Survey of the Field

There are several organizations that I know of that work within the realm of studying and building in public space. Most of these are architecture and urban design firms, including, of course, Ecosistema Urbano, as well as Paisaje Transversal, ZuloArk, Todo Por La Praxis, Pez Estudio and Basurama. I would also like to mention the emerging collective called Casa Antillon, whose projects bridge the gap between art and architecture. They understand that space is not only something that is designed by architects, but also being constantly shaped and redefined by its users. They want to leave a space open for this evolution to occur, focusing on hosting events and art exhibitions that let the public interact with their work. One of their projects, titled Eden, was held in Casa de Campo, a large park in Madrid. It consisted of installations created by several young artists and was conceived by the group as a `contemporary architecture project.´ The pieces were spread around the park, and visitors had to find them using Google Maps, forming a kind of spontaneous urban intervention.

The 2008 economic crisis and the following series of protests has made the city a fertile ground for social, and urban, change. The Right to the City movement has caught on in a tangible way here, with the technique of participatory urbanism being implemented by more architects/urban planners/designers than I have seen in many other cities. Firms such as Paisaje Transversal and Ecosistema Urbano involve the community in all of their projects, hosting meetings and using tools such as games and diagrams to allow citizens to easily participate in the decision making process. For the current project taking shape in Baranquilla, Colombia, Ecosistema Urbano used interactive diagrams and models for the park, so the community could move pieces around to indicate what features they wanted. They also submitted notes indicating what they wanted Ecoparque to be for their community, which Ecosistema Urbano is taking account of in their design process.

This citizen driven form of participatory urbanism is also evident in several physical spaces within the city, such as Campo de la Cebada in La Latina, which has been active since 2010. All of the physical components of the space were designed and built by citizens, benches, bleachers, and even a geodesic dome were constructed by volunteers out of recycled materials. It functions as a community space, hosting all kinds of events and activities hosted by different local groups. In 2012, Basurama started a project called Autobarrios San Cristobal, in which they helped to design and build a community gathering space in a previously abandoned area for an underserved neighborhood in Madrid.

In this day and age, online networks and communities must also be considered as an integral part of citizen driven participatory urbanism. The Red de Los Huertos Urbanos de Madrid is a network of urban agriculture groups, utilized by them to share resources and information about events. It also serves to connect and involve other citizens to their movement. Paisaje Tetuan is another project based in the neighborhood of Tetuan, consisting of a series of urban interventions meant to activate unused spaces and create a sense of community in the area.

All of these groups are doing very exciting and innovative projects, but I would also like to acknowledge in this post some of the discrepancies between intention and reality. For example, as part of Paisaje Tetuan, the architect collectives PKMN and Taller de Casquería created a structure for people to climb on out of recycled concrete tubes, placed in an empty parcel of land in the neighborhood. This project was controversial because this structure seemed to attract certain kinds of negative behaviors. The neighborhood association complained to the city with concerns for security, because the tubes became filled with graffiti, broken glass, and trash. This just goes to show that certain problems cannot be solved through design alone, and that visibility and enclosed spaces can be important issues. During my time here I would like to visit different sites and find out what is really happening on the ground.