In public space we trust
The 5th IABR: Making City is therefore issuing a call to all involved – administrators, policymakers, politicians, entrepreneurs, designers and citizens: If making city is what we have to do, we must really go about it differently, by building strong alliances, by formulating an urban agenda, and by putting design first
Citybooks presents nice city portraits in the shape of photos, texts and videos. The projects aims at telling both the beauty and humanity of little cities around the world through the sensitivity of artists. Ostend, Utrecht, Grahamstown and Tbilisi are the first cities to discover.
MakerLab is a place to create, share and try out own ideas to re-shape the city. The amazing Berlin-based interdisciplinary group brought to Public Design Festival 2011 its tools, technology and experience and invited people to hack Milan. If you want to know more about MakerLab check their website. And on shareable.net an interesting post about how everything began.
My Green City is an interesting catalogue of inspiring ideas for a sustainable and more responsible way of conceiving the urban environment and bringing nature back to our cities: from urban farming initiatives, guerilla gardening, and architectural visions, to furniture, products, and other everyday objects that use plants in a functional or aesthetic way.
And turning over the pages, there are two Public Design Festival’s designers of the previous editions: Arabeschi di Latte and Marieke van der Bruggen with her Public Pie.
Sehen lernen
Sehen lernen (Seeing and Learning) is the campaign that from August 2008 to October 2010 coloured public spaces with light mobile wooden structures. The Sehnstation (Viewing station), an open-air staircase with a huge frame and ten coloured Fenster (Viewing frames) toured different cities of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany with the aims of educating people’s visual perception and activating people’s partecipation in shaping their own environment.
In several cities a sound collage, continuously audible in the Sehnstation, presented both information on the city and opinions voiced by passers-by and local experts. Everywhere universities, cultural associations, institutions scheduled guided tours and public talks.
To learn more: www.sehenlernen.nrw.de
the REAL estate
Located in the city of Bat-Yam (Israel), the REAL estate offers a new typology for public space that examines the boundaries between public and private domains in the urban landscape: it’s an unusual park that allows intimate/private human activities thanks to little cut-out wood-niches.
If you like Zaragoza’s project, have a look at esta es una plaza. In December 2008, esterni was invited by [ecosistema urbano] to present a 5-days workshop in order to transform a vacant lot of Lavapies in Madrid (Spain) into a public space, that still exists and lives: the second anniversary was just celebrated with cakes and smiles.
In the city centre of Zaragoza (Spain) 32.000 m2 of vacant lots have been turned into new public spaces, that generate life and support various activities. Thanks to estonoesunsolar, a project by the architects Patrizia di Monte and Ignacio Gravalos Lacambra.
Storm water pipes installation by urfun lab
Indian based architects and designers Urfun Lab Surat have realized a recent installation in Surat (India) that involves a construction of storm water pipes transforming them into a public art device.
Both a catalogue and a catalyst for design resourcefullness in the city. Just created in October 2010 by Scott Burnham, the guide is constantly growing.
Advice: Visit often and send your own images and links about alternate uses for things in the city.
Two hours outside of Mexico City, there’s Cholula. 50 containers creates a 4.500 sq meters village, with shops, streets, restaurants, bars, squares, flats and art galleries.
