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

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6461176.Michel_de_Certeau

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/158769


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

Date post:	14-Apr-2017
Category:	Education
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YPLAN: a short introduction

Education