Today, one of the most popular initiatives regarding public space, participatory design and activism in the city is the so-called citizen urbanism or tactical urbanism. The approach proposes to trigger, through limited and low-cost interventions, long-term changes in public space, i.e. short-term action, long-term change (Street Plans, 2013).
The strategy used is to create temporary scenarios that make visible a specific problem and the formation of specific interventions to solve it, seeking to incorporate the community to give it relevance and promote its sustainability over time and, in this way, raise the discussion about the benefits of the projects for the quality of life in the context in which they are inserted.
Based on this mode of operation, and in order to facilitate its implementation, they have developed intervention guides that provide instructions for design, materiality and execution, in order to conduct and operationalise the entire process, from conception to construction. The first guide to tactical urbanism emerged in 2012 in the United States by planner Mike Lydon and architect Tony Garcia. Subsequently, new case-related publications have been added in Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Latin America. In 5 years alone, 10 publications have been produced in English and Spanish, compiling examples of urban interventions around the world. (Street Plans & Ciudad Emergente, 2013).
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Author: Consuelo Araneda
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