The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents an exhibition (now in Chicago) with 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world. Seemingly common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening are pushed beyond their usual definition by the international architects, artists, and collectives featured in the exhibition. Their experimental interactions with the urban environment show the potential influence personal involvement can have in shaping the city, and challenge fellow residents to participate.
The 99 actions featured include projects related to the production of food and possibilities of urban agriculture; the planning and creation of public spaces to strengthen community interactions; the recycling of abandoned buildings for new purposes; the use of the urban fabric as a terrain for play such as soccer, climbing, skateboarding, or parkour; the alternate use of roads for walking, or rail lines as park space; the design of clothing to circumvent urban barriers against resting on benches or sliding on railings; among others.
Here are some of the projects.
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Ping-Pong Connects Neighbours (© Droog Design - Photo by Misha de Ridder)
The Table Tennis Fence subverts the fence as a dividing element. A built-in ping pong table can be opened for neighbours to play with each other, transforming the fence into a meeting place. Share Fence is a related project with cut-outs in the shape of gardening tools like trowels and a watering can. Neighbours can hang tools to be shared in fence holes where they are accessible from both sides. Droog Design was founded in Amsterdam in 1993 by Bakker and Renny Ramakers. NEXT Architects was founded by four graduates from the Delft University of Technology.
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Sheep and Lambs Eat City Parks (©Daniele Hosmer Zambelli)
The city of Turin saved 30,000 euros by using sheep to mow lawns at three public parks. In Pasture in the City, cows were also used during the experimental first year, but because they produced too much manure they have not returned. Traffic is diverted for the herd of sheep to enter the city. After the animals are rotated through fenced-off parks for two months, they return to the Alps for the remainder of the summer. The sheep aerate and fertilize their temporary pastures.
Reclaim Vacant Lot with What City’s Got (© Recetas Urbanas)
A proposal made to the city of Seville for legislation to assist in the temporary transformation of public and private solares – vacant lots walled off for security – into public spaces for at least six months. Wall rubble is incorporated into the design, and elements of car and pedestrian barriers are used to construct benches, see-saws, swings, and bike racks with readily available plastic materials like concrete. Instruction sheets were produced to allow residents to construct their own furniture. The project is designed to minimize material movement, cost, and other barriers to change. Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.
Outlaw Gardeners Beautify City (© Richard Reynolds)
Richard Reynolds, or Richard 001, as he is known in the Guerillagardening.org organization, descends on traffic islands, forgotten parks, public gardens, and roadway edges with troops around the world; he transforms ignored spaces into beautiful gardens. Other troops focus on productive planting, encouraging vegetable and fruit farming in the city.
Although Richard 001’s little war against mundane landscaping began in 2004 when he became fed up with the sorry condition of the yard in front of his apartment building, the guerrilla gardening movement can be traced back to at least the 1970s, when artists like Liz Christy and Gordon Matta-Clark used the term to describe illegal, and often nocturnal, horticulture missions.
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Walk Charges Cellphone
Conceptual and experimental designs for a personal energy harvester that charges portable electronic devices by capturing the energy of footsteps. While each human step produces a minuscule amount of energy, a day’s worth of walking could power medical implants, watches, lights, and cellphones.
Non-Stop Shoes are a conceptual model produced in association with the footwear company Camper, while the Parasitic Power Shoes were a pilot project developed at MIT.
Emili Padros is an industrial designer from Barcelona. He founded the Emiliana Design Studio in 1996 with Ana Mir. Joe Paradiso is an associate professor at MIT, he directs the Responsive Environments Group. Nathan S. Shenck worked with Professor Paradiso as the C.S. Draper Laboratory Fellow at MIT.
Zebra Protects Pedestrians, 1993 (Photo Angela Siever / Courtesy of University of Kassel, Germany)
A DIY answer to the question: how can pedestrians legally cross a street wherever they want to, and not only at the whim of traffic planners? Gerhard Lang’s zebrastreifen, or “zebra crossing,” allowed a 600-person procession to cross the streets, alleys, backyards, and car parks of Kassel without jaywalking. The procession honoured Lang’s friend, collaborator, and former professor, Lucius Burckhardt, the inventor of the field of Spaziergangswissenschaft, or “Strollology.” Burckhardt adopted the perspective of the stroller in formulating his criticisms of prevailing automobile-centric planning practices.
Gerhard Lang is a German artist who investigates human perception through its relationship with landscape.
Oranges Lead Nocturnal Walk (© Fallen Fruit)
A Los Angeles law makes all fruit and vegetables growing over sidewalks “public,” so that even trees rooted in private yards may bear public fruit. The collective Fallen Fruit leads walks and makes maps of public fruit trees in the Los Angeles urban area. Fallen Fruit shows residents how to access a harvest of free food, and criticizes city planning that excludes productive planting on public land such as parks. Fallen Fruit holds jam-making parties using fruit collected from the public portions of the trees; they also produce liquor with public fruit. These products, like their ingredients, belong to the citizens of Los Angeles.
Paint Grows Soccer Field, 2007 (© Maider López)
As part of the Sharjah Biennial, artist Maider López painted the lines of a soccer field red in a public square of Sharjah, adding goals on either end. Because pre-existing features such as benches and streetlamps were not altered, the square became a strange new site for football matches where spectators relaxed on benches inside the pitch at all hours. The project suggests a model for easy and relaxed integration of different activities. Maider López works on interrupting conventional space and architecture.
Umbrellas Join Forces for Shelter (© Yoshie Nishikawa)
There are umbrellas in every city. As one umbrella is a cheap, portable shelter for a single person, many can become shelter for a group of people. The Umbrella House is made of ordinary umbrellas modified with extra flaps and zippers sewn on the edges. The umbrellas are combined to form a simple structure with flexible dimensions and no program. Any number of entrances and windows can be made in this “house for all.” Kengo Kuma and Associates was founded in 1990. Its principal, Kengo Kuma, has been practising materially oriented architecture since the 1980s.
Dancers Light Up Night (Gulia Melloni)
A study of the capacity of nightclubs to convert to environmentally sustainable practices, the Sustainable Dance Club uses a system of floor tiles that generate energy when compressed to power lights and sound systems. The concept was first tested with over 1,200 dancers at the Rotterdam club Off-Corso, and has since developed into a system of standards for limiting environmental impact and communicating sustainable design to the public. Club Watt, also in Rotterdam, became the first club to earn the Sustainable Dance Club label on a permanent basis in September of 2008. Sustainable Dance Club is a collaboration between Enviu and Döllab, which began in 2005. Enviu is an international network for young entrepreneurs interested in sustainability. Döllab is a Dutch architectural firm based in Rotterdam and founded in 2003 by Henk Döll.
Vietnamese Farm Feeds New Orleans (© 2008 Mossop + Michaels Landscape Architects)
An 11-hectare community farm located in an area severely damaged by hurricane Katrina, Viet Village Urban Farm was designed by residents of New Orleans East with architects Mossop + Michaels to restore a thirty-year old tradition of backyard farming that ended with the hurricane. The plan includes a market to resell excess produce and an ecologically-sensitive infrastructure to support traditional farming. Viet Village Urban Farm won the 2008 American Society of Landscape Architects Analysis and Planning Award of Excellence.
Website Collects Figs, 2008
Bristol Food for Free is an online database of edible plants in Bristol. The website generates a map of any of the 113 species identified by its authors. Plants rooted in private lots are included if they branch into public space. The website also contains photo-documentation of potential planting sites selected for suitability. Bristol Food for Free allows inexperienced foragers to find fresh fruits and vegetables quickly and safely. Kayle Brandon and Heath Bunting are part of Irational.org, an international network for information and materials for the displaced and roaming. Irational.org supports non-corporate art and engineering work.
Exhibition: 'Actions: What You Can Do With the City'
From October 16 2009 to March 13 2010
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
4 West Burton Place, Chicago, Illinois
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