Insurgent public space : guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities
From parking spaces being transformed into temporary parks, to metal pigs being deposited on sidewalks, to "sleep-in" protests, public spaces around the world are often utilized in unconventional and unusual ways. Frequently going against their traditional uses, citizens and activists are reclaiming and creating places for temporary, informal gatherings across the globe. Challenging how we define public spaces, nearly twenty such guerrilla and everyday projects are illustrated here with photographs and insightful commentaries. Often used to make serious statements, but sometimes just for fun, these insurgent spaces question the ways in which we each use our city and how we define public space. Jeffrey Hou, as editor, has carefully chosen authors who have firsthand experience in researching and implementing these insurgent public spaces. Their expertise has created a unique cross-disciplinary book looking at how public adaptation of spaces can affect the social and spatial relationships within our urban environments. Appealing to citizens, professionals, and students interested in urbanism, these valuable and fascinating insights focus on a subject and practice that has, up until now, been largely ignored. --Book Jacket
Case studies
xii, 276 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
9780415779654, 9780415779661, 9780203093009, 0415779650, 0415779669, 0203093003
419795089
1. (Not) Your Everyday Public Space Part 1: Appropriating 2. Dancing in the Streets of Beijing: Improvised Uses within the Urban System 3. Latino Urbanism in Los Angeles: A Model for Urban Improvisation and Reinvention 4. Taking Place: Rebar’s Absurd Tactics in Generous Urbanism Part 2: Reclaiming 5. eXperimentcity: Culturing and Publicizing Sustainable Development of Berlin’s Freiräume 6. Re-City, Tokyo: Putting "Publicness" into the Urban Building Stocks 7. Claiming Residual Spaces in the Heterogeneous City Part 3: Pluralizing 8. Claiming Latino Space: Building Cultural Capacity in the Public Realm 9. ‘ Night Market’ in Seattle: Community Eventscape and the Remaking of Public Space 10. Making Places of Fusion and Resistance: the Experiences of Immigrant Women in Taiwanese Townships 11. How Outsiders Find Home in the City: Chung Shan in Taipei Part 4: Transgressing 12. Machizukuri House and Its Expanding Networks: Making New Public Realm in Private Homes 13. Niwaroju: Private Gardens Serving the Public Realm 14. Farmhouses as Urban/Rural Public Space Part 5: Uncovering 15. Urban Archives: Public Memories of Everyday Places 16. Funny…It Doesn’t Look Like Insurgent Space: the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets and the Practice of History as a Public Art 17. Mapping the Space of Desire: Brothel as a City Landmark 18. Spatial Limbo: Re-inscribing Landscapes in Temporal Suspension Part 6: Contesting 19. Public Space Activism, Toronto and Vancouver: Using the Banner of Public Space to Build Capacity and Activate Change 20. Urban Agriculture in the Making of Insurgent Spaces in Los Angeles and Seattle 21. When Overwhelming Needs Meets Underwhelming Prospects: Sustaining Community Open Space Activism in East St. Louis