they did try them on ...

Intervention

While making this masterpiece a little girl decided she would start doing the hula hoop. I think my work inspired her. When I was trying to make this piece the guy who work there said " Oh I can put them away you don't have to worry about it" as if I was trying to clean up, but I told him that I was simply enjoying my time playing with toys and he said to me, " well enjoy then." It was an interesting intervention.

Big Box Intervention-The Collaborative Artists

For our big box intervention, Nadia and I (also known as the Collaborative Artists) decided to stage out intervention in unnamed downtown big box store. Store will remain unnamed for our safety against prosecution. Our first intervention is called red shoe walking...

We lined all the red shoes we could find in the middle of the isle.

Most people just shopped around them.

Some people even tried them on... (ok, that's Nadia, but people did grab some of the shoes we lined up on the floor to look at)

Our next intervention is called wicker tower, composed of multiple wicker laundry baskets to... you guessed it, form a tower.

Our design team in action, constructing the tower.

Completed tower with scale figure.

Unlike the red shoe intervention, which we put away, we left the tower standing and walked away... I know, true rebels.

Making Public Interventions in Today's Massive Cities

After reading Saskia Sassen's article, I began to think about examples of modest interventions in public spaces. I came across Tactical Urbanism, which states that they take short term actions that cause long term chance. Tactical is defined as retaining to small-scale actions serving larger purpose or adroit in planning or maneuvering to accomplish a purpose. Tactical Urbanism is an approach that features five characteristics; a deliberate, phased approach to instigating change, the offering of local solutions for local planning challenges, short-term commitment and realistic expectations, low-risks with a possibility of high reward and the development of social capital between citizens.

One of the group's interventions include Park(ing) Day, where people reclaim space devoted to automobiles and increase the vitality of street life. This event in now world wide and cities like Paris, Tehran, and Hangzhou, China have participated in this event.

Another intervention is called pavement to plazas. The purpose of this intervention is to reclaim underutilized and inefficiently used asphalt as public space without a large outlay of capital. One such example is the Times Square Pedestrian Plaza. Following the implementation of the new Times Square Pedestrian Plaza, injuries to motorists and their passengers declines by 63%. Similarly, pedestrian injuries decreased 35%, even while pedestrian traffic increased.

One last intervention is called Guerrilla Gardening, which was developed to increase more greenery and gardening into the urban environment and is now an international movement. Guerilla Gardening is the act of gardening on public or private land without permission. Typically the sites chosen are vacant or underutilized properties in urban areas. The movement first began in 1973 when New York City activists threw condoms with local seeds, water and fertilizer into vacant lots.

Making Public Interventions in Today's Massive Cities

Saskia Sassen

Sassen discusses how public space is created in the urban environment and how outside factors like politics can shape the meaning of the public space. One of the first things she talks states is how European cities still have very lively public space that are constantly used for a variety of purposes. Within the city are not only large public spaces, but also left over public spaces that shape the city. What Sassen does not discuss is how the culture is an important factor to the utilization of public space. In the American society where our culture is to work all day, we don’t spend much time outside. The other argument is we don’t go outside because there are no inviting public spaces.

Uninviting spaces could be due to our new way of making public space. Sassen states how many public spaces have become private. These private spaces typically come with restrictions, surveillance, and power over the space. The greatest impacts according to Sassen is the economic factor, high income areas versus low income areas leading to public spaces being very displaced making the spaces not very “public.” Could be reason why public spaces aren’t developed more.

Another factor that Sassen discusses is how politics have a large role in the shaping of public space. Public space is a place for non-formal political activities which engage the public and the media. Activities in public spaces can be linked to the internet and other global networks that spread the word. Without these public spaces, where would people go for public activism?

What is very different about Sassen’s article is that she links public space to digital media. All types of people can use public space in different ways and share it with the world. Space is being shared through a network versus physically experiencing the space.

Sassen engages the reader through the ability to link digital and political world with the public space, but it does not discusses physical elements that shape the urban public seating. This was less about the architecture of public space as it was the new meaning of public space.

Making Public Interventions...

Saskia Sassen discusses the condition of urban in her article “Making Public Interventions in Today’s Massive Cities.” What begins as an interesting questioning into displacement of people and utilization of under-used spaces, which she calls “terrains vagues,” develops into a rather theoretical discourse of several conditions existing in modern cities. All viable observations of modernist cities, the discussions of privatization, frontiers, locality, and digitization are a departure from her introducing paragraphs. These paragraphs, to me, create the framework for a more interesting discussion.

The New Urbanist movement, among others, has taken a look at the leftover, trash spaces of existing cities and has begun to development. Inter-city development of vacant lots, condemned buildings, contaminated land, and other such spaces has brought a new face to many local areas in San Diego, as well as to other cities. The development of these under-used spaces has spurred a return to urban conditions from the suburban fringe. In truth the inter-city developments seek to stop the sprawl that exists in all major cities, thus decreasing the periphery green zones, nature habitats, or farmland. But, Saskia suggests, what if these unused areas are important in terms of keeping a sense of openness? Should these leftover spaces be turned into public amenities with artists playing active roles to rejuvenate them? Some of this has already occurred (I’m thinking specifically of the Freemont Troll in Seattle under the Aurora Bridge). These kinds of artistic interventions have helped greatly increase the livelihood and quality of life in specific urban cores by using spaces under bridges, or in meridians, or in otherwise un-buildable areas.

I agree it is desirable to maintain some level of openness in cities, but on the other hand one of the draws to the city is its density, the sense that every piece of usable land is used to the greatest efficiency, none is leftover or wasted. The open spaces must be useful, purposeful, and enhance the overall city experience.

Freemont Troll (undergrad Arch class field trip):


and.......

Cheerios "Sculpture". I'm calling it: Did You Know There Were So Many Kinds of Cheerios??