Community space!

As I stumbled back home late one Friday night after many hours of travel to get from a tiny town in Southern France to London’s own Tower Hamlets, people busy painting a line along the pavement and doing various other things made it hard to get my roller bag past them. I was not pleased, but I woke up to this:

The London Festival of Architecture brought the University of Innsbruck’s Walk the Line project, and the weekend was full of activities, games, food (I suppose it was too much to hope for it as a Johnny Cash reference). The statue of Gladstone in front of the old church looked happier with his blue scarf.

None of that was for me sadly, I was exhausted and had one hell of a deadline coming up. But the idea was interesting, changing how people use public spaces and form community with the simple use of some paint and some props.

I think, however, that the aftermath was even more interesting, because for a few days the props were left, the hosts were absent, and my neighbors were left to do with the space and the props as they would. Of course, I was still on deadline, so I just saw it as I walked to and fro work and school. But this was after all just a student project, a taste of what this space could be with just a tiny bit of investment.

They took everything away, and my own pictures came just a few days late to capture the small magic – so I have borrowed some photos from Loopzilla, who has made them available for just this purpose.  And you can read a short story about the effort on Diamond Geezer.

But let’s take the Seating Furniture for example:

They had made innovative little tables out of plywood with holes in the middle to fit down over the bollards, and painted tree stumps blue for people to use as seats.  And all kinds of different people used them, from big burly guys to the guys who worked in the little shops to families to teenagers. The same way they used the “dinner at eight” station with a more traditional table and chairs. It made me happy to see a whole family sitting down there on a warm summer evening eating a meal.

Now I have no idea what this was supposed to be exactly, it’s the wrong shape and size for hopscotch…

And I don’t think anyone is much celebrating the olympics around here, but kids seem to like to play on it. They play in the “official” games area as well, with balls and stones where the tic-tac-toe board was painted (noughts and crosses anyone?) that once had x’s and o’s. And loads of different people used the “theatre” (just another bunch of blue tree stumps) as another place to sit and chat in the shade. These things very visually created more opportunity for my neighbors to come together in ways they wouldn’t usually do, and spend time in an otherwise rather unwelcoming space that most just travel through, apart from the hordes of teenage boys in the afternoons and evenings, and the chatty crowd in front of the bookies.

So now that it’s gone, what are the lessons learned?

• You can do an immense amount of good with very little money. Stroudley Walk could clearly become a vibrant enjoyable place, and I applaud the student’s imagination and effort. You’d think planners would have figured this out by now.

• DO set up seating areas. Do NOT set up seating areas without providing bins. Or trash cans. Depending which continent you’re in. Or people will no longer like the seating areas.

• It’s always good know a bit more about the community when planning. If they’d spent much time here they surely would have thought of painting a football (soccer) pitch where the boys are always playing. And maybe had some better games? Like chess boards? A giant backgammon board? How cool would that have been? Maybe added some Bangladeshi artwork and made people’s smiles even bigger?

• It’s a bit crap to come into a community and do a project like this, and then take most of it away though I’m sure the Council didn’t want to have to deal with it. But the next bright-eyed students with an idea will wonder why the residents are a bit jaded and blame them for not being open and participatory. These projects should always be connected to the actual and real, as there are currently what seem to be rather terribly generic plans to redevelop the walk. This would have been an amazing way to test out things before they became permanent, and I could not think of a better way to start people thinking creatively about what they want from their neighborhood plaza and how they could actually use it. If the Council cared to ask them in a way that actually invited creativity and enjoyable participation.

Everyone agrees that Chicago Public Schools have to change. Yet there are fierce disagreements over what kinds of changes must be made, who should lead that change, and how it should be administered. At the helm of the warring parties are Karen Lewis, the new president of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, and Ron Huberman, the CEO of CPS installed by Chicago’s Mayor Daley.

These two opposing leaders are fighting a serious battle, one that will determine the extent to which public schools remain publicly owned and operated. It is a fight with tremendous implications, ranging from the future of charter schools in the City of Chicago, to how success is defined and evaluated.

In the backdrop of this battle, there is another struggle going on in Chicago Public Schools. This is the fight to protect the life of Chicago Public School students. As a recent New York Times article identified, 218 CPS students were shot in the last school year, and 258 the year before. The article, provocatively titled “Graduation Is the Goal, Staying Alive Is the Prize,” highlights efforts to improve the safety of simply attending public school. They focus on an unfolding intervention strategy which targets the most “at-risk” students and connects them with adult mentors and support services. Created by CEO Huberman, a former police officer, this $60 million intervention is also geared to strengthening communications between the police and school administrators. While this intervention brings in deeply needed resources, the police dimension of the program strengthens a disciplinary approach that relies heavily on law enforcement to run daily operations at schools.

Read More…

No doubt I’m the last cat who should be writing about public space.  I mean here at home in Los Angeles I rarely think about public space and congregating in same.  That is, I do congregate occasionally, I just don’t go out of my way to do it.  Because mostly I’m in my car going to and fro – and when I get to my destination, it’s rarely to a park.  I have nothing against open spaces, I like open spaces and certainly L.A., particularly our urban areas of the city, that are green poor – though this is not the only way in which gathering spaces are manifested in this city.

Lord knows people have meetings, write screenplays or work on the Great American Novel on their laptops (or playing World of Warcraft with who knows who all else online) at many a Starbuck’s or Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in this considerable town.  Maybe somebody has tracked this, but I’ve yet to see or hear about a sinewy barrista kicking somebody out for staying too long in their coffee shop.  But then, it seems these folks now and then buy a coffee, frappachino and/or bottle of water to keep the static down.

My gym, which the lovely and talented Dr. Pop pays for – as one has to have perks in this line of work – is an L.A. Fitness housed in a former Montgomery Ward department store in a mall on La Cienega near the 10 Freeway.  Okay, so already it’s not a public space, but bear with me a moment.  Given this is ethnically rich L.A. and the geography of where the gym is (located in between several distinct neighborhoods), this facility gets a cross section of its inhabitants from young sleek-muscled tatted ballers wearing just the right shoes for their hops to, what I presume to be, orthodox Jewish woman in sweat gear that includes long stretch skirts, sweat pants under that and coverings for their head.  Admittedly, you don’t generally find representatives of these two groups awaiting their respective turns at the preacher curl machine, gabbing about the latest episode of Rookie Blue.

Read More…

More than any other city I’ve been to, Berlin is the closest thing in my mind to what a city “built for the people” looks like.

East Berlin, that is. The ex-West Berlin is completely different, more typical of big western capitals with imposing, super-symmetrical, grey buildings standing starkly next to hyper-modern architecture, big monuments and chain stores strewn about large avenues that take hours to traverse – with many cars on the road and few people on the streets. The whole thing feels a bit cold and impersonal and during working hours, a bit like a giant German ghost town.

The East on the other hand is living. Its chaotic.  There is graffiti absolutely everywhere, everywhere everywhere. Paint chips off of buildings, plants grow off ledges of buildings, people whiz by on bikes and smoke in cafes, a constant stream of people occupy the streets:  talking, lounging, cooking food, playing football.

The wall might as well still be there – many, in fact would like it to be.

Read More…

Question: Will more people take the stairs if it is turned into a piano? 

Answer: Yes.

Question: Will more people throw away trash if the trash can sounds like a 1,000 foot well?
Answer: Yes.

Check out these videos from VW’s new branding campaign.

Piano stairs

Trash can