YPLAN: a short introduction

www.urban2020.weebly.com www.cep-edu.eu www.irap.hsr.ch
PROIECT CO-FINANTAT PRINTR-UN GRANT DIN PARTEA ELVETIEI PRIN INTERMEDIUL
CONTRIBUTIEI ELVETIENE PENTRU UNIUNEA EUROPEANA EXTINSA
YPLAN, un proiect pentru spațiile
publice din București
Dr. Pietro ELISEI
Manager de proiect și coordonator cercetare
Asociația URBAN2020

The YPLAN project aims to raise awareness on public space issues in Romanian cities,
given the fact that public space quality greatly influences social, economic and
environmental quality in urban areas.
The lack of participatory planning culture in post-communist problems is clear in the
case of Romania, whereas countries highly advanced in involving ample target
groups in planning, such as Switzerland, can offer much-needed expertise. As a
result, the YPLAN project seeks to enhance civic engagement among young people
and socially empower them through different educational and design activities
Consequently, the project’s main scope is to facilitate the transition towards sustainable
participatory planning and civil empowerment in Romanian cities through innovative
best practice transfer (e.g. from Switzerland) and an applied public space co-design
process.
Co-design procedure in order empower students and local community (users) to build
and design their chosen public space (product / solution) in order to develop a more
appropriate urban intervention.
YPLAN in a nutshell.

“To walk is to lack a place. It is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a
proper (thing/condition, place). The moving about that the city mutliplies and
concentrates makes the city itself an immense social experience of lacking a place
–
an experience that is, to be sure, broken up into countless tiny deportations
(displacements and walks), compensated for by the relationships and intersections
of these exoduses that intertwine and create an urban fabric, and placed under the
sign of what ought to be, ultimately, the place but is only a name, the City...
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
Looking for places: The city as the experience
of displacement

THE MOVEMENT CHARACTERIZES/MAKES PLACES

"Certeau's investigations into the realm of routine practices, or the
"arts of doing" such as walking, talking, reading, dwelling, and
cooking, were guided by his belief that despite repressive aspects
of modern society, there exists an element of creative resistance to
these structures enacted by ordinary people.
In The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau outlines an important
critical distinction between strategies and tactics in this battle of
repression and expression
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Certeau
Making the city: Strategy and tactic

“A number of recent pieces of instrumental music are linked by a common feature: the
considerable autonomy left to the individual performer in the way he chooses to play
the work.
Thus, he is not merely free to interpret the composer’s instructions following his own
discretion [...], but he must impose his judgment on the form of the piece, as when
he decides how long to hold a note or in what order to group the sounds;
all this amounts to an act of improvised creation.”
Umberto Eco, The poetic of the open works
“Composing” the city through open works

Eco’s ideas about open works can be transposed to the development of modern urban
spaces. One of the principal character traits of modern urban space is that it is
ambiguous and open: ambiguous in relation to the activities that are unfolded inside
of it; open to being occupied by the people who happen to be using it.
A successful urban space, in other words, is synonymous with an adaptable urban
space, which takes on the color of those people who are making use of it for varying
purposes.
As is the case in Eco’s examples, where we are dealing with an active continuing
development of a given piece of music, text or artwork, “open” urban spaces are
places that set up different possible scenarios for being occupied.
PUBLIC SPACE 2 The familiar into the strange: http://www.juulfrost.dk/documents/publicspace2.pdf
Urban spaces as domain of possibilities

Cities as Ecosystems
Jacobs approached cities as living beings and ecosystems. She suggested that over time, buildings,
streets and neighborhoods function as dynamic organisms, changing in response to how people interact
with them. She explained how each element of a city - sidewalks, parks, neighborhoods, government,
economy – functions together synergistically, in the same manner as the natural ecosystem. This
understanding helps us discern how cities work, how they break down, and how they could be better
structured.
Mixed-Use Development
Jacobs advocated for "mixed-use" urban development – the integration of different building types and
uses, whether residential or commercial, old or new. According to this idea, cities depend on a diversity
of buildings, residences, businesses and other non-residential uses, as well as people of different ages
using areas at different times of day, to create community vitality. She saw cities as being "organic,
spontaneous, and untidy," and views the intermingling of city uses and users as crucial to economic and
urban development.
SWEET JANE

Bottom-Up Community Planning
Jacobs contested the traditional planning approach that relies on the judgment of outside experts, proposing that
local expertise is better suited to guiding community development. She based her writing on empirical
experience and observation, noting how the prescribed government policies for planning and development are
usually inconsistent with the real-life functioning of city neighborhoods.
High Density
Although orthodox planning theory had blamed high density for crime, filth, and a host of other problems, Jacobs
disproved these assumptions and demonstrated how a high concentration of people is vital for city life, economic
growth, and prosperity. While acknowledging that density alone does not produce healthy communities, she
illustrated through concrete examples how higher densities yield a critical mass of people that is capable of
supporting more vibrant communities. In exposing the difference between high density and overcrowding, Jacobs
dispelled many myths about high concentrations of people.
The Importance of Local Economies
By dissecting how cities and their economies emerge and grow, Jacobs cast new light on the nature of local
economies. She contested the assumptions that cities are a product of agricultural advancement; that
specialized, highly efficient economies fuel long-term growth; and that large, stable businesses are the best
sources of innovation. Instead, she developed a model of local economic development based on adding new
types of work to old, promoting small businesses, and supporting the creative impulses of urban entrepreneurs

Lynch's most famous work, The Image of the
City published in 1960, is the result of a five-
year study on how users perceive and
organize spatial information as they navigate
through cities. Using three disparate cities as
examples (Boston, Jersey City, and Los
Angeles), Lynch reported that users
understood their surroundings in consistent
and predictable ways, forming mental maps
with five elements:
• paths, the streets, sidewalks, trails, and
other channels in which people travel;
• edges, perceived boundaries such as
walls, buildings, and shorelines;
• districts, relatively large sections of the
city distinguished by some identity or
character;
• nodes, focal points, intersections or loci;
• landmarks, readily identifiable objects
which serve as external reference
points.
Understanding through mental mapping

Lefebvre defined a three-fold division of space: conceived space, 'lived' space and
perceived space.
Conceived space might be characterised by the representations which dominant groups
in society produce to define space. Thus the spatial representations which urban
designers and physicists employ might all be defined as conceived space.
Lived space encompasses the spatial representations which ordinary people make in
living their lives, the mental constructs with which they approach the physical world.
Perceived space embraces the idea of social practice; in this category space is a social
product.
Lefebvre: The production of space
http://www.rudi.net/books/12219

History of Spatializations
• Absolute Space
- Nature
• Sacred Space
- City states, despots and divine-kings, Egypt
• Historical Space
- Political states, Greek city-states,
• Abstract Space
- Capitalism, political-economic space of property, lots
• Contradictory Space
- Contemporary Global capital versus localized meaning
• Differential Space
- Future space re-valuing difference and lived experience.

THE CITY AS JUXTAPOSITION OF PLACES?
THE URBAN SPACES ARE FRAMED
BY:
1) VARIOUS LAYERS OF MEANINGS
(MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL)
2) SPECIFIC AND INTERACTING
SOCIO-CULTURAL BEHAVIOURS
(PRACTICES IN THE SPACE)
3) …AND TECHNOLOGY CREATING
INFORMATION OUT OF URBAN
SPACES AND/OR TRANSFERRING
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION INTO
A SPECIFIC SPACE

THE MEDIUM OF TECHNOLOGY BEING MORE AND MORE PRESENT IN THE
SPACE
TIME SENSITIVE AND CONTINUOUS DATA THAT FLOWS ACROSS THE SPACE
PEOPLE GATHERING INTO A CONTINUOUS REAL TIME SPACE
INTERACTING CITIZENS GROUPS ARE ENHANCED BY THEIR POSITION IN
TIME.
THE SPACE OF FLOWS (Castell) ENHANCES THE DYNAMICITY OF PLACES.
PUBLIC SPACES ARE BECOMING A MIX OF PRACTICES RELATED BOTH TO
HUMAN AND OBJECTS BEHAVIOURS (The Internet of Things)
OR THE CITY AS JUXTAPOSITION OF
INTERACTIVE/INTELLIGENT PLACES?

…TOWARDS HYBRID SPACES
The most obvious sign of this change is that in many Western countries, it no
longer makes perfect sense to speak of being online or offline. When the
internet was young and just beginning to be a part of our daily lives, it
required a certain portion of will to go on the web.
slow internet
connections with
expensive minute
rates
90’s
social media and
web 2.0
First 10 years of XXI
century
Even with your mobile
phone turned off and
your laptop shut down,
you still leave digital
footprints that other can
follow
Nowadays
http://www.cifs.dk/scripts/artikel.asp?lng=2&id=2022
HSs?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME…
…WITH THE HOPE I PROVIDED
YOU “SPACE” FOR NEW IDEAS

YPLAN: a short introduction

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie YPLAN: a short introduction

Ähnlich wie YPLAN: a short introduction (20)

Mehr von YPLAN - Young Placemakers Initiatve

Mehr von YPLAN - Young Placemakers Initiatve (6)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

YPLAN: a short introduction