Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Antje K. Steinmuller & Christopher Falliers
The role, form, and locus of public space in urban environments has changed. Indoor entertainment spaces often replace the urban exterior as places of collectivity and chance encounter; austerity measures and rapid densification alike are factors in the proliferation of Privately Owned Public Open Spaces(POPOS); and in cities across the globe, the public itself has changed as a consequence of multifaceted migration patterns. At the same time, there has been a widespread resurgence of interest in the ‘urban commons’,understood as collectively appropriating and regulating urban resources. This trend has altered the relationship of citizens to architects in the production of urban collective space. The diversity of stakeholders in traditional public space design has led to complex design and planning processes for architects that offer only intermittent citizen participation in the process of constructing a final outcome.Urban commons projects, in contrast, are based on local citizen initiation, direct negotiation between stakeholders, long-term involvement of citizens, and the evolution of public space over time. In commons projects, the involvement of architects takes on the form of intermittent participation, using acupunctural interventions to catalyze the next steps in the commons’ evolution, thus inverting the role of citizens and architects in the production of public space.
https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AMP.105.67
Volume Editors
Luis Francisco Rico-Gutierrez & Martha Thorne
ISBN
978-1-944214-07-4
