Concurrent Urbanities

Design has been employed as an agent of social and political change, and a catalyst for spatial and urban transformations in cities across the world. Concurrent Urbanities argues for the centrality of designing in the conceptualization and production of inclusive and participatory urban space, by bringing together civic and urban activists, urbanists, designers and architects committed to exploring designing as a socio-spatial praxis concerned with the reorganization of urban socio-economic systems and relations of power. The blend of first-hand experiences and reflections of the urban practitioners featured reframes design practice beyond the design of physical objects and public amenities, to the design of social protocols, processes, and infrastructures for radically reframing practices of socio-spatial inclusion ‘on the ground.’ Through illustrated examples, this book features the work of Stalker and Stealth who employ design to negotiate new social contracts; Teddy Cruz's design of urban political and economic processes; models of urban pedagogy by the Center for Urban Pedagogy; Cohabitation Strategies’ work on designing urban social cooperatives; and others. Concurrent Urbanities presents a compendium of the emerging models of design-driven urban practice that offers important new insights to professional urban practitioners as well as to students of urbanism, architecture, urban design, and urban and spatial planning.

How can social theory help us all design solutions to address the social, political and ecological challenges that confront us, and build more sustainable communities? Design professions have typically been associated with intervention and action, while social science has long been associated with thought and reflection. Design and social thought are too frequently considered distinct in terms of how theories can be applied in practice. Design and the Social Imagination brings together the creative, action-oriented sensibility of design with the reflective, analytical capacities of the social sciences to offer models, ideas and strategies for shaping the future of the world we live in. In a world of global economic inequality, racism, and environmental degradation, designing with an understanding of our social reality is increasingly crucial to our survival. Matthew DelSesto explores current practices and discourses in areas of urban design, design for social innovation, environmental design, co-design, service design, and more, illustrating how thoughtful design can contribute in a more productive way. Drawing on a range of theory and practice from radical social thinkers C. Wright Mills, Patrick Geddes, Jane Addams and W. E. B. Du Bois, his book shows us how design and the social sciences can interact in order to intervene in the crises we face today.

Public Space: notes on why it matters, what we should know, and how to realize its potential journeys a vast territory and presents a panoramic view of public space—an understanding from numerous disciplines—under one cover in an incisive and concise manner. As a dialogue between the social-political and the material-physical, the book brings together the key ideas that encompass the social, political, and physical issues in the making and experience of public space. The book is at the same time a primer and a progressive text. It makes the case for public space, digs deep into understanding what public space is, followed by three sections that present the inherent paradoxes, the possibilities, and propositions for a more meaningful public space. The book presents ideas in concise and approachable ways—from established tenets to new propositions—that are constructive and thought-provoking, with many that will challenge the reader’s preconceived notions. Students and scholars in the built environment disciplines and social sciences, public space managers, public and private sector practitioners, and civic leaders, but also residents who want to better understand and make an impact in their communities and cities will find Public Space to be a valuable resource.

Public space and performativity from the perspective of architecture In recent decades, architecture has been seen as a field of practice that contributes greatly to the performativity of public space. In spite of the explosion of virtual communities through social media and the limitations imposed by pandemics, architecture today still holds an active role in (literally) building our societies. Bearing in mind its acute politicisation in past years, Living Politics in the City looks at public space from the perspective of architecture and its effective contribution, not as a prop but as an actual catalyst for embodying politics. The essays gathered here span five continents, activating various disciplinary approaches to architecture and examining it in different contexts: from a Palestinian refugee camp to the most vibrant urban axis in Sao Paolo, from the numerous city squares around the world crowded with rebellious populations, to the proximal politics of housing in Australia. Contributors: Endriana Audisho (University of Technology Sydney), Maja Babic (Charles University ), Alexandra Biehler (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille), Tracey Bowen (University of Toronto Mississauga), Etienne Delprat (Rennes 2 University), Claudia Faraone (IUAV Venice School of Architecture, ETICity), Caterina Frisone (Oxford Brookes University), Catherine Grout (ENSAPL Lille), Pavel Kunysz (University of Liège), Flavia Marcello (Swinburne University of Technology), Eric Le Coguiec (University of Liège), Tova Lubinsky (University of Technology Sydney), Giovanna Muzzi (IUAV Venice School of Architecture, ETICity), Can Onaner (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne), Shadi Saleh (KU Leuven), Frédéric Sotinel (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne), Karolina Wilczynska (Adam Mickiewicz University), Ian Woodcock (Swinburne University of Technology) This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Recent global appropriations of public spaces through urban activism, public uprising, and political protest have brought back democratic values, beliefs, and practices that have been historically associated with cities. Given the aggressive commodification of public re- sources, public space is critically important due to its capacity to enable forms of public dis- course and social practice which are fundamental for the well-being of democratic societies. Public Space Reader brings together public space scholarship by a cross-disciplinary group of academics and specialists whose essays consider fundamental questions: What is public space and how does it manifest larger cultural, social, and political processes? How are public spaces designed, socially and materially produced, and managed? How does this impact the nature and character of public experience? What roles does it play in the struggles for the just city, and the Right to The City? What critical participatory approaches can be employed to create inclusive public spaces that respond to the diverse needs, desires, and aspirations of individuals and communities alike? What are the critical global and comparative perspectives on public space that can enable further scholarly and professional work? And, what are the futures of public space in the face of global pandemics, such as COVID-19? The readers of this volume will be rewarded with an impressive array of perspectives that are bound to expand critical understanding of public space.

The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben’s political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben’s politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben’s oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical ‘encounter’ with architecture’s aesthetic-political function.

This book is about the entanglement of heritage and resistance in different situations of conflicts, and the opportunities this entanglement may provide for social justice. This entanglement is investigated in the different contributions through theoretical and empirical analyses of heritage-led resistance to neoliberal economic development, violation of the subaltern, authorised narratives and state-invented traditions, colonialism and settler colonialism, and even dominating discourses of social movement, to name just a few. Crossing the disciplinary boundaries of heritage and resistance studies, these analyses bring new insights into several timely debates, especially those concerned with the interrelated critical questions of displacement, gentrification, exclusion, marginalization, urbicide, spatial cleansing, dehumanization, alienation, ethnic cleansing and social injustice. Following our purposeful and future-driven approach, we wish to bring new energy to the field of heritage studies through the focus on the potential of heritage and resistance for hopeful change rather than adding to the field yet another overwhelming engagement with conflict and war.