Learning tactical urbanism: an action-research workshop in Brussels

Abstract

This paper contends that participatory action and public engagement are crucial elements in tactical urbanism. Based on an action research workshop that he coordinated as part of an architectural design studio, the author argues that students, professionals and “the public” need to familiarize themselves with public involvement strategies and tactics in order to cope effectively with contemporary urbanism. The most overwhelming urban transformation since the 1992 European Urban Charter has been an exacerbated socio-economic polarisation in cities. The resulting conditions of temporality, multiplicity and simultaneity deeply affect practices of place-making and urban coherence. Today’s fragile and ever-fleeting urban realities call for responses of the “lighter-quicker-cheaper” (LQC) type favoured by planning approaches commonly known as Tactical Urbanism or DIY Urbanism. Mastering these approaches – like any skill – requires practice. As an integral part of a design studio revolving around current and anticipated threats to Brussels’ urban cohesion, the one-week “crossing” workshop sought to integrate (action) research into architectural design and professional practice. It created an opportunity for students to design an on-site installation through which they could try out the vision they had elaborated after group-work analysis of a project site. It also allowed them to collect feedback and comments that could make their individual design firmly “rooted” in urban reality. These experiments did not necessarily seek to re-establish urban coherence: some merely sought to collect people’s ideas for change or attract their attention to discarded places. Whilst short-lived and modest, the interventions underlined the importance of small-scale, step-by-step approaches where neighbours get to know each other, work together and acquire a sense of ownership and pride in what they do. Moreover, they foreshadowed architects’ and urban professionals’ practices where students, neighbourhood dwellers and professionals join hands in realizing effective change.

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