From Transitory Urbanism to the Laboratory of Indifference

Essay, expanding design practices, Manuel Bailo, No Density, Public Catalyst, Territory and mobility

Architect’s role, Construction, Essay, Identity, Laboratory, New urbanism, Public Catalyst, Public Space, Public space role, Temporary appropriation, Transformation, Transition, Urban design, Urban process, Urban research

Excerpt from "Public Catalyst" by Manuel Bailo, published by Actar Publishers -- https://lccn.loc.gov/2015934392

Transitory Urbanism appealed against the lack of attention to the world of open processes in the design of public spaces. We highlighted the non-physical characteristics linked to public space, including activity, trade, and the transforming capacity of the people’s actions. It proposed a much more informal attitude towards development of projects; a trust in the constructive value of all that is transitory, of the formless action. It discouraged the definitive value of deaf and invariable objects. The new attitude understood and understands architecture as a non-definitive result of a process in which the provocation of randomness is mixed with the logical, sensitive wand intelligible reasoning. It claimed a way of conceiving the civic space of cities in which instability and transience were considered catalysts, capable of enriching and improving the projects in an arrhythmical way.