeo.

The Détour de France

Since October 2011, collectif etc has started a Détour de France, a trip around France to meet different makers of the city – inhabitants, associations, professionals, institutions – who seek for alternative ways and models of generating the urban fabric.

“The making of the city formerly follows complex and vertical processes, according to a hierarchy often excluding the population concerned. Public urban projects tend to remain in the professional field of architects, consultants and clients (often local or national administrations) and to generate isolated solutions from the community’s real needs.
In response to this gap, new participatory processes are emerging in various cities in France, aiming to involve the population in building their own living environment. We are off to meet the actors behind these initiatives, and work with them in the social making of the city.”

The itinerary was initially based on the collective’s established contacts, yet it remains flexible to any potential opportunity along the way. Until august 2012, Collectif etc will be pedaling, meeting, sharing, creating, building, tinkering and designing, adding the preferred co- prefix according to the different people they encounter on the way.

Two objectives in mind:
1. make a census and build a network of the different actors involved in a social making of the city
2. collaborate with them along the trip on interventions in public space

For french speaking readers, you can follow their progression on their blog, and we recommend you read the full description of the project here.

Active since September 2009, Collectif etc is a combination of sparking energy, innovative dynamics, social engagement, creative experimentation and human interactions. Their practice materialises in various forms - built structures, ephemeral interventions, urban furniture, workshops and debates –  where the common key is about generating a process, and building a community. Their projects take root in the existing climates of exchange and creation, grow from collective action and intelligence, and catalyse the existing dynamics of the community into the design of their living environment.

In short, a breath of fresh air in the scope of city related professionals. You can be sure to here from them again.

Place au Changement is a co-constructed square and a placemaking process conducted by collectif etc, to create the Giant’s square, a self-managed temporary public space in Saint-Etienne.

Saint Etienne, Châteaucreux. Since 2008, the district entered a long-term process of urban transformation, a process of destruction, reconstruction, renovation, a process where different mutation stages and time-spaces side and cohabit, often leaving voids pending for weeks, months, sometimes years. And why not include these urban gaps in the process? Why not take advantage of change to colonize rather than procastrinate? Such were the questions carried out by the EPASE (Etablissement Public d’Aménagement de Saint Etienne) when announcing the competition “Défrichez-la” – literally suggesting “Clear it” – to temporarily occupy plot 58, at the crossroads of Ferdinand and Cugnot streets.

Place au changement was collectif etc’s response, to design both a square and a participation process. The name itself plays on two layered meanings: the square Of change and the process to Give way to change. The first intention, to reflect the on-going mutations in the neighborhood and remind the square’s temporary condition, was to design the square as a transitional step of its future outcome: on the ground, the imaginary plan of a future apartments building meant to replace plot 58, and on the surrounding wall, its corresponding section. And second, to design a process involving the citizens both in building the proper square and its identity as a public space.

“Make yourself a square !”. The familiar DIY tag line came out as a call for participation while launching the communication warm-up strategy, first step to pave the way for the upcoming event. Following their success in March 2011, collectif etc, along with two graphists - Bérangère Magaud and Léatitia Cordier - initiated the process by making public presentations of the project in local council assemblies, organizing meetings with the concerned political actors, contacting local associations, social centers and foster cares, negotiating with different city services the maintenance of the building site and its subsequent public space, and opening a blog to keep daily track of the project’s evolution, in order to spread the news in the greatest number of circles.

On 14 July, the building site opened to public participation. To involve the local inhabitants in the construction process, the work was organised in three thematic workshops, aiming to target people according to their own field of interest, capacities and knowledge.

The wall painting workshop, to dress the painted cross-section and bordering fronts with real scale drawings of daily objects, mainly involved the children of the Soleil and Cret de Roch neighborhood houses. The nationally renown street-artists Ella & Pitr also made a punctual intervention to paint the huge Giant, which later inspired the square’s actual name, and allowed to arouse national interest and local pride, while valuing the children’s work alongside.

The gardening workshop, to design and plant the green spaces of the square, spontaneously involved neighbors in the long-term. People voluntarily brought plants and tools from their own homes, and shared their knowledge, from which the collective had usually a lot to learn. On the last day, the group built a shelter to keep the tools and a 1000L water tank which was agreed to be regularly filled by the local city service.

The carpentry workshop, to make the square’s framework and furniture, involved any handy volunteer in the construction of the preconceived designs. A member of the collective along with a neighbor who was spontaneously designated foreman by the team, were in charge of driving and supervising the workshop, and helping people with the tools at the participants’ disposal.

Place au Changement proposed to use not only the building site as a public space, but also the building period to schedule on-site events. A building site is an event as such : closed streets, constant noise, and permanent activity. Yet, whereas we tend to call it nuisance, Place au Changement’s constant occupation was other: free and collective meals, tournaments, concerts, activities, performances, meetings…

During three weeks, what was formerly a wasteland became a daily attraction. Every Fridays announced a collective dinner, prepared by the women of the Dames de Côte-Chaude ONG, which gathered up to 80 people around a couscous, tajine and paella. Saturday nights held open concerts, which drew a miscellaneous public around improvised barbecues and cheap drinks.

Sundays gave out out-door movie projections, that welcomed students of the Gobelins to release their own short films. Associations such as Feedback association, who coordinated a circus introduction workshop, and El Caminito who offered tango lessons, made punctual on-site interventions to incite more people to join the process.

Two round-table discussions around the citizen as an actor of public space were also held, as times of reflection and debate with local associations, authorities and professionals, aiming to claim for a more horizontal cooperation and direct communication between the citizens, actors and administrations in projects of urban and public nature.

On 1 August, the construction site ended in a closing event, marking a new step in the process, the opening of a public space in the neighborhood. To promote the citizens’ involvement, the most active participants had their name carved on a pole on-site, a poster was put up to explain the process, again naming all the stakeholders, and a booklet summarizing the project and three weeks of building and lucrative site was given out to the public. A public vote by show of hands, undertaken by the citizens, renamed the space Giant’s square, after Ella & Pitr‘s huge painting on the bordering wall.

The day ended by a closing concert and jam session, and a silent commitment not to lose what had been raised during the past weeks. For beyond an architectural design and a square, Place au Changement built a self-managed community, and stirred up an activity of spontaneous uses – to be continued.