Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism: A Comparative International Overview 9783030617523, 9783030617530

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The Urban Book Series

Lauren Andres Amy Y. Zhang   Editors

Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism A Comparative International Overview

The Urban Book Series Editorial Board Fatemeh Farnaz Arefian, University of Newcastle, Singapore, Singapore, Silk Cities & Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, London, UK Michael Batty, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, London, UK Simin Davoudi, Planning & Landscape Department GURU, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK Geoffrey DeVerteuil, School of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK Andrew Kirby, New College, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA Karl Kropf, Department of Planning, Headington Campus, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK Karen Lucas, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Marco Maretto, DICATeA, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Parma, Parma, Italy Fabian Neuhaus, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Steffen Nijhuis, Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Vitor Manuel Aráujo de Oliveira , Porto University, Porto, Portugal Christopher Silver, College of Design, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Giuseppe Strappa, Facoltà di Architettura, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Roma, Italy Igor Vojnovic, Department of Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Jeremy W. R. Whitehand, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Claudia Yamu, Department of Spatial Planning and Environment, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

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Lauren Andres · Amy Y. Zhang Editors

Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism A Comparative International Overview

Editors Lauren Andres Bartlett School of Planning UCL Faculty of the Built Environment University College London London, UK

Amy Y. Zhang Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development The University of Manchester Manchester, UK

ISSN 2365-757X ISSN 2365-7588 (electronic) The Urban Book Series ISBN 978-3-030-61752-3 ISBN 978-3-030-61753-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

As any academic book, this piece results from the convergence of multiple research journeys, which led editors and authors to unpack temporary processes of transformation affecting cities across the world. This book is also more than this and testifies from various personal and professional encounters, which led individuals to identify common interests on this theme of “temporary urbanism”, namely non-permanent and transient processes and uses that affect urban spaces. Despite a growing interest from researchers, students and practitioners, there are still very limited resources currently available on “temporary urbanism”. There are also very scattered understandings of how temporary urbanism is expressed globally to enable unpacking the diversity and complexity of its forms and features. As we will discuss later in chapter one, this book aims to fill both gaps and is the first academic output offering such a wide-spread geographical coverage of this research area. We are writing this preface at a time when all countries are fighting the COVID19 pandemic and face-to-face communications have been—hopefully temporarily— mostly replaced by virtual encounters. By essence, the nature of research and how ideas emerge rest upon the ability of individuals to talk, to debate, to conduct fieldwork, to explore sites across the world and to work together. Such social encounters are currently challenged, which hinders the capacity of producing transformative actions and research. And as we narrate further below, this book is the outcome of the convergence of experiences and encounters, nurtured by circulation of ideas, international fieldworks and conferences. When the prospect of this book emerged, back in 2018, we never imagined that we would face such challenging times and it is with nostalgia that we think about those convergences and encounters that made this book possible and write the lines below. The idea for this book originated from the two editors working at that time in the same institution in the UK, at the University of Birmingham, and sharing very similar research interests, from an early stage of their careers, in distinct geographical contexts, along with international career trajectories. Lauren Andres was trained as an urban geographer and planner in France. She started developing a keen interest towards derelict, abandoned buildings and sites, initially in France and in Switzerland, and further on in mainland Europe, that were either awaiting transformation or being slowly re-used through temporary cultural v

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and artistic uses. There was a fascination here for what is often referred as “nonspaces” and for how such distinct places were still significantly impacting immediate surroundings. Such impact occurred through the distinct materiality of those spaces (as physical footprints and memories of previous everyday activities) and thanks to alternative uses developed on those sites triggered by the creative initiatives of actors who saw here potential rather than emptiness. Temporary urbanism at that time was mainly characterised by incremental and bottom-up transformations. While crossing the English channel, and joining the UK Higher Education, and while temporary urbanism started to feed into planned strategy of transformations, this scientific appeal towards the diverse expressions of temporariness in cities spreads towards wider thematic and geographic horizons constructed around new research collaborations and encounters allowing to deepen and enlarge the apprehension of temporariness, of the ‘in-between’ and their processes of transformation, in the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, South and East Africa, Brazil and more recently Lebanon. Amy (Yueming) Zhang is an urban geographer trained in both China and in the USA. She works at the intersection of urban, economic and cultural geographies, and her research has been driven by the question of how urban transformations are shaped by political—economic processes that are both globally connected and locally situated. Applying this focus, her earlier research looked into commodification of urban land and land-centred urban politics in China. Built upon this experience, she turned her attention to the leasing and re-use of post-industrial land and properties in her next research project. In particular, she focused on cases where artists’ temporary uses of empty post-industrial spaces cultivated grassroots artist communities and were later turned into long-term, institutionalised, arts districts. Researching this project not only drew her attention to the temporality of place-making but also enabled her to observe the rising awareness of the role of creative uses in urban regeneration in China, including engaging with temporary creative uses. Her research trajectory thus continues onto the topic of temporary urbanism. Furthermore, building upon scholarship of postcolonial urban theories, comparative urban studies and policy mobilities, she expanded her interest towards similar phenomena that occur across different geographical areas and contexts (such as employing temporary creative uses for urban regeneration) assessing how the latest are shaped by particular dynamics and how such examination can inform further understanding of the issue and research topic. As a result of those shared and complementary research interests, we organised two sessions at the annual conference of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), back in April 2018 in New Orleans. Through those sessions, we identified half of the contributors of this edited collection: Stevens, Mc Ardle, Maeder, Garcia, Pinard, Mackinnon, Bródy and McCarthy. Research collaborations and networks allowed identifying the other contributors: Bakare et al., Moawad, Topuzovski, Crump and Rodrigues et al. To select authors, key attention was given to how each contribution would allow complementing and enlarging both thematically, theoretically and geographically existing debates as to shape the research agenda for temporary urbanism. We were also committed to giving voice to a range of approaches and

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insights, provided by both academic scholars, at different stages of their careers, and practitioners. To date, there have been far too many distinct and diverse concepts looking at how temporary uses, projects and initiatives are occurring in spaces and cities; now, such processes are universal and happen all around the world, in different ways, driven by various mechanisms, actors, and with various impacts. The concept of temporary urbanism provides an overarching framework allowing a shared understanding of such research object, i.e. urban temporariness and temporary processes of transformations. This is where we believe that this book will have a key role in informing students’, scholars’ and practitioners’ work in the future, particularly those in search of comparative and geographically diverse insights. London, UK Manchester, UK

Lauren Andres Amy Y. Zhang

Acknowledgements

An edited collection is a team effort and we would like hereafter to recognise and address a warm thank you to the persons and institutions below. First of all, this book would not have been possible without all our contributors, so many thanks to all of them for their help, due diligence and patience in addressing all our requests. We would also like to thank our publisher, Springer, and particularly Juliana Pitanguy, for accepting our proposal in the first place and Sanjiev Mathiyazhagan for his support into the production process. We also acknowledge the fantastic work of Diane Bowden in proofreading the manuscript very thoroughly. Finally, we would like to thank our respective institutions, the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London and the Department of Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Manchester for their continuous support.

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Contents

1

Introduction—Setting-Up a Research Agenda for Temporary Urbanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lauren Andres and Amy Y. Zhang

Part I 2

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Reframing and Reconceptualising Temporary Urbanisms

Temporariness Takes Command: How Temporary Urbanism Re-Assembles the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quentin Stevens

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The Temporality Within Temporary Urbanism: Listening to Rhythms and Timespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rachel Mc Ardle

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Artistic Events as Planning Practice: Hybridisation, Expectations, and Pitfalls in Three Swiss Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . Thierry Maeder

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Informality and Temporary Urbanism as Defiance: Tales of the Everyday Life and Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa . . . . . . Hakeem Bakare, Stuart Denoon Stevens, and Lorena Melgaço

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Temporary Forms of Urbanism in Contested Urban Spaces in Lebanon: The Case of Dbayeh Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Moawad

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Political Protest, Temporary Urbanism and the Deactivation of Urban Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tihomir Topuzovski and Lauren Andres

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Part II

Unwrapping the Complexity and Diversity of Temporary Urbanisms

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Reimagining Urban Planning: From Institution to Innovation—A Comparative Exploration of Temporary Urbanism and the Future of City-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Liz Crump

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The Usefulness of Temporary Use: Narratives from Santiago’s Contemporary Urban Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Marisol García

10 Developing ‘Transient Urbanism’ as a New Urban and Real Estate Strategy: The Case of the French National Railway Company (SNCF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Juliette Pinard 11 Activated Alleyways: Mobilising Clean and Safe Dwelling in Business Improvement Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Debra Mackinnon 12 Debating Temporary Uses and Post-crisis Rationales in Barcelona and Budapest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Luca Sára Bródy 13 Address Urban Regeneration Challenge with Temporary Creative Uses: The Case of Beijing’s Dashilar Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Amy Y. Zhang 14 Exploring Urban Regeneration Through Temporary Uses in Central São Paulo, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Lucelia Rodrigues, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Renata Tubelo, Nicole Porter, Parham Mirzaei Ahranjani, Peter Kraftl, Lauren Andres, Ranny Loureiro Xavier Nascimento Michalski, Roberta Consentino Kronka Mülfarth, and Leonardo Monteiro 15 Temporary Urbanism in a Public Park: The Case of Postman Square, Milwaukee, Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Linda McCarthy 16 Conclusion: Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Amy Y. Zhang and Lauren Andres

Chapter 1

Introduction—Setting-Up a Research Agenda for Temporary Urbanism Lauren Andres and Amy Y. Zhang

Abstract Temporary urbanism can be defined as processes, practices and policies of and for spatial adaptability, allowing the transformation of a space in perceived need of transition, and thus impacting the surrounding socio-economic urban environments. There are three types of temporary urbanisms: bottom-up, top-down and hybrid. Having said that, this concept is still not widely used in academia and in practice for various reasons. This includes: the ephemeral and hence not permanent nature of temporary urbanisms hindering the sustainability of its memories; its preconceptions initially perceived as favoring conflits over permanent uses of space; an overaccumulation of work and interests towards temporariness resulting in in too many words and concepts looking at the same research objects; and finally its complexity and diversity making it hard to characterise and unpick. This chapter sets up the research agenda for temporary urbanism insisting on its relevance for various contexts, both in the Global North and the Global South. Keywords Temporary urbanism · Diversity · Complexity · Research agenda · Adaptability · Global north · Global south

1.1 What is Temporary Urbanism? For several decades, claims for the need for more malleability and flexibility in the making and design of urban spaces have been voiced internationally; these principles have been considered, if not embraced, by practitioners, politicians, scholars, artists, creators and many others, in the way they think about the production of the city and how urban spaces are thought through, shaped and reshaped. Amongst L. Andres (B) Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Y. Zhang Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_1

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several features of this malleability, ‘temporary’ uses or projects have been playing an increasingly key role. Initially, artists and those who could be widely referred to as ‘creators’ were at the forefront of informal and often illegal temporary occupations of buildings and spaces. Architects and urban designers then started to explore temporary uses in the making of the city, particularly of temporary structures, temporary installations or temporary features. Overall, turning to temporary uses has been a response to specific needs—need for physical space as a form of expression, need for experimentation, need for alternatives, need to respond to gaps and emptiness in the urban environment through temporary solutions and need for emergency solutions (e.g. housing). As a result, a significant amount of temporary uses, projects, interventions, of various scales and lengths, has spread in cities. This non-exhaustively includes indoor temporary uses within physical structures from temporary art spaces, workshops, pop-up shops, to larger projects including temporary theatres and cultural spaces, mixed-use facilities, often in containers (i.e. boxpark-types) and more recently temporary housing (e.g. PLACE Ladywell in London), to outdoor temporary uses (e.g. temporary gardens, temporary playgrounds and gyms, temporary cafes) and events (e.g. festivals, outdoor cinema, etc.). However, this concept of temporary uses has been mainly applied to the Northern context even if the uses as laid out above have spread into the Global South (and we will demonstrate this further in this book). So far, most of the literature looking at temporariness in the city (outside of ‘informality’) has been focusing on so-called developed countries (see for example Bishop and Williams 2012; Iveson 2013; Tonkiss 2013; Andres 2013; Finn 2014; see Madanipour 2017, 2018, and Andres et al. 2019 for an exception), specifically Europe, North America and Australia. Little is known about experiences set up outside of those contexts, hence ignoring the strong connection between temporariness and informality (Andres et al. 2019). What has also been missing though in the recognition of the importance of temporary uses in cities is an overarching concept allowing the cohesion of different ways of thinking, shaping, implementing and learning from temporary initiatives. Madanipour (2018)’s book on Cities in time: temporary urbanism and the future of the city has been decisive in finally elevating this concept of ‘temporary urbanism’ (see also Andres et al. 2019, Andres and Kraftl 2021). We follow here this trend and define temporary urbanism as processes, practices and policies of and for spatial adaptability, allowing the transformation of a space in perceived need of transition, and thus impacting the surrounding socio-economic urban environments (Andres and Kraftl 2021). By doing so, and as we will explain further below, this book advances the reflexion into how temporary urbanism is shaping cities across the world. It adopts an international overview to deepen the understandings of how temporary uses and projects participate in the transformation of urban environments and what this means, for research and for practice, in various contexts. It is worth noting that our reflexion stops prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and hence excludes insights into how meanwhile uses and adaptability have been spreading in cities across the Globe during the pandemic (refer to Andres, 2021 for initial thoughts).

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1.2 Temporary Use and Flexibility in the Built Environment The Italian architect Bernardo Secchi used to argue that ‘cities have always been exposed to dereliction: new developments have always been built on the traces of old ones, partly using its remains. Abandon, reuse and substitution have always marked the transition between the key eras of urban history’ (Secchi 2000, n. p.). What is clear is that temporary urbanism is associated with such transitions—whether economic, social or political changes. Now, those transitions have been associated with the transformation encountered by cities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that led to differently scaled phases of urban renewal (Talen 2012; Oswalt et al. 2017). However, temporary urbanisms have a longer history as cities across different periods have been constantly built and rebuilt (Andres 2008; Pinol 2003) and characterised by diverse temporary uses and projects (Lydon and Garcia 2015; Oswalt et al. 2017). There are three types of temporary urbanism: – Bottom-up temporary urbanism, which sits outside any formal planning frameworks and hence is led by individuals or collectives (e.g. artists, activists, community members) (Andres and Kraftl 2021). Those uses often sit within a context of weak planning (Andres 2013), a context where no formal and planned transformation can occur (due to various financial, economic, planning deadlocks). Weak planning is permissive and characterised by its lack of coordination, strategic guidelines, clear objectives and control by any higher authority (Andres 2013). Such bottom-up temporary urbanism is strongly connected to ‘everyday’ needs and hence gaps (Temel and Haydn 2006; Oswalt et al. 2017). It can include a wide range of temporary uses from squatting to temporary uses connected to the informal economy (e.g. temporary street shops) to more pacified and community-led projects (e.g. temporary playgrounds, temporary gardens), hence promoting out-of-the-box thinking which challenges formal planning arrangements in contexts of transition (Tonkiss 2013). – Top-down temporary urbanism, which reflects latest trends in neoliberal planning and development, supported by recent changes in the global economy, alongside new technologies, flexible working practices and the advent of knowledge economies (Bishop and Williams 2012; Oswalt et al. 2017; Bishop 2015, 2019). Here, temporary urbanism is planned and constructed by those who hold the power in decision-making (i.e. landowners, developers, local authorities). Temporary initiatives are not merely seen as informal responses to urban challenges but form part of more formal reimaginings of cities and neighbourhoods, within wider strategies and visions of urban transformations (Andres and Kraftl 2021). – Hybrid temporary urbanism, which highlights the variable nature of temporary urbanisms and its complexity. A significant amount of small-scale temporary projects rests upon processes of bricolage and improvisation amongst key stakeholders, both those holding power in the decision-making and those able to envision and deliver such initiatives. This means that boundaries between top-down and bottom-up are blurred. It is about local empowerment and adaptability in the

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process of making spaces and making those spaces viable and liveable, within a win–win situation for all. To date though, the concept of temporary urbanism is still not widely used in academia and in practice. There are four main reasons explaining this. First, because of its ephemerality. Temporary urbanism is by essence not permanent but also highly localised. The traces it leaves on a space rely on the ability of the temporary instigators and users to perpetuate and sustain its memories, which is highly problematic. Temporary urbanism is an alternative and small-scale form of urban transformations, which also makes it very complex and diverse (as we note below) and hence any attempts of engaging with it further and comparing how it is deployed have been difficult to date. Madanipour (2017, p. 12) summarises this tension when he argues that ‘temporary urbanism is based on events that seem to be random, outside of the normal rhythm of things, disrupting the settled habits of society and disregarding the routines that regulate everyday life’. Second, temporary uses and projects have generated a lot of preconceptions. As per its historical connection with illegal artistic occupations and hence squats, for a long time, temporary uses have been reluctantly tolerated, especially by landowners and local authorities. The temporary nature of the uses or occupations was perceived as a source of conflicts due to temporary users then attempting to make them permanent, thus hindering any other processes of formal transformation envisaged for a space or area. The evolution of temporary urbanism towards planned, top-down forms of economic, social and urban transformations shifted around those preconceptions. Third, there has been an overaccumulation of work and interests towards temporariness from both research and practice; this resulted in too many words and concepts looking at the same research objects but through diverse terms, and various analytical angles, with each individual and team wanting to create its own recipe (both theoretically and conceptual). Typically, the literatures are replete with examples of ‘insurgent and guerrilla’ (Hou 2010), ‘pop-up’, ‘DIY’ and ‘tactical’ (Iveson 2013; Finn 2014; Lydon and Garcia 2015) and more general ‘temporary’ uses of space (Groth and Corijn 2005; Andres 2013; Bishop and Williams 2012). Finally, because of its complexity and diversity, temporary urbanism is hard to characterise and unpick. Bishop and Williams (2012) framed out this complexity with five main criteria: temporary uses can be formal and/or informal; legal and/or illegal; planned and/or spontaneous; long-lasting and/or short-term; and, financed in diverse ways. Another layer of complexity is formed by the addition of geographic and context-specific diversity, which hence emphasises the need to reflect upon the processes of urban transformation of temporary urbanism internationally to set up the research agenda for the future research on such a topic.

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1.3 A Research Agenda for Temporary Urbanism Building upon the four challenges of temporary urbanism, as a commonly termed object of research and practice of urban and place-making, there is a need to compile and reflect upon various attempts to reframe and reconceptualise temporary urbanism. This has to be achieved through two main paths of enquiry: reframing and reconceptualising temporary urbanisms (uncovered in the first section of this book) and unwrapping the complexity and diversity of temporary urbanisms (discussed in the second section of the book). Temporary urbanism allows a reinterrogation of the role of temporalities and non-permanence into the place-making process and hence in the production and reproduction of cities, including the adaptability of the existing spaces and production of new spaces. First, apprehending those processes requires the mobilisation of new frames of thoughts, to move beyond the existing conceptions and disciplinary siloes. This includes questioning how permeability and assemblage can be reinterpreted to assess the role of temporary urbanism in designing and changing spaces (Chap. 2). To do so, Stevens interrogates the contemporary idea and practice of temporary use and emphasises that time is not just a passive backdrop against which the city is built up. Time is an actant: its properties materially influence other actants that it comes into contact with. Its speed, its texture and its durations all influence other actors in the city, shaping what they want and what they do. Temporariness is an actor with specific aims, needs and effects, which define specific kinds of ‘building events’. Temporary urbanism makes space immutable, and temporariness helps temporary uses, people, regulations and materials to resist challenges. Temporary urbanism allows new ways of thinking about time and space and specifically queries how to better unwrap temporariness with the rhythms of cities and urban spaces (Chap. 3). Here, Mc Ardle refers to how the temporal combined with the spatial can be brought together to better understand the continuous process of transformation of cities and particularly its unfinished and living character. Drawing upon the example of a temporary culture-artistic event (the Dublin Biennial), she argues that paying attention to artistic, non-economic timespaces of the city enables urban scholars to understand the city from non-capitalistic perspectives and thus engage with the inherent fluidity of cities. Such a form of temporary urbanism also directly challenges standard forms of planning and allows opening the disciplinary boundaries of the profession to account for more innovative methods; this raises a key question on how the temporary artistic form of temporary urbanism affects professional practices (Chap. 4). This question is decrypted by Maeder who through the example of temporary uses in Geneva unwraps the condition of innovation in urban planning methods in the context of event-driven temporary urbanism and calls for a rethinking of the modalities of collaborations between artists and urban planners in the case of artistic events used as planning tools.

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Second, reframing and reconceptualising temporary urbanism rests upon extending common areas of queries of temporariness to other fields where the temporary merges with other forms of non-permanence. This is particularly important to unpick the complexity and diversity of temporary urbanism and specifically its richness in terms of geography, context and processes of temporary transformation. This includes reflecting on the relationship between temporary urbanism and informality, going beyond the existing studies on insurgent urbanisms and highlighting the extent to which temporariness in the Global South context testifies from a permanent state of rejection and exclusion (Chap. 5). To do so, Bakare, Denoon Stevens and Melgaco study temporary urban settlements in sub-Saharan Africa and demonstrate how such settlements, even if considered as temporary, are actually permanent and lead to various forms of urbanisms which are unwanted, often dangerous and rejected by the state. Focusing on alternative forms of temporariness raises attention towards temporary housing, settlements and specifically camps set up to provide, in principle, temporary shelters for populations who fled away from their homes; such forms of temporariness allow interrogating the role of impermanence and permanence in a wider state of limbo. This has direct implications in the understanding given to temporary urbanisms here and particularly how the waiting is constitutive of temporary urbanism (Chap. 6). Moawad, through the example of the Dbayeh camp in Beirut, highlights how camps can be transformed from being a temporary monovalent urban archipelago to a polyvalent permanent one, while remaining ostracised. As an extra-territorial space, temporary urbanism is expressed through waiting where hope, desire, subordination, stillness, productivity and longing for ‘home’ are translated into space. Hence, the camp within this urban sprawl and density turns into a space-in-waiting, an isolated and stigmatised urban archipelago. Finally, such reconceptualisation of temporary urbanism raises questions about the nature of its process of transformation and the extent to which it relates only to giving new uses and meaning to change and temporal projects or can also aim to transform and reject the existing uses in a situation of protests. Hence, can temporary urbanism not only activate but also deactivate space (Chap. 7)? Topuzovski and Andres, looking at the colourful revolution in Skopje (Republic of Macedonia), develop the concept of deactivation through colourisation of buildings and monuments as a way to modify their meanings and symbols; they demonstrate how artistic means can be involved in civil movements and initiatives and feature the development of temporary spaces of resistance. Pushing this research agenda forward also means securing a better understanding of the complexity and diversity of temporary urbanism, including a dialogue between various experiences both in the Global North and in the Global South. It looks at the implications of temporary urbanism in the delivery of planning and considers how and by whom cities are governed and transformed. Temporary urbanism indeed testifies from various process, mechanisms and approaches towards urban making and hence connects both research and practice. Temporary urbanism is not about certainty or about the ‘planned’. By essence, it

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questions traditional models of planning and development and provides an alternative for when the latest models cannot be achieved. This, of course, raises a range of questions. As argued above, temporary urbanism is not new and has been characteristic of cities for centuries; nevertheless, it has never been accepted as a standard practice of urban making. Is it then time to consider temporary urbanisms as a universal mechanism to address urban complexity and experimentation (Chap. 8)? Crump here mobilises the cases of London and Santiago (Chile) to examine the emergence of temporary urbanism in both capital cities and assess the impacts and prospects of temporary uses in relation to formal planning processes. She argues that temporary urbanism in both contexts is a valuable complementary practice to spatial planning for finding opportunity in complex and evolving urban conditions. Recommendations for planning practice are here identified, stressing the importance of temporary urbanism for urban planners and designers. Temporary urbanism also raises wider questions in contexts where urban planning is not well represented as a profession. Such a dilemma is reinforced when cities are characterised by a mix of formal and informal as well as planned and unplanned. Interestingly enough, even in such urban contexts, temporary uses have been elevated as a commonly used practice which raises question about how temporary urbanism is instrumentalised (Chap. 9). Pursuing the discussion, started in Chap. 8 on temporary projects in Santiago, Garcia deconstructs how temporary practices have an ambiguous character as they use incremental learning and experimentation as a means to demonstrate possible changes, thus moving the limits of the production of public spaces; at the same time, such uses are used instrumentally and conceived as palliative solutions to urban problems, linked to scarcity of resources, absence of appropriate planning regulatory frameworks for engaging with creativity in practice and lack of ambition to deliver changes outside of political timeframes. Reflecting on what temporary urbanism means for cities and how it has been now widely adopted by key stakeholders highlights that vision; strategies and urban development mechanisms have changed and will continue to change. How is temporary urbanism leading to alternative and transitional forms of urban development involving a reconfiguration of skills and knowledge about urban making (Chap. 10)? Pinard, assessing temporary occupations carried out by a large landowner and real estate player in France, details how temporary urbanism is here used as a new mode of action to support broader strategic policies. She demonstrates how this sits within a wider process of learning through experimentation influenced by a growing interest in transient urbanism. Finally, the wide acceptance of temporary urbanism as an alternative model of development testifies how temporary uses have been perceived as activators and hence value providers. Now, what is the dark side of this neoliberal interpretation of temporary urbanism? Can all spaces, even the most forgotten, be transformed by temporary initiatives? If those spaces were used before as temporary shelters, what is the wider impact of temporary urbanism in fostering social exclusion (Chap. 11)? Mackinnon looks at the activation of alleyways, through temporary uses, within Business Improvement Areas in Vancouver (Canada). Sitting with a wider strategy

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of ‘clean and safe’, beautification and place-making, temporary urbanism and design here participate in capturing public spaces for corporate use, with the view of tackling crime and disorder, and hence getting rid of any forms of temporary occupations (e.g. homeless shelters). Now, temporary urbanism is about urban transformations, at various scales; it is about people and the process through which actors and stakeholders engage in urban making. This, of course, raises significant questions about how cities and urban spaces are governed. This is a very topical agenda noting the significant momentum for top-down temporary urbanism which raises questions of how non-decision makers and specifically citizens are included in the process of urban production. As such, what opportunities are offered to citizens to participate in temporary urbanism initiatives led by local governments on public spaces (Chap. 12)? Bródy uses the case of Barcelona and Budapest to demonstrate how vacancy and hence temporary uses have become a visible and politically significant issue, playing a key role in determining how cities respond to both local and wider global challenges. She unfolds how such projects respond to post-crisis demands and are attached to values of social justice and equity. Here, context is the key in researching the trajectory of temporary urbanism, and this trajectory is influenced by both space and people. This is important in three ways which all question the translation of localities into general models of temporary practice, hence raising awareness about challenges and limitations. First, there is still little understanding of how temporary urbanism can be instrumentalised by local authorities and decision makers, specifically when adopted for urban regeneration by city governments in non-Western and/or Global South contexts (Chap. 13). Zhang here uses the example of Beijing, China, to discuss how such temporary uses can sit outside of contexts of economic austerity and financial crises and participate in the wider strategy of creative urban regeneration. She demonstrates that while temporary creative uses and the resulting culture-led regeneration can play a role in pressuring local residents to move out of the area and open up more spaces for creative and cultural uses, they fail to demonstrate the expected effectiveness in drawing individuals and businesses into the creative and cultural sectors. Second, the transformational potential of temporary urbanisms on local people is context-dependent (Chap. 14). Rodrigues et al. look at the case of temporary uses in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and demonstrate how a temporary urbanism approach can contribute to the reactivation of particularly challenging, degraded areas that are near to central areas of a city; the authors note that such interventions, especially in the Global South context, must be designed and managed in response to the needs of each place, respecting the complexities of each neighbourhood and their residents. Finally, temporary urbanism is not a ready-made solution, even if its elevation as a creative alternative to vacancy during downturns may make it appear as such, particularly for local authorities and developers. What are then the hidden barriers behind the implementation of temporary urbanisms (Chap. 15)? Linda McCarthy ends this discussion by looking at the City of Milwaukee, which, while open to temporary urbanism efforts, has not been proactive in promoting temporary urbanism, partly due to limitations of personnel and budget. She here provides a counterexample to the

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overall positive discourse around temporary urbanism, in the North, and demonstrates that in addition to the adjustment of regulations to accommodate temporary uses, attention also needs to be given to budget allocation, particularly when temporary urbanism is delivered by local authorities. Reflecting on those new directions taken by debates on temporary urbanism, in the conclusion (Chap. 16), we bring together the ideas and arguments from the contributors of this edited collection and highlight two key conceptual themes across the chapters. First, we emphasise that the chapters collectively demonstrate a variety of ways of conceptualising and utilising the ‘temporary’, and by extension, more indepth and nuanced understanding of time and temporality in cities. Secondly, building upon the first theme, we argue that various conceptualisations of time, temporality and temporariness presented in these chapters allow us to examine further the meaning and function of temporary urbanisms for urban planning, governance and politics.

References Andres L (2008) La ville mutable. Mutabilité et référentiels urbains: les cas de Bouchayer- Viallet, de la Belle de Mai et du Flon. Phd thesis, Université Pierre Mendes France, Grenoble Andres L (2013) Differential spaces, power-hierarchy and collaborative planning: a critique of the role of temporary users in shaping and making places. Urban Studies 50(4):759–777 Andres L (2021) The importance of temporary urbanism in deconstructing cities and shaping the post-pandemic city research agenda. The Large Glass (in press) Andres, L, Kraftl, P (2021) New directions in the theorisation of temporary urbanisms: adaptability, activation and trajectory. Progress in Human Geography (in press) Andres L, Bakare H, Bryson J, Khaemba W, Melgaco L, Mwaniki G (2019) Planning, temporary urbanism and citizen-led alternative-substitute place-making in the global south. Regional Studies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2019.1665645 Bishop P, Williams L (2012) The temporary city. Routledge, London Bishop P (2015) From the subversive to the serious. Counterpoint 235(03):136–141 Bishop P (2019) Urban design in the fragmented city. Rob Roggema. Contemporary urban design thinking, The Australian approach, Springer, Cham, pp 71–94 Finn D (2014) DIY urbanism: implications for cities. J Urbanism: Int Res Placemaking Urban Sustain 7(4):381–398 Groth J, Corijn E (2005) Reclaiming urbanity: Indeterminate spaces, informal actors and urban agenda setting. Urban Studies 42(3):503–526 Hou J (ed) (2010) Insurgent public space: guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities. Routledge, London Iveson K (2013) Cities within the city: do-it-yourself urbanism and the right to the city. Int J Urban Reg Res 37(3):941–956 Lydon M, Garcia A (2015) A tactical urbanism how-to. In: Lydon M, Garcia A (eds) Tactical urbanism. Island Press, Washington, DC Madanipour A (2017) Cities in time: temporary urbanism and the future of the city. Bloomsbury, London Madanipour A (2018) Temporary use of space: Urban processes between flexibility, opportunity and precarity. Urban Studies 55(5):1093–1110 Oswalt P, Overmeyer K, Misselwitz P (2017) The power of temporary. DOM Publishers, Berlin Pinol J-L (2003) Histoire de l’Europe Urbaine, T1: de l’Antiquité au 18ème siècle. Le Seuil, Paris Secchi B (2000) Une réécriture permanente, in Le monde des débats, October 2000, pp 28–29

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Talen E (2012) Zoning and diversity in historical perspective. J Plann Hist 11:330–347 Temel R, Haydn F (eds) (2006) Temporary urban spaces: concepts for the use of city spaces. Birkhauser, Basel Tonkiss F (2013) Austerity urbanism and the makeshift city. City 17(3):312–324

Part I

Reframing and Reconceptualising Temporary Urbanisms

Chapter 2

Temporariness Takes Command: How Temporary Urbanism Re-Assembles the City Quentin Stevens

Abstract What defines certain transformations of urban spaces as ‘temporary’ or ‘tactical’, and what gives them fresh validity and value? This chapter draws upon Assemblage Thinking and Actor-Network Theory to focus on the role of temporariness in shaping urban development. It explores time in relation to the production and use of the urban environment. It shows how temporariness defines and enables specific relationships to the many actors and forces that shape cities. Before, during and after ‘temporary use’ people, money, regulations and materials are won over to it. Temporariness avoids and withstands challenges; it adapts. These dynamics are explored in terms of various benefits and impacts that temporary urbanism can have for other actors and longer-lasting forms of urban development. This characterisation of temporary urbanism and its networks of interdependence link it to wider critiques of neoliberalism, modernist masterplanning, and historic preservation. This examination of today’s temporary urbanism highlights two paradoxical dynamics that constantly influence the form of cities. Firstly, temporary urbanism, for all its claimed ephemerality, constantly establishes new, durable relationships and has broad and enduring effects. Secondly, all urban spaces are more-or-less impermanent assemblages of materials which are constantly being adjusted to meet changing resources and needs. Keywords Actor-Network theory · Neoliberalism · Creative industries · Long-term uses · Benefits

2.1 Introduction Is temporary urbanism really any different to regular urbanism? And if so, what is special about its temporariness? Cities rise and cities fall, as do skyscrapers, freeways and open space designs. All urban spaces are more-or-less impermanent assemblages of materials, people, technologies and concepts. All of them can be, and eventually Q. Stevens (B) School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_2

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are, disassembled. Nothing lasts forever. Time is always a factor in the city’s development, whether people consider time in terms of temporariness, ‘design life’, planned obsolescence, amortisation, land banking or long-term visions, and time is always limited. Jacobs et al. (2012, p. 128) suggest that rather than reifying the built environment as a fixed reality, we should consider even the largest and ostensibly most permanent built forms as a series of ‘building events’ which are ‘always being ‘made’ or ‘unmade’, always doing the work of holding together or pulling apart’, and which in all cases eventually come to an end. In this context, what is distinctive about the current trend of ‘temporary’ uses and ‘temporary’ physical interventions in urban spaces is that they are consciously conceived and presented as being very temporary. Recognition and constant reinforcement of their very limited duration is crucial to their coming-to-be, what they are and how they work. This chapter uses Assemblage Thinking and Actor-Network Theory to explore the contemporary idea and practice of temporary use. The chapter emphasises that time is not just a passive backdrop against which the city is built up. Time is an actant: its properties materially influence other actants that it comes into contact with. Its speed, its texture and its durations all influence other actors in the city, shaping what they want and what they do. Temporariness is an actor with specific aims, needs and effects, which define specific kinds of ‘building events’. One major strand of recent research into temporary uses has focused on how influential they are in cities’ development, pointing to their long-term impacts, as catalysts for lasting changes to spaces and to their planning, development and management processes (Oswalt et al. 2013; Lydon and Garcia 2015). That focuses on temporariness creating something permanent. This chapter seeks to overcome a valorisation of duration. It explores how, within short-term urban design projects, temporariness creates, extends and stabilises specific networks of making and care, and relationships to other actors and forces, without necessarily fixing these for a long time. The chapter explores how the labelling of particular transformations and uses of urban spaces as ‘temporary’ can be a means of making them immutable, by durably aligning and associating these urban design projects with a network of other actors, forces and interests, assembling a set of relationships that support, stabilise, defend and rely on it. Before, during, and after the existence of a temporary use, people, regulations and materials are won over to its benefits. Its temporariness helps it to resist challenges. This view may initially seem paradoxical. Temporary uses and tactical actions are typically presented and reified as ways of loosening up urban spaces and urban development processes. They are argued to help in ending droughts of capital flow, sidestepping burdensome regulations, overcoming bureaucratic inertia and breaking existing legal deadlocks. They seem to be oriented towards change and to counteracting other urban practices and policies that are seen as rigid, slow and outdated (Lydon and Garcia 2015). But like any urban design initiative, temporary uses gain power and develop ‘traction’ by becoming aligned with a range of agents and forces that support them. These actors can include concrete and bolts, but also land titles, planning ordinances, market demand and ideas.

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Temporary use projects create new relationships among actors that allow resources to flow in new ways for a certain period of time. There are other examples of new assemblages of actors which have changed how built environments are produced and maintained, most of which are long-term. For example, BOOT (build, own, operate and transfer) projects, and leaseback contracts for public assets such as infrastructure, shift the allocations of investment, management, risk and benefit among institutional actors such as governments and pension funds, restructuring the traditional relationships between the ownership and use of ‘public’ infrastructure. These contracts provide desired long-term certainty for built form, use and flows of resources. Temporary uses, in contrast, provide a desired certainty that arrangements are not fixed over the long term. This enables the involvement of new actors who, for varied reasons, only want to, or only can, make shorter-term commitments. In the case of temporary uses, short-term use of common materials such as shipping containers, forklift pallets and potted plants makes it possible for the owners of these materials to rent them cheaply (or to freely loan them), because they can still be recovered, re-rented or sold afterwards with a similar form and value. They are not consumed; nor are they bound into durable assemblages like concrete or ecosystems. In many cases, neighbours of temporary uses tolerate temporary uses (and thereby help authorise them) precisely because they are temporary, and thus their external impacts are finite, allowing neighbours to arrange their own actions and spaces to manage those impacts. This contrasts with permanent redesigns or uses of an urban site, which often develop strong, durable opposition. The limited duration of temporary uses also allows alignment to other actors that do desire more long-term relationships, providing them with better control or flexibility over their own land-use plans, funding arrangements and construction activities, and matching these to market needs. For example, temporary uses on vacant industrial properties can cover site holding costs and attract future customers and potential investors during the long years of redevelopment. Madanipour (2017) highlights that temporary uses can be deployed to manage supply and demand for urban space, smoothing the market. In such cases, they are aligned within a long-term trajectory of reinvestment. Madanipour also points out that time itself is a social construction, an instrument that society created and can use. His analysis emphasises that society expands the resource of time by increasing its speed and multiplication, to increase production. Giedion (1948) shows how the desire to use time efficiently has shaped new assemblages of spaces and human activities through mechanisation, dictating the organisation and coordination of the actions of individuals, groups, machines and spaces, initially in factory assembly lines, and subsequently on farms and in the home kitchen. Traffic lights, transport planning, spatial programming and ‘office hours’ all illustrate ways that ideas about the correct and limited time necessary for various human activities shape the production, form and use of urban space. While cities and city life are not entirely mechanised, an aversion to allowing spaces, capital and labour to lie idle guides the arrangement and duration of all manner of actors and activities. But time can also be partitioned to protect it from such forces. Temporary

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uses also show how the fragmentation of time can create distinctive opportunities for social and material arrangements other than those delivered by the conventional urban property market.

2.2 Temporary Exemptions Society constructs and manages time to suit its needs. But seen from the opposite perspective, specific time frames navigate their way through social arrangements, forming more-or less-durable relationships. For example, structures and uses of urban spaces which only exist for short periods of time are typically exempted from the dreaded ‘red tape’: requirements for health and safety, structural integrity, durability, accessibility, intensity (including noise limits) and other controls on quality, including visual aesthetics. Temporary uses thus also often avoid all of the investments in risk management that necessarily go along with these requirements. If a temporary use looks bad, does not work or fails economically, it does not matter much, because it will be gone soon enough. Making a spatial event ‘temporary’ may even allow it, and the other actors that constitute it, to be exempted from established political responsibilities (e.g. to follow decision-making processes that are accountable, transparent and fair) and from economic commitments on rent, utilities, salaries and taxes. Temporary use, as a legitimating basis for government approval or toleration of urban construction and land uses, often operates within—indeed, creates—a state of exemption which can be likened to Agamben’s (2005) state of exception, the suspending of normal laws. Just as Agamben argues that the state of exception, which was meant to be a provisional arrangement, has in fact been normalised as a way of governing, local governments, along with a range of other human actors, have enabled ‘temporary use’ to become a normal paradigm for governing urban space, for planning. Just as with the state of emergency, support for temporary uses has been constituted by planners, economists, realtors and others as a political necessity, as something required by contemporary economic conditions, which renders traditional planning processes and instruments useless and invalid (Oswalt et al. 2013). As Haid (2017) notes in a study of informal food vending practices in Berlin’s parks, it is the powerful actors of the state who have chosen to enable these new short-term flexibilities, to ‘neoliberalise’ planning. They have done this to enable and empower informal actors to help meet the government’s strategic objectives in times of reduced tax revenues (to provide amenities and jobs for residents, prevent urban land lying fallow and declining in value and attracting more serious crime). In addition, the state enables new ways of policing and controlling activities (outside existing frameworks) that might otherwise become ‘too successful’: activities that might lead to negative impacts, actors gathering too much power around themselves, or a loss of government control. Beyes (2009) and Färber (2014) similarly document entrepreneurial reorganisations of urban land uses and governance processes in Berlin and Hamburg which enable, indeed require, rapid change. As it proceeds, this temporalised, flexible, precarious governance of urban space disassembles the

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existing relationships that used to ‘fix’ the city (relationships of land, labour, capital and knowledge). In a broader sense, it also disassembles the existing understandings of urban land uses and of city development as being permanent. Defining urban actions as temporary is a conscious governance strategy of delinking certain urban spaces and certain material and behavioural conditions from the strictures that have conventionally been imposed by the long-term assemblage of the planned, managed city. This is a necessary step for them to subsequently be enrolled into other realms of practice.

2.3 Maintaining the Myth of Transience The contours of a broad, socially constructed ontology of transience in urban development are sketched out by Schwarzer (1994), who presents this in diametrical contrast to historic preservation. Historic preservation, Schwarzer notes, defines and enacts a ‘myth of permanence’ in the built environment, by choosing to exempt certain built forms from the economic threat of demolition, the ravages of time, and from ongoing accretions and modifications. As a form of recorded history, preservation of certain aspects of the built environment can reinforce the allegiance of individuals and spaces to a particular definition of nationhood, and thus reproduce power relations, and actively resist change. Schwarzer counterpoints this to an antagonistic myth of transience, which valorises dynamism, newness, progress and the mobility of settlement across the landscape (in his case, westward expansion in America). He notes that ‘the vast majority of American built environments are unplanned, haphazard places that grow rapidly and are often as quickly abandoned when times change’ (Schwarzer 1994, p. 6). He connects this to Americans’ historically specific ‘ideological desires to escape from potentially burdensome ties to either the natural environment or the social community’, because ‘permanently occupied structures… represent a tradition of European building relating to feudal social organization and deep-seated public commitments’ (Schwarzer 1994, p. 7). He thus presents the transience of much American (and also of Modernist) urban development as an embodiment of individual freedom. While the quest for a mythical permanent order has tended to dominate Western metaphysics, it has its ontological opposite in this Nietzschean philosophy of creative becoming, where everything must be assembled anew. Schwarzer argues, like Jacobs et al. (2012), that historic preservation ‘overlooks… the continual renewal of both buildings and cities, the successive waves of alterations and inhabitants… the fragmentary and rapidly changing history of the built environment in the modern city’ and ‘overemphasize[s] the permanence of built culture’ (Schwarzer 1994, p. 8). Traditional urban planning policies have the same tendency to reify and protect existing built form, for example, by setting out long-range visions. Schwarzer highlights that the actors necessary to preserve built form (values, laws, people, spaces, materials, time frames) must assemble, and that the same is true for the transient spaces of the frontier, which are produced, held open, and when desired, locked down or emptied again, by the strategic alignments of some actors

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and the suppression or elimination of others. Planning practices, instruments, people and spaces are enrolled in enabling temporary urbanism just as they are in preserving existing urban form. Dovey and King (2011) note that informal urbanism often has an ambiguous status, between temporary and permanent. Sometimes tenure over space is socially assembled through informal, unofficial equivalents of official rent and title, or through political agreements. These alliances are tactically manipulated to maintain flows of money and political power.

2.4 Temporariness as Opportunity Beauregard’s examination of ‘Temporalities’ in urban planning considers how various forms and conceptions of time that are deployed by various actors ‘deeply influence how planning is done’ (Beauregard 2015, p. 152). For example, planners, politicians and financiers choose specific time horizons that influence what urban plans might seek to achieve, and how. But Beauregard’s ontology of time is not as flat and open as it could be. He suggests, following Latour (1988), that time is the passage from one moment to the next; that it is defined by moments. Yet he remains wedded to an idea of time as unfolding into the future, of progress; to an idea of planning as changing the long-term future, and of time as a teleological unfolding from current causes to future effects. But the rise of temporary uses shows that not all plans and projects are meant to, or able to, change the city permanently. Temporary uses reveal a quite radical notion for urban planning: that there is a time after the plan, after the project. The limited duration of the temporary use, a defined slice of time, has a role in gathering other actors around it. Madanipour (2017) identifies three key ways that temporariness in itself creates distinctive economic advantages that encourage and shape short-term transformations and uses of urban spaces. Firstly, the novelty of these uses attracts attention and often free media coverage. Secondly, temporary interventions and uses distinguish a site from permanent competitors offering similar services, and they can attract new customer groups. Thirdly, brevity is a type of market scarcity that stimulates consumption demand. This is particularly important in economic downturns, when consumption slows. A fourth way that temporariness creates opportunities for using urban spaces is implied by Madanipour’s observation that public authorities will say yes to unusual proposals and temporarily suspend normal rules and requirements, because the use helps them in ‘maintaining a degree of tax revenues and the appearance of vibrancy on the streets’ (Madanipour 2017, p. 52). It helps them to maintain flows of people, money and services during temporary economic downturns and vacancies. These same principles essentially hold true for non-commercial temporary interventions, in terms of generating community interest and patronage.

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2.5 Durable But Mutable Empirical evidence of one temporary use, artificial ‘city beaches’ placed on vacant urban sites, illustrates a range of ways that short-term transformations of urban spaces, and the assemblages of actors that gather together around them, become durable and have wider and longer-term impacts on urban space and how it is used and managed (Stevens 2011). Some temporary uses repeat across time; for example, by reappearing in the same location each summer or winter. The artificial beach Paris Plage was originally conceived and developed as a six-week one-off event, constrained in duration by the summer closure of a section of riverside freeway. Now, the beach’s sand is scraped up at the end of each summer and carried away by barge to a storage depot upstream on the Seine and is then brought back and reassembled the following summer. This project thus aligns itself to available transport and storage facilities, and to the calendar cycle, alternating with the seasonal traffic on the riverside freeway (Stevens and Ambler 2010). City beaches also illustrate the spatial translation of a temporary use. They are designed from loose and collapsible elements that can be moved intact from one site to another or replicated across multiple sites. The success of short-term city beaches has led to other wider impacts, by reshaping local government regulations for such uses, working relationships (between the projects’ operators, funders, landowners, regulators and consumers), contractual arrangements (e.g. with beverage suppliers and music performers) and decisionmaking processes (Stevens 2011, 2015). These durable shifts have, in turn, shaped other temporary uses and even permanent ones. For example, a temporary beach in Amsterdam, Blijburg aan Zee, was so popular that it forced the city’s development corporation to alter the masterplan for the future housing area where it had been introduced as a temporary promotional attraction (Stevens and Ambler 2010). People rallied to help it persist. It displaced other forms of open space that were originally intended to supplant it. The temporary use enmeshed itself with, and transformed, the longer-term form and use of its site and the surrounding district, becoming aligned to other permanent uses and their networks. The artificial beach has in itself become a durable idea, a prototype, even if each use or site is of limited duration. More broadly, over recent decades, temporary uses have become a robust, recognised and valued category of land use, one which has both been aligned to, and helped to develop, theories, a related literature, and a set of protagonists and supporters. In all these ways, ostensibly ephemeral land uses can increase their durability by developing alignments to other actors.

2.6 Assembling New Actors Temporary open space projects often attract human actors and develop relationships that build these actors’ capacities, opportunities and durability. ‘Temporary use’ is a concept that has enabled a new range of human actors to engage in ‘informalised’ urban development and space management processes and to be aligned with

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resources that were previously restricted to professionally accredited architects and landscape architects. The rise of temporary use has provided a means for a new range of actors—artists, community activists, sociologists, social workers, place makers, place managers—to become involved in production and decision-making processes for the built environment. It has improved their access to the large, ongoing capital works budgets and grants that were traditionally only available for longer-term, carefully deliberated investments in city building, often without their having to meet existing standards and requirements. Temporary uses are cheaper and show quick impacts, especially visually. This endears them to politicians who are motivated by affecting rapid shifts in the opinions of voters and other stakeholders such as business owners and property investors. The recent wave of temporary uses has especially drawn in workers from various creative industries. They are typically able to start operating at short notice, to quickly identify and respond to the distinctive aesthetic, historical and functional opportunities of sites when they become available, and to add to sites’ symbolic, social and economic value. The new and temporary nature of these opportunities to transforms sites is believed to help stimulate creative solutions (Stevens 2018; SfS Berlin 2007). The impermanence and precarity of these projects have co-evolved alongside the growth of freelance creative workers or ‘culturepreneurs’ (Lange 2007) who create them; actors who have to divide their work arrangements flexibly between projects, teams and cities. In Berlin, and in many other centres of temporary use, the careers of the individual creative industry workers who produce and consume these temporary spaces have dissolved into a collective of flexibly compartmentalised times and tasks, just as the cities’ urban spaces have been subdivided and shared spatially and temporally (Färber 2014). Planning policies often specifically intend that artistic permissiveness on vacant sites should only be temporary and transitional (Andres and Grésillon 2013). These actors have been able to make themselves into ‘obligatory passage points’ (Callon 1986) for newly defined ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’ urban development processes (PPS 2018) that substitute for, and compete with, the old slow ones: community participation rather than consultation; hands-on making and donations rather than construction and procurement contracts; short-term agreements rather than durable laws; evoking qualitative atmosphere instead of meeting quantitative standards. These actors provide the organisation skills to bring these assets together for maximum impact and to disperse them quickly again when no longer needed— often within mere hours if they occupy a floodplain, or weeks if a vacant site finds a buyer. The short-term arrangements that temporary uses create are able to gather other actors around them and gain power in part because they undermine the power and connections of the existing city and the mythology of its permanence and value. Schwarzer (1994) characterises the transient, open city of the American West in terms of its freedom from the rigid, burdensome, hierarchical and corrupt social and physical constraints of the traditional city. Today’s temporary urbanism is similarly post-structural and non-deterministic; it is a performative critique that enacts and demonstrates the breaking of existing rules, roles and relationships, opening up new

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possibilities, and freeing up resources and actors to forge new and flexible alliances (Madanipour 2017). Madanipour (2017) suggests that these new alignments of actors define kairos, time that is experienced and managed as moments of opportunity, of becoming, which is in contrast to chronos, the sense of time as continually, regularly unfolding. Beauregard’s (2015) Actor-Network analysis of the temporalities of planning highlights different time frames within which city plans can be developed and carried out, and different time horizons for which plans are developed. Both of these temporalities influence the nature of what is being planned and which actors are involved. Beauregard notes that city development is uneven across time. But he remains wedded to the idea that ‘time-defining moments must be irreversible. It has to be impossible for the things that have been gathered to be returned to their original states’ (Beauregard 2015, p. 159). He assumes a teleological view of planning in which ‘action is path dependent, where once government activities are… in place, non-government actors react with compatible investments and actions that reinforce them’, because diverging from this would ‘abandon the benefits… that actors enjoy by being so entangled’ (Beauregard 2015, p. 160). Beauregard’s perspective privileges the forward motion of time. Like Madanipour, he merely acknowledges that society and planning modulate time’s speed and constancy, while ignoring the ways that the nature of time, including its segmentation, may influence how cities are planned, how they change and who is involved. Beauregard also presumes actors consistently work together over time towards common, predetermined goals, although temporary uses are, in many cases, times of experimentation, where the actors involved and their networks of action are intentionally not stable and enduring, but are instead developed and tested. Dovey (2010, 2013) notes that the character of some places is defined by this dynamic quality of mixing and becoming. Temporary urbanism similarly establishes times when new place identities can be established. In this context, Madanipour (2017) emphasises that every use of public space is temporary. The public realm is defined by a lack of fixity, the absence of permanent occupation and control by any one actor. Madanipour qualifies this by noting that all uses of public space are conditioned by power. But power itself, and the agreements and institutions that wield it, are also constantly being produced or undermined by various actors, including time. When ‘landlords and regulators aren’t equipped to handle temporary uses’, and planners ‘apply licensing burdens, lease agreements, and review processes that are unsuitable for projects that may only last four weeks’, temporary uses have a tactical role in testing new pathways that circumvent or replace these actors and processes (Madanipour 2017, p. 165 citing Fidler 2011, Lydon and Garcia 2015). The time frame helps determine what other relationships will prevail. In the conclusion of his study of the role of time and temporary urbanism in cities, Madanipour notes that time can be seen as relational, circumstantial and defined in terms of the relationships between events. He argues that time is socially produced, and thus, it can be changed. But time can also be seen as relational in terms of the relationships that it establishes to other actors in the city. Temporary uses can also change actors’ perceptions of, and relation to, time itself.

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Fig. 2.1 Eight ways that time frames temporary uses. A typology of potential relationships between permanent uses of urban spaces (dark shading) and temporary uses (light shading) over time (running left to right), as developed by Studio Urban Catalyst. The dashed lines demarcate the temporary period between A, when a permanent use or disuse of space stops or leaves the site, and B, a future point in time when that use will resume. Moments A and B may be known or undefined. This interim time allows new uses to emerge, develop and combine with pre-existing uses. The know-ability of A and B and the duration between them affect the actors that engage in the temporary use, and the prospects and form of its continuation. (image based on Bengs et al. 2002, pp. 35–36)

2.7 Temporary Uses Seen in Two Temporal Perspectives Madanipour’s distinction between chronos and kairos reflects a general split in the literature on temporary urbanism between two main kinds of temporary uses: between time-limited ‘interim’ uses that occupy a space only until a higher and better use comes along (maintaining the city’s regularity and progress by filling ‘lost time’) and ‘tactical’ urbanism which tries to bring about long-term shifts in urban development and management processes for urban spaces (Bishop and Williams 2012; Lydon and Garcia 2015; Dovey 2016). Oswalt et al. (2013) provide a more nuanced framework that identifies eight different types of dynamic relationships between the ‘temporary’ and ‘long-term’ uses of a site (Fig. 2.1). In three of these types, the temporary use does not last. In the first, Stand-in, a site is only available for a limited time, and this fixed window of time is one of the factors that produces the new site condition. This fixed window influences the other actors and their roles: financing, people, materials and so on are all engaged into the project on the basis of the restricted time frame. It shapes their expectations, their availability and their actions. These factors also condition the maximum time that a stand-in use can operate. In the second type, Displacement, the relationships that enable the activity already exist. For some reason, the usual site of an activity temporarily becomes unavailable, for example, during renovation or expansion of its permanent home. The time away from the original site threatens these relationships, which actors thus try to preserve during this break. Once that period ends, the institutionalised activity returns to the space that suited it best. In a third model, Subversion, the temporary use is intended to be time-limited; it is often very brief because its purpose is to quickly effect a change in existing land-use relationships. Such temporary uses should not endure; their role is to disrupt and to transform long-term use. This parallels Lydon and Garcia’s (2015) idea of tactical urbanism: the action is short-term, whether by choice or necessity. But the impact on a site, on the surrounding city, or on actors and their relationships, is intended to be long term. Four of Oswalt et al.’s other models, Pioneer, Consolidation, Coexistence and Impulse, characterise different ways that a land use originally intended to be temporary might become more durable, by establishing a new use successful enough to endure in its own right, to continue in synergy with future development, or to carry over into the planned long-term development of a site. In all such cases, relationships evolve, including the relationship between site, use and duration.

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2.8 The Benefits of the Temporary The power of temporary use to influence and align to other actors comes largely from the capacity of that temporariness to enhance one or more of the five key benefits that are typically attributed to temporary urbanism: enhancing urban intensity, resilience, community engagement, innovation and place identity (Stevens and Dovey 2019). These prospective benefits help to determine which actors become engaged in supporting a temporary use and thus help determine its viability. The two benefits which most often align to temporary use projects are their capacity to increase urban intensity and resilience. Sharing space in time increases its utilisation. Short-term uses that fill underutilised spaces in underutilised times increase outcomes, by combining available time and space with the maximal inputs of a wide range of other actors, both producers and consumers. Allocating (dividing up) time to a variety of activities so that a space can be used most efficiently contrasts with the idea of planning and designing urban development around single, fixed land uses (organising uses spatially, rather than temporally), which leaves much space lying idle much of the time. Temporary uses are part of a broad shift of attention in planning to the programming of space, complementing the optimisation of physical design. Just-in-time production and the gig and sharing economies are examples of making production relationships more flexible and reorganising them in time so that time is not wasted and resources do not sit idle. The resilience of a city is also increased when a wider range of users and contents can be combined with a wider range of spaces. Dividing up time makes this possible. Land uses that occupy spaces and gather together various actors for a limited time increase the city’s capacity to rapidly and flexibly adapt to unforeseen changes and to other localised, time-limited opportunities (Lydon and Garcia 2015; Greco 2012). Short time frames are particularly important for making spaces available for urban activities and social groups that are small, marginal or in conflict with dominant and conventional urban land uses, and which are thus rarely allocated scarce urban space on a permanent basis. These include informal recreation, nature, art, casual socialising and activities that benefit minority groups (SfS Berlin 2007). This links to a third common aim of temporary urbanism, increasing community engagement. Not everyone who can contribute to the enlivening of urban spaces can commit to it as a full-time, permanent career. Urban space projects that are only short-term enable the participation of a wide range of new actors who have not previously been involved in developing and managing urban spaces, who bring new ideas, skills, networks and resources. This especially includes lay citizens (Finn 2014; Lydon and Garcia 2015). Much learning and creativity are condensed within the short time frames of temporary projects. In terms of innovation, the short-term nature of temporary urbanism lowers the cost barrier to entry that is presented by the long-term tenure arrangements for most urban spaces. Time limits also reduce the negative impacts and risks for other actors, especially those, such as neighbours, who might feel they have little to gain from allowing new and experimental uses. Short-term arrangements encourage—even

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necessitate—rapid innovation, as well as iteration, in contrast to long-term planning which commits resources to a particular fixed vision of the future, even though the future is likely to develop quite differently. The fifth potential benefit of temporary urbanism is its contribution to place identity and urban character. This may seem contradictory, as place identity is often understood as being stable and grounded in continuity with the past. How can fleeting changes and experiences transform character? But as suggested above, temporary urbanism’s intensification and diversification of urban spaces’ forms and uses, and the informality, creativity, dynamism and broadening of community engagement within its procedures, transform the overall meaning and value of urban spaces and precincts for different users, even when changes are only temporary. As Madanipour (2017) notes, the transience of uses can heighten novelty and interest, add distinction by providing contrast to a city’s enduring character, and create scarcity value. The continued enthusiasm of cities for hosting major international events such as the Olympics and the Football World Cup is testament to the continued belief that temporary activations of the city have a major, enduring impact on many actors’ perceptions of, and relationships with, a city’s character and its spaces. Local governments and landowners sometimes temporarily make spaces available and temporarily suspend rules in city districts that have a strong, fixed character. In such circumstance, temporariness is a necessary instrument to enable action and innovation. For example, the temporary city beaches and pop-up stores in the historic centres of European cities such as Berlin and Paris leverage their proximity and their physical and experiential contrast to heritage-listed museums and longstanding institutions (Stevens and Ambler 2010). Tourists enjoy these temporary and shifting contrasts. In Oswalt et al.’s (2013) terms, these temporary uses are generally Parasites, dependent on the ‘real’ local character, or Stand-Ins that only occupy spaces during a time when they are underutilised. As Schwarzer (1994) notes, examples of temporary urbanism such as those mentioned above may also illustrate Oswalt et al.’s (2013) characterisation of Subversion. With their different aesthetics, activities and people, temporary uses often challenge the grounding and fixing of local urban identity in a single authorised history and its preservation through built form. In situations where heritage controls limit or prevent permanent changes to built form, temporariness is a key that facilitates otherwise-inadmissible interventions that can ‘question, re-evaluate, and enrich local identity… by engaging critically with the historical legacy of places… enabl[ing] the city to embody more than one story… [and] to encompass both preservation and change’ (Stevens and Dovey 2019, p. 331). In other cases, the very character of an urban space derives from its dynamism, its shifting mixture of forms, uses and users, and its openness to change (Dovey 2010). Cities continually change, under the influence of economic, political, demographic and technological forces. Land uses that are temporary can provide the innovation and resilience to develop responses to these changes, while still allowing future changes, instead of locking down character. Temporary interventions can engage new actors— new producers and users, new technologies and sources of investment—which align them to the identity of a place in ways that permanent, built form perhaps cannot. This

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is another way of looking at what the Chicago School characterised as the ‘Zone in Transition’, the ring of neighbourhoods around the city centre which were constantly being transformed by new waves of in-migration, by the physical expansion and intensification of the city centre, and changes in land-use patterns (Park et al. 1925). In such neighbourhoods, temporariness is permanent.

2.9 Conclusion Temporary urbanism is defined by short time frames of planning, constructing and financing changes in urban space and short-term reorganisation of actors. But such changes involve new fixities and can become permanent and have wider effects. Tactical forms of temporary urbanism aim to inform and re-shape broader urban planning approaches. Temporary urbanism is also deployed top-down by governments and corporations to achieve strategic outcomes. These dynamics highlight that all urban spaces are more-or-less impermanent assemblages of materials, people, technologies and concepts, which are constantly being deployed and adjusted to meet changing resources and needs, and to define new relationships. With that in mind, analysis of urban design processes should not seek to draw strict boundaries between the temporary, the tactical and the ostensibly permanent, but explore the dynamic relationships between them, and in particular the role of time itself as one of the complex assemblages of factors and actors that shape these processes.

References Agamben G (2005) State of exception. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Andres L, Grésillon B (2013) Cultural brownfields in European cities: a new mainstream object for cultural and urban policies. Int J Cult Policy 19(1):40–62 Beauregard R (2015) Temporalities. In: Planning matter: acting with things, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 151–171 Bengs C, Hentilä H, Nagy D (2002) Urban catalysts: strategies for temporary uses—potential for development of urban residual areas in European metropolises. Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Berlin SfS (ed) (2007) Urban pioneers: temporary use and urban development in Berlin. Jovis, Berlin Beyes T (2009) Spaces of intensity—urban entrepreneurship as redistribution of the sensible. In: Hjorth D, Steyaert C (eds) The politics and aesthetics of entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp 92–112 Bishop P, Williams L (2012) The temporary city. Routledge, London Callon M (1986) Elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc bay. In: Law J (ed) Power, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge?. Routledge, London, pp 196–233 Dovey K (2010) Becoming places. Routledge, London Dovey K (2013) Planning and place identity. In: Young G et al (eds) The Ashgate research companion to planning and culture. Ashgate, London

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Dovey K (2016) Temporary/tactical. In: Urban design thinking: a conceptual toolkit, Bloomsbury, London Dovey K, King R (2011) Forms of informality: morphology and visibility of informal settlements. Built Environment 37(1):11–29 Färber A (2014) Low-budget Berlin: towards an understanding of low-budget urbanity as assemblage. J Reg Econ Soc 7:119–36 Fidler E (2011) Temporary uses can enliven city neighborhoods, Greater Greater Washington. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/12674/temporary-uses-can-enliven-city-neighb orhoods/ Accessed 28 July 2020 Finn D (2014) DIY urbanism: implications for cities. J Urbanism 7(4):381–398 Giedion S (1948) Mechanization takes command: a contribution to anonymous history. Oxford University Press, New York Greco J (2012) From pop-up to permanent. Planning 78(9):15–16 Haid C (2017) The Janus face of urban governance: State, informality and ambiguity in Berlin. Curr Sociol Monogr 65(2):289–301 Jacobs JM, Cairns S, Strebel I (2012) Doing building work: methods at the interface of geography and architecture. Geograph Res 50(2):126–140 Lange B (2007) Die Räume der Kreativszenen. Culturepreneurs und ihre Orte in Berlin, Transcript, Bielefeld Latour B (1988) The pasteurization of France. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA Lydon M, Garcia A (2015) Tactical urbanism: short-term action for long-term change. Island Press, Washington DC Madanipour A (2017) Cities in time: temporary urbanism and the future of the city. Bloomsbury, London Oswalt P, Overmeyer K, Misselwitz P (2013) Urban catalyst: the power of temporary use. DOM publishers, Berlin Park R, Burgess E, McKenzie R (1925) The city. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Project for Public Spaces (PPS) (2018) The lighter, quicker, cheaper transformation of public spaces. https://www.pps.org/article/lighter-quicker-cheaper Accessed 28 July 2020 Schwarzer M (1994) Myths of permanence and transience in the discourse on historic preservation in the United States. J Architect Educ 48(1):2–11 Stevens Q (2011) Characterising Germany’s artificial ‘city beaches’: distribution, type and design 3rd World Planning Schools Congress, Perth Stevens Q (2015) Sandpit urbanism. In: Knudsen B, Christensen D, Blenker P (eds) Enterprising initiatives in the experience economy: transforming social worlds. Routledge, New York Stevens Q (2018) Temporary uses of urban spaces: how are they understood as ‘creative’? ArchnetIJAR. Int J Architect Res 12(3):90–107 Stevens Q, Ambler M (2010) Europe’s city beaches as post-Fordist placemaking. Journal of Urban Design 15:515–37 Stevens Q, Dovey K (2019) Pop-ups and public interests: agile public space in the neoliberal city. In: Arefi M, Kickert C (eds) The Palgrave handbook of bottom-up urbanism. Palgrave, New York

Chapter 3

The Temporality Within Temporary Urbanism: Listening to Rhythms and Timespace Rachel Mc Ardle

Abstract This chapter advocates the need to focus on temporality within Geography and Urban Studies. Temporary urbanism literature can be extended by focusing on time and the temporal rather than just the spatial, which is common in this field. ‘Temporary’ or short-term uses of urban space can be analysed in their entirety if we include temporality in this discussion and focus on the everyday scale of cities and urban actors. The chapter uses Crang’s ‘timespace’ as a concept, which asserts the equal importance of time and space. Often the spatial is prioritised over the temporal in geography, but through paying attention to the rhythms of different people and projects in the city, scholars can learn more about the multiple temporalities that co-exist in urban space. The chapter tracks the historical use of time in the discipline of Geography up to the more recent approach of timespace. An examination of the timespace of the Dublin Biennial reveals the nuances of the project, which may be overlooked if only the spatial details are focused upon. Introducing temporality into Geography will recognise that the separation of time and space is no longer useful, and acknowledge the value of both the temporal and the spatial. Keywords Temporary use · Temporality · Dublin · Timespace · Rhythm

3.1 Introduction: Time to Say Hello For too long, geographers have focused on the spatial. Scholars need to fundamentally shift from conceptualising time and space as distinct and instead view them as interwoven. Postmodernity and late modernity have left an awareness that fixity is a narrow analytical frame which restricts scholars’ interpretative ability, but more broadly, unpacking temporality and spatiality is an important political and ethical stand. If scholars continue to conceptualise time and space as separate and distinct categories, then what is reproduced is conventional and structuralist approaches to the urban, ignoring the huge body of work done by feminist, queer, cultural and R. Mc Ardle (B) Rhetoric House, Geography Department, Maynooth University, County Kildare, Maynooth, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_3

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social geographers to appeal against limiting perceptions of the city. City spatialities are composed of “intricate mixtures of rhythms” (Schwanen et al. 2012, p. 2066), and therefore, scholars can only benefit by considering both temporal and spatial aspects in conceptualisations of the urban, opening up possibilities for alternative discussions. Within Human Geography, and even temporary urbanism (TU) literature, time and temporality are underdeveloped concepts. TU literature in particular could benefit from engaging with what the ‘temporary’ in temporary urbanism means. As I have discussed elsewhere (Till and Mc Ardle 2015), TU literature usually has a dichotomous approach to temporality, as temporary or permanent, with little attention paid to the nuances that exist within this binary. Too often, TU literature consists of ideas created and used by planners and city authorities to prop up neoliberal plans (Oswalt et al. 2013; Bishop and Williams 2012), and a response in the literature has been a political-economic critique of this (O’Callaghan and Lawton 2015; Ferreri 2015). While at times experimental and at most ‘marginal’ to mainstream development (Ferreri 2015, p. 186), TU has become accepted by urban policymakers, planners and developers because capitalist development can continue uninterrupted. Overall, the concept is now rooted in mainstream, economic understandings, focusing on the possible exchange values of cities. Yet there is more potential within this idea of TU than these perspectives allow. This chapter aims to fill this lacuna; to discuss an example of TU from the perspective of timespace, engaging with not only its spatiality, as is common in TU literature, but also pushing this debate further, to include temporality and thus assessing a temporary use in its entirety. This will strengthen the work of TU and ask scholars to focus on non-dominant narratives in the city, rather than fixating on the most obvious examples, as timespace reminds us to pay attention to the everyday. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section builds on the work of May and Thrift (2001), Bakhtin (1981) and Lefebvre (1992), to argue that separating time and space into distinct analytical categories is not helpful. Briefly, how temporality has been used in Geography is traced, beginning with its seminal use by Hägerstrand in time-geography (1970, 1973, 1975) in the 1970s, to other work in the same decade by Buttimer (1976), which proposed rhythm as a way of understanding time and space together (Mels 2004). In more recent decades, the temporal has only been explored for how it influences the role of capitalism and the urban experience in Marxist approaches (Harvey 1989; Massey 2003, 2005). Finally, Crang’s concept of ‘timespace’ is outlined, including how this concept better advances the theory of how time and space are interlinked. Urban places and projects are only fully knowable if their ‘timespace’ is considered (Crang 2001). In the second half of this chapter, an empirical case study of Dublin Biennial is used to mobilise this concept of timespace. This chapter concludes with a call to bring the temporal and spatial into conversation together to advance Geography and Urban Studies. Before turning to section one, the case study is briefly introduced.

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3.2 Dublin Biennial: An Introduction Dublin Biennial was one of 14 case studies researched by the author as part of her Ph.D. thesis, in the period of 2013–2018. It was a biennial alternative art exhibition which occurred in 2012 and 2014 and was considered successful by several metrics, not only economically, but less tangibly, through engaging with urban inhabitants in Dublin who would not traditionally visit art galleries and exhibitions. It did not take place in 2016 for a number of reasons, which are explored in this chapter. For my Ph.D. research, I undertook a ‘Flexible Activist Case Study Approach’ which entailed me as the researcher getting as involved as possible in the projects I was researching. This book chapter is taken, in part, from that Ph.D. thesis entitled ‘Liquid Urbanisms: Dublin’s Loose Networks and Provisional Places’. Of the 14 case studies researched, there were three broad categories: creative urbanisms, community-based urbanisms, and autonomous urbanisms. In addition, four tributaries were identified across these places and projects: networks and places, timespaces and rhythms, values and urban commons, and institutional relationships and political beliefs. The Dublin Biennial is the focus of this chapter, which I categorise as a creative urbanism, and it outlines its timespaces and rhythms, but while I fixate on timespaces and rhythms, the interwoven nature of the types and tributaries of liquid urbanisms is acknowledged. This research was generously funded by the John and Pat Hume Scholarship (2012–2014) and the Irish Research Council Scholarship (2014–2018). A version of this chapter was presented as a paper at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Conference in New Orleans in 2018 and was awarded the ‘Ph.D. student award’ by the European Speciality Group of the AAG.

3.3 Section 1: Time in Geography from the 1970s to Now In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a renewed focus on the temporal within other disciplines in the social sciences like Anthropology and Sociology. Geographers at that same time were engaged in renewed debates about spatiality, postmodernity and the cultural turn (Dodgshon 2008). These debates were formative to Geography, yet one unintended consequence has been that time has not received the attention it might otherwise have since the 1980s. Tracing back to the 1970s, some geographers were engaging with time as a concept. Hägerstrand and other geographers created the sub-discipline of timegeography, using time as a tool to create socio-economic web models (Lenntorp 1999). Time-geography was centred on analysing the individual as a way to understand the collective. Hägerstrand advanced his conceptualisation of the individual through ‘paths’ and ‘projects’. ‘Paths’ are the life journey that individuals take through space-times, which can be influenced by both environmental and structural factors and the individual choices of the person. ‘Projects’ are tasks which a person undertakes on their path or journey. Both paths and projects become layered in place,

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so that everything which happens occurs both in the present and as a product of the past. According to time-geography, some institutional projects may become more dominant than others over time, a process later described by Massey as power geometries (Massey 1993). By power geometries, I refer to how space can be experienced differently, based on social factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexuality, as well as many other factors. There are “geographically and historically specific power relations between individuals, collectives and institutions” (Pred 1984, p. 286). These rhythms connect people to place (Lager et al. 2016), and time and space are thus interwoven in an understanding of time-geography.

3.3.1 Four Conjunctions of Time and Space in Human Geography Mels (2004) outlines four conjunctions between time and space in Human Geography, which are useful to visit here. Firstly, time-geography influenced Anne Buttimer’s seminal work on humanistic geography. Buttimer utilised the phenomenological concept of ‘lifeworld’, which she described as “the culturally defined spatiotemporal setting or horizon of everyday life” (Buttimer 1976, p. 277). Another concept Buttimer found useful was rhythm, as rhythm allowed scholars to gain insight “into the dynamic wholeness of lifeworld experience” (Buttimer 1976, p. 279), and for her, the nature of how rhythm worked at different scales was indicative of the dualistic relationship between place and space. Buttimer used Hägerstrand’s time-geography concept because its “ontology was inherently dynamic” (Mels 2004, p. 15). Timespace rhythms were an underdeveloped tool in Human Geography in that time, which Buttimer’s work began to change. The second conjunction was the newly emerging structuration theory, put forward by sociologists Giddens (1979) and Bourdieu (1984). It was based on the belief that structures and practices are equally real and that agentic and structural analyses were missing from earlier debates, which focused on individual experiences (Giddens 1979; see also Bourdieu 1977; Bhaskar 1978; Moos and Dear 1986). Pred was influenced by time-geography and brought this insight to structuration theory (Pred 1984) and his work on relational place-making. He claimed that the everyday scale was also missing in the structuration theory debates. Pred’s concept of place is as ‘a historically contingent process’, embedded within power relations, and he theorised the interrelations of place, power and institutional structures, and this concept continues to be relevant to recent studies. A third conjunction of time and space in Human Geography is in debates on and critiques of capitalism, particularly by Marxist geographers. Harvey’s concept of ‘time-space compression’ remains critical to urban geographers’ conceptualisations of time and space. Time-space compression is the shortening of spatial and temporal worlds (Harvey 1989), a “radical readjustment in the sense of time and space in

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economic, political, and cultural life” (Harvey 1989, p. 260). Capitalism solves its inherent crises by moving the problem through time and space (Harvey 1989). In addition, Massey’s (2003, 2005) work on relational conceptualisations of space has been influential in the way geographers’ think about time-space. Massey reasserts the importance of the spatial in conceptions of time-space in her work (1994, 2003, 2005). Space is relational, multiple and processual for Massey. She argues ‘For Space’ (2005), to focus on the spatial to avoid it being subsumed by the temporal because she believes that the temporal has been examined enough. The fourth conjunction of time and space is Henri Lefebvre’s work on Rhythmanalysis (1992), a theoretical framework which helps us to perceive the multiplicity of timespaces (Tartia 2017). This conjunction reinforces the importance of rhythm, which is critical to this chapter. Lefebvre calls on us to understand time as lived in the same way he appealed for space to be understood as lived (Elden 2004). Although Lefebvre’s spatial triad is well known and used within Human Geography, less attention has been paid to his work on temporality. Lefebvre argues that there are two types of rhythms, cyclical/rhythmic, and linear, and rhythm is the repetition of a movement, in a stronger or weaker way (Lefebvre 1992). Cyclical rhythms originate in nature, and so are infinite and examples include lunar cycles, months, sea tides, breathing and our eyelids opening and closing (Lefebvre and Régulier 1985). Linear time is the repetition of similar patterns and practices based on social reproduction processes. Human activity has created linear rhythms, which are monotonous and routine, for example, the blows of a hammer, or the noise of an engine (Lefebvre and Régulier 1985). Rhythm is not only repetitive and routine, but also possesses the potential for the emergence of unexpected movements and the creation of altogether new rhythms. In addition, Lefebvre also theorises ‘arrhythmia’, which is the conflict between rhythms leading to discordant rhythms. The word arrhythmia derives from the medical condition of an irregular heartbeat, and there is a focus in particular on this concept in Sect. 2 of this chapter. Linear and cyclical rhythmic times interact with each other (Lefebvre and Réguiler 1985), through such effects as “spacing, timing, movement, sensation, energy, affect, rhythm and force” (Merriman 2012, p. 21), but, they also interfere with each other constantly; these types are dialectical, an “antagonistic unity” (Lefebvre 1992, p. 8). Lefebvre’s advice is not to emphasise the temporal and forget about the spatial, as “all rhythms imply the relation of a time to a space . . . or . . . a temporalized space” (Lefebvre and Réguiler 1986, p. 89). Rhythms are important because “human beings have always been rhythm-makers as much as place-makers” (Mels 2004, p. 3). Rhythms are relational and can only be understood through measure and memory, as we only know that rhythms are slow or fast in comparison with other rhythms we recall from the past experiences. The interweaving of time and space is evident here.

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3.3.2 Timespace: Where Geography Should Go Mel’s model needs to be extended to include Crang’s (2001) concept of timespace. For Crang, time and space are co-constitutive, and the term is intended to be disassociated with the hyphenated time-space of Marxist geographers, briefly mentioned above with the work by Harvey and Massey. Space is instead becoming, an eventful happening, while time is the fluid that makes space come alive; neither time nor space are containers or frameworks. Instead, we need “a pluralised and eventful sense of lived timespace” (Crang 2001, p. 207). ‘Timespace’ allows for a more thorough conceptualisation of the temporal that includes the multiplicity of the spatial, what Massey defines as the “simultaneity of stories-so-far” (Massey 2005, p. 9). Like Crang (2001) I prefer the ‘time-soaked place of Lefebvre’; timespace is perceived in this chapter as multiple and anarchic. Crang sees four circuits in his study of temporality which has some echoes in the Mels’ model. Firstly, he locates the everyday scale through the study of temporality, looking at the multiple rhythms and temporalities of urban life, following Lefebvre. Secondly, he aims to concentrate on the role of individuals and groups in making the city. Thirdly, he sees a need to expand upon experiential timespace and phenomenological accounts. Fourthly, he wishes to problematise understandings of the everyday as stable. This chapter utilises the first of Crang’s circuits as the most relevant, while acknowledging the overlapping nature of all four. The urban is the site where multiple temporalities collide (Crang 2001). Take the contrasting examples of a white, middle class, male’s working day, versus the less dominant rhythm of someone who does not fit into place and is left out of time and space, such as a migrant homeless person. For Crang, “a multiplicity of temporalities, some long run, some short-term, some frequent, some rare, some collective, some personal, some large-scale, some hardly noticed – the urban place or site is composed and characterised through patterns of these multiple beats” (2001, pp. 189–190). This approach of concentrating on rhythm at a city scale focuses on the “pulsing formation[s] of . . . collective groups” describing their “intensities”, “affinities” as well as “their dissolution, fragmentation and reformation”. These pulsing formations are not following the image of stable, traditional communities, but are “transient, episodic affinities and comings together”, which can be positive, but can also create “shattered and fragmented times”, where power geometries can affect the lifeworlds and rhythms of some disproportionately, for example, women (Crang 2001). It is this focus on how rhythms lead to formations, affected by power, that this chapter outlines further. Accepting that timespace is plural, with multiple temporalities co-existing and clashing with each other (Dodgshon 2008), then urban geographers need to consider more than one dominant temporality in urban space. Rhythms are dynamic and produce ever-changing timespaces (Edensor 2010). For McCormack (2002, p. 471), investigating rhythms in his work on urban assemblages allows an object “to become a kind of emergent happening, a movement of lines that take off in different directions and with different speeds”. Rhythms allow us to understand the networked and fluid

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nature of cities, as well as the inseparability of time and space (Simonsen 2004). Geographers can gain a deeper understanding of urban spaces by paying renewed attention to the temporal and rhythm is a tool that can be used to do this, as I demonstrate in Sect. 2.

3.4 Section 2: Dublin Biennial Dublin Biennial (hereafter DB) was a biennial international art exhibition, held in 2012 and 2014. The exhibition itself as well as related arts events that occurred before, during and after the exhibition were held in unused commercial urban spaces in Dublin. As mentioned above, DB did not continue in 2016, due to lack of funding and support by mainstream arts institutions and policy makers, even though the founder, Margaret Magee, had hoped it would proceed. The founder’s goal for DB was to bring art to audiences who would not normally attend or go to traditional art gallery spaces, an aim that was successfully achieved, as demonstrated below. The intent is clear in the choice of location for both biennials; in 2012, DB was held in the Point Village, as a ‘pop-up’ event in unused office ground floor space. Then, in 2014, it took place in the Custom House Quay building, a shopping centre in the Dublin Docklands that many commuters used as a thoroughfare to get to the Irish Financial Services Centre, which had many vacant shopfronts in 2014. A useful way to conceptualise the ethos of DB is through Fig. 3.1, Sonia Falcone’s artwork, ‘Campo DeColor’, a piece originally from the 2013 Venice Biennale, which was exhibited as part of DB 2014. Many people working and living in the middle of Dublin’s city centre passed this piece on their commute, and we can estimate that many of these would not even be aware of the Venice Biennale, unless they were involved in art circles, and far fewer of them would have actually visited the Biennale and experienced Falcone’s artwork there. Magee said of the art installation: Fig. 3.1 Sonia Falcone, Campo DeColor. Source Dublin Biennial (2014)

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R. Mc Ardle it was a piece that would appeal to a small child or an adult or an art critic. Again it has that sensory, appeal that you can enjoy it at face value and you can take it to the next level. It appeals across the board to people. People said “oh my god, it’s like a Moroccan market, I’ve never been, but now I get the feel of what it’s like”. People often made those types of comments (Author interview with Margaret Magee, DB creator, hereinafter Magee, 2015).

Without DB, these people would not have experienced Falcone’s work. This quote shows how even though ‘Campo DeColor’ was part of a renowned exhibition, it has universal appeal and Magee believes that we can all benefit from experiencing Falcone’s vision, as well as many other pieces of art. Thus, DB made a significant contribution to the landscape of Irish art and enabled multiple new experiences and engagements. The rhythms of DB are multitudinous, and this chapter focuses on only two. Firstly, how the venue choices of DB are indicative of and link to broader dynamics of neoliberal urbanism in Dublin. Secondly, DB as a ‘discordant’ rhythm is explored, as DB is outlined as an example of Lefebvre’s arrhythmia, as its rhythms were in conflict with other, more dominant rhythms in the city. Even though Magee was eager for it to go ahead, it was, as Lefebvre would argue, a “divergence in time, in space, in the use of energies” (1992, p. 68). When DB’s rhythm tried to fit in with other rhythms in the city, it came into conflict with more dominant rhythms, culminating in a clash which DB lost, and Magee and city inhabitants suffered as a result through the absence of DB.

3.4.1 Dublin Biennial: Dublin’s Neoliberal Urbanism Both venues, the Point Village in 2012 and the Custom House Quay shopping centre in 2014 were located in the Dublin Docklands and were underused spaces (i.e. not finished, empty and/or not rented) at the time of the DB. In an interview with the author in 2015, the creator noted how there are few “raw space[s] of that size in Dublin, which is especially important for an art exhibition, where some of the pieces are massive and do not fit into a smaller area” (Magee). Further she added that, “one of the benefits of looking at alternative spaces is that you’re allowed do things you wouldn’t normally be allowed to do, that you couldn’t do in a gallery” (Magee). By existing outside of the rhythm of capitalist development in the city, Magee had more freedom in what the project could be and look like. The project’s supposed ‘alternative’ nature meant that it was not subject to more normative understandings of how space should be used. It existed between development cycles and therefore was not challenged as it did not affect the normal workings of capital and neoliberal urbanism in Ireland. The creator noted that the choice of location for DB enabled it to achieve one of its core aims—to connect to audiences outside of the gallery, i.e. the general public: What was great about the CHQ [Custom House Quay] was again [like the Point 2012 location] it’s still a bit in the city. It’s such a huge thoroughfare with people coming off one side of the Liffey; then they walk to the train station at the other end. So, they have over 1,000 people a

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day walking through that space . . . It was phenomenal every day, just watching the amount of people! Everybody stopped to look at it, enjoyed it . . . if you don’t get outside the gallery walls or outside the museum, when are they [the general public] ever going to experience art like that? In terms of art, I think it was very successful and I think that is one of the main reasons for choosing an alternative space (Magee 2015).

DB in 2012 and 2014 interacted with the flow of people working in the city and disrupted their normal rhythms. The creator wanted the location to be somewhere not only that could hold alternative art pieces, but, more importantly than that, a location where people might happen upon it and still feel welcome in the site, as many may not feel that way in a museum or gallery, spaces which they may perceive as not for them. The quote below illustrates this, as Magee did not always feel welcome in these locations even after 30 years of experience, which illustrates the need to make these spaces accessible. In addition, the artists were present with their artwork, another unusual aspect that is not conventional in other art exhibitions. The creator’s curatorial decisions were explained as directly related to the ethos of the project. The DB “does cater specifically to drawing in people that would not go to museums and go to galleries” (Magee). The reason for doing so is explained below in detail: I think that taking the shows out of those spaces and into alternate space, really breaks down those barriers that people feel. I’ve walked into shows where I felt alienated or not welcome or like I had to “put on my art hat” now. And I’ve been going to shows for 30 years (Magee).

While Magee had a goal of establishing an alternative gallery space, she still had to work within the structures of capitalist development in the city. Indeed, this is particularly apparent through DB 2014. DB used business/office spaces held by the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA), the ‘bad bank’ set up in response to the global financial crisis in Ireland, which nationalised banking debt into public debt. NAMA holds significant amounts of land in the Docklands of Dublin (Byrne 2014). Although the topic cannot be covered adequately here, the setting up of NAMA is critiqued because, guided by the logic of austerity urbanism, NAMA sold large parcels of land to international investors at heavily subsidised rates rather than provide social housing to those in need. Yet NAMA allowed DB to use the Custom House Quay centre in DB 2014, which points to the cycle of development that the space was in at that time. In 2020, the space is a busy commercial shopping centre and it would be impossible to imagine the space being donated, even short-term, for use as a biennial. Yet the space is no longer in the control of NAMA, having been sold off to investors. Thus, DB’s own rhythm is embedded within larger rhythms of development in Dublin and the current post-crisis context of the city.

3.4.2 Dublin Biennial: A Discordant Rhythm The fact that DB did not take place in 2016 illuminates how some rhythms are more dominant in Irish artistic and cultural assemblies. As an alternative exhibition, DB struggled to get funding as it did not neatly fit into the categories prescribed by

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Dublin City Council’s (DCC) Arts or Irish Arts Council (IAC) funding. DB received festival funding, and funding from a discretionary fund from DCC as well as from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Despite noting how helpful DCC was as an organisation—“they were very supportive of the show. The entire department was very good”—the DB creator noted that the unofficial message was not to apply for arts funding, as the art exhibition “just didn’t fit into that” (Magee 2015). This could be because of DB’s position of creating a “‘popular’ art show, for which the Arts Council had no category. There wasn’t a format for that kind of thing. Things have to be within a certain category” (Magee 2015). Because what DB was doing was experimental, it defied simple categorisation and was, therefore, cut off from certain types of funding which had unanticipated consequences. Magee noted how vital the stamp of approval of the IAC was for the longevity of the project. She felt that the lack of the IAC endorsement prohibited DB from creating further connections and continuing beyond the two events. This denial of authorisation meant that other groups were less likely to say yes to DB—the institutional approval of IAC carried weight with other groups. For Magee: “one of the biggest problems, when I look back on it, was because the Arts Council hadn’t funded me. I hadn’t had that Arts Council stamp of approval, [so] people were then perhaps reluctant to help” (2015). The relationship between DB and the IAC had a ripple effect on the relationships between DB and other artistic groups, or the lack thereof. Magee noted that this was unspoken, but was clear, stating: they [other prospective supporting businesses and organisations] intimated to me that [approval mattered]. They didn’t say specifically, [but] they had asked me if the Arts Council had funded me, and I said ‘no’, and they intimated to me that that was a problem (Magee 2015).

In other words, the group of supporters that DB was trying to connect to was almost afraid to express directly the unofficial rules of the game. Despite the lack of higher level DCC Arts and IAC support, Magee remarked upon the noteworthy amount of money the art exhibition brought in for the economy, even if the ethos of DB was not aligned to traditional economic measures of success. Combining 2012 and 2014, the DB creator estimated that: “the two together brought in just under a million [euro]. [There were] 270 international visitors and they all spent at least 10 days, because they come for the opening and stay for the end as a lot of them bring their work home with them. So, we can calculate the amount of beds” (Magee 2015). This discussion of DB and institutional approval is exemplary of Bourdieu’s (1985) concept of ‘field’ as tied to social capital. Bourdieu argues that there are four types of capital: economic, cultural, symbolic and social capital. Each one is distinct but transformable into another type and the types therefore exist on a shifting continuum. Social capital is the value of the social relations and networks between individuals and the groups they are involved in. Social capital, and how much social capital a project has, can influence the future success of a project like the DB. The social ‘field’ is a multidimensional space, separate from economic fields (Bourdieu 1985), and is defined by agents and groups of agents who hold different positions

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in the field. Some agents hold more power than others. The IAC, because of their mandated role as the distributor of Irish state monies in the area of the arts, holds a significant amount of economic, cultural and social capital, and, unquestionably, has the ‘most’ power in the field of play. The position of a given agent within the social space can thus be defined by the positions he occupies in the different fields, that is, in the distribution of the powers that are active within each of them. These are, principally, economic capital (in its different kinds), cultural capital and social capital, as well as symbolic capital, commonly called prestige, reputation, renown, etc., which is the form in which the different forms of capital are perceived and recognized as legitimate (Bourdieu 1985, p. 724).

Thus, power comes from the different forms of capital. Power relations are visible through who gets to name and define what is important. As DB was not able to get the explicit approval of the IAC, other players in the arts field did not want to be associated with DB as that would potentially be damaging to their own position in the field. As a new enterprise DB lacked social capital itself. The IAC holds the ability to create the categories for funding, to decide who gets to apply for funding, and because they decided that DB did not fit into their categories, they showed their position as holding the power in the field of play. “If they can’t pigeonhole you, or label you, then you can’t get funding” (Magee). DB was restricted by these power constraints. As another example, the 2011 Art Exhibition, Dublin Contemporary, had IAC funding, which afforded them more opportunities, even though Dublin Contemporary did not continue after its first year and was arguably less successful than DB. Despite the huge success of DB 2012 and 2014 in bringing art outside of the gallery as well as the substantial financial contribution to the economy, DB did not go ahead in 2016. Magee commented that “the politics wasn’t something I was prepared for. It was shocking to me”. Even though involved in the art world, this artist, producer and curator were still surprised by how deeply rooted the ‘rules of the game’ were and how much of an effect these power differentials had on trying to create a new project. DB had an arrhythmic, discordant rhythm which was not compatible with other more dominant rhythms, in this case the IAC rhythm. DB was locked out of certain funding streams and collaborations because its rhythms did not fit into a designated category, which was created by the entity that held more power. Yet DB was highly successful in realising its goals, and the overall result of DB not continuing was a loss for Irish artists, citizens and the art world, as well as visiting Dublin artists and tourists. Overall, this attention to the timespace of DB, looking at two of its rhythms, has yielded insights which would not have been found if the focus was only on the strict time that DB 2012 and DB 2014 took place. Looking at the overall rhythms of DB and what these rhythms tell us about the city allows scholars to gain nuanced detail about the ways groups are using space in the city through time. This is not the narrow use of time often found in temporary urbanism literature, which focuses on the timeframe of an event only, but a broader consideration of temporality and how it relates to space, or what is better conceptualised as the timespace of DB.

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3.5 Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that Geography and Urban Studies can only benefit by considering the spatial and the temporal together. This combination allows us to understand rhythms and everyday experiences from a multitude of aspects and fully allows for the potential of the urban and new temporalities to emerge. A plurality of temporalities and rhythms coexist and interact in the city and through paying attention to these rhythms scholars can learn about urban space and the multiplicity of temporalities which exist within it. This chapter had two sections. In Sect. 1, the history of temporality was outlined, concluding with a call to use Crang’s timespace. This was used in Sect. 2 in relation to the empirical case study of DB, as two of DB’s rhythms were focused upon. DB is only fully knowable through investigating the rhythms of the art exhibition. DB, and other projects like it, offer significant interventions in the cultural landscapes of Dublin by inviting people to think about their city differently and about the potential within the city. Scholars must pay more attention to the temporal in order to understand the spatial nuances of the city. Although discussions of temporality do exist within temporary urbanism literature, these debates are often shallow and reify planners’ understandings of temporality in the city as either temporary or permanent. Two perspectives exist with this literature; firstly, planners, city councillors and architects see temporary urbanism as stopgap solutions in times of socio-economic downturn (Bishop and Williams 2012; Lehmann 2009). Secondly, political economy perspectives critique this first set of literatures for ignoring the inequalities in cities. Both sets of debates focus on the use of space as ‘temporary’ or ‘permanent’, a view which is deeply problematic and hides the tangible and intangible benefits of these urbanisms, as I asserted elsewhere (Till and Mc Ardle 2015). These perspectives do not fully assess the temporalities or timespace of spaces and places in the city. This case study of DB, and the focus on timespace, can work to remind us that within temporary urbanism literature, there is more to be focused on than the two perspectives mentioned above. Under the umbrella of temporary use or temporary urbanism, many positive interventions in the city take place, which have significance for how people use or imagine their city. Instead of utilising TU to support a neoliberal agenda, or critiquing this agenda, as the aforementioned viewpoints do, timespace allows the everyday, experiential nature of these uses to be explored, not just for how they relate to the use of space, but also how this is affected by time and temporality. A more holistic consideration of the temporal as well as the spatial can benefit the discipline of Geography, and Temporary Urbanism in particular. Recent research on urban temporalities, to which this paper contributes, confirms that “temporally integrated human geographies have considerable potential for shedding new light on many important issues” (Kwan 2013, p. 1082). Given the historical emphasis on the spatial in Geography, I advocate bringing the temporal back into debates on cities. By including the temporal as well as the spatial, the focus of this chapter is on non-dominant narratives of the city, which may be normally overlooked

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when analysing from a spatial perspective. This is not to displace the spatial nor to temporalise space, but to discuss them as equally important, interconnected and multiple (Crang 2001; Kwan 2013), which reasserts the role of the temporal. I argue that paying attention to artistic, non-economic timespaces of the city enable urban scholars to understand the city from non-capitalistic perspectives which engage the inherent fluidity of cities. Smaller interventions such as the Dublin Biennial remind us to conceive of the city as “unfinished stories”, as “living organic, conflictual entities that are constantly remade and recast” (Chatterton 2010, p. 1361–1360).

References Bakhtin M (1981) Forms of time and the chronotope in the novel. In: Holquist M (ed) The dialogic imagination: four essays. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp 3–84 Bhaskar R (1978) On the possibility of social scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism. J Theory Soc Behav 8(1):1–28 Bishop P, Williams L (2012) The temporary city. Routledge, London, New York Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. Reprint 1984 ed Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass Bourdieu P (1985) The social space and the genesis of groups. Theory and Society 14(6):723–744 Buttimer A (1976) Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 66(2):277–292 Byrne M (2014) Opinion: is the effort to ‘revive the property market’ pushing creative groups out of the docklands? The Journal.ie. http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/mabos-the-docklands-lease1586055-Jul2014/ Accessed 13 June 2018 Chatterton P (2010) The urban impossible: a eulogy for the unfinished city. City 14(3):234–244 Crang M (2001) Rhythms of the city temporalised space and motion. In: May J, Thrift NJ (eds) Rhythms of the city temporalised space and motion. Routledge, London; New York, pp 187–207 Dodgshon RA (2008) Geography’s place in time. Geogr Ann B Hum Geogr 90(1):1–15 Dublin Biennial (2014) DB14 about—Dublin biennial 2014—International exhibition of contemporary art. http://www.dublinbiennial.com/about.html Accessed 16 June 2019 Edensor T (2010) Walking in rhythms: place, regulation, style and the flow of experience. Visual Studies 25(1):69–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725861003606902 Elden S (2004) Rhythmanalysis: an Introduction. In: Lefebvre H (ed) Rhythmanalysis: space, time, and everyday life. Continuum, London; New York, vii-xv Ferreri M (2015) The seductions of temporary urbanism. Ephemera. http://www.ephemerajournal. org/contribution/seductions-temporary-urbanism Accessed 28 February 2017 Giddens A (1979) Central problems in social theory: action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Macmillan, Basingstoke Hagerstrand T (1970) What about people in regional science? Pap Reg Sci Assoc 24:7–21 Hagerstrand T (1973) The domain of human geography. In: Chorley RJ (ed) Directions in geography. Methuen, London, pp 67–87 Hagerstrand T (1975) Space, time and human conditions. In: Karlqvist A, Lundqvist L, Snickars F (eds) Dynamic allocation of urban space. Saxon House, Farnborough, pp 3–14 Harvey D (1989) The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Cambridge, Mass, USA, Blackwell, Oxford, England Kwan M-P (2013) Beyond space (as we knew it): Toward temporally integrated geographies of segregation, health, and accessibility: space–time integration in geography and GIScience. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 103(5):1078–1086

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Lager D, Van Hoven B, Huigen PP (2016) Rhythms, ageing and neighbourhoods. Environ Plann A 48(8):1565–1580 Lefebvre H (1992) Rhythmanalysis: space, time, and everyday life. Continuum, London, New York Lefebvre H, Régulier C (1985) The rhythmanalytical project. In: Lefebvre H (ed) Rhythmanalysis: space, time, and everyday life. Continuum, London; New York, pp 73–83 Lefebvre H, Régulier C (1986) Attempt at the Rhythmanalysis of Mediterranean cities. In: Lefebvre H (ed) Rhythmanalysis: Space, time, and everyday life. Continuum, London, New York, pp 85–101 Lehmann S (ed) (2009) Back to the city: strategies for informal urban interventions. Collaboration between artists and architects, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern Lenntorp B (1999) Time-geography—at the end of its beginning. Geoforum 48(3):155–158 Magee M (2015) Interview with Author, Mc Ardle, R. 26th of January 2015, Dublin [mp3 recording] Massey D (1993) Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place. In: Bird J, Curtis B, Putnam T, Robertson G, Tickner L (eds) Mapping the futures: local cultures, global change. Routledge, New York, pp 59–69 Massey D (1994) Space, place, and gender. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Massey D (2003) Some times of space. Tate P, London Massey D (2005) For space. Thousand Oaks, Calif, SAGE, London May J, Thrift NJ (2001) Timespace: geographies of temporality. Routledge, London, New York McCormack DP (2002) A paper with an interest in rhythm. Geoforum 33:469–485 Mels T (2004) Lineages of a geography of rhythms. In: Mels (ed) Reanimating places: a geography of rhythms. Routledge, London, pp 3–42 Merriman P (2012) Human geography without time-space. Trans Inst Brit Geogr 37:13–27 Moos AI, Dear MJ (1986) Structuration theory in urban analysis: 1. Theoretical exegesis. Environ Plann A 18(2):231–252 O’Callaghan C, Lawton P (2015) Temporary solutions? vacant space policy and strategies for re-use in Dublin. Irish Geogr 48(1):69–87 Oswalt P, Overmeyer K, Misselwitz P (eds) (2013) Urban catalyst: the power of temporary use. 1., DOM publishers, Berlin Pred A (1984) Place as historically contingent process: structuration and the time- geography of becoming place. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 74(2):279–297 Schwanen T, van Aalst I, Brands J, Timan T (2012) Rhythms of the night: spatiotemporal inequalities in the nighttime economy. Environ Plann A 44(9):2064–2085 Simonsen K (2004) Spatiality, temporality and the construction of the city. In: Bærenholdt JO, Simonsen K (eds) Space odysseys: spatiality and social relations in the 21st Century. Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT Tartia J (2017) Mobile place-making on an everyday walking route: rhythm, routine and experience. Nordic Academic Press of Architectural Research. Proceeding Series. pp 85–107 Till K, Mc Ardle R (2015) The improvisional city: Valuing urbanity beyond the chimera of permanence. Irish Geogr 48(1):37–68

Chapter 4

Artistic Events as Planning Practice: Hybridisation, Expectations, and Pitfalls in Three Swiss Case Studies Thierry Maeder

Abstract Festivals and artistic events in urban spaces have become a common feature in urban development plans as a means of public relations or valorisation. However, more recently, temporary art installations and performances are favoured by public administrations to publicise urban public policies. Artistic events lie at the intersection of two worlds—art and urban planning—characterised by different goals, methods and professional ethos. This chapter considers artistic events as a tool for urban planners and how they affect professional practices. It reviews recent case studies in Geneva where temporary art projects were directly commissioned by urban planning administrations to defuse or avoid potential conflicts over urban development projects. In a tense context where most state-led urban development plans are blocked by political juridical procedures, artistic events are seen as a means of mediation—to get in touch and engage in discussion with the public. Artistic experimentations are often perceived by urban planners as a welcome renewal of their methods and generally receive positive feedback in the profession. However, based on qualitative data from Switzerland, we show that the hybridisation between artists and urban planners is also the source of misunderstandings that stem from differences in professional ethos and temporalities. Keywords Planning · Culture · Art · Event · Hybridisation

4.1 Introduction Temporary uses of space take very diverse forms, ranging from transitory occupation of vacant private spaces (Madanipour 2018; Moore-Cherry and Mccarthy 2016) to light and short-term landscaping of public space awaiting renovation (Colomb 2012a); from grassroots projects to hybrid forms of urban landscaping serving official urban planning objectives (Douglas 2013; Madanipour 2017b). While all these initiatives are generally grouped under the umbrella term of temporary urbanism T. Maeder (B) Institute of Environmental Governance and Territorial Development, University of Geneva, 66, Boulevard Carl Vogt, Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_4

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(Tardiveau and Mallo 2014; Nédélec 2017), some of them have the particularity of using methods borrowed from the worlds of art, or of placing a particularly strong emphasis on the aesthetic dimension. Urban safaris, temporary exhibitions in public spaces, artistic itineraries, and public spaces indeed support a growing number of playful events and installations: creative, poetic, or interactive. Such events appear to have become a classic modality of urban public management, particularly in European cities, whether they are large-scale events (Richards and Palmer 2010) or more intimate street-level exhibits (Jakob 2013). Their rise has been driven by advocates who have theorised the use of play and creativity as a mode of urban governance. They have led to the development of agencies or collectives specialising in the organisation and promotion of this type of event and are spreading among local authorities (Temenos and McCann 2013). The increasingly obvious use of artistic events in urban policies is part of both an increase in the power of creativity as an economic vector (Cameron and Coaffee 2005; Hall and Robertson 2001; Zukin, 1995) and a more general renewal of urban planning approaches that began in the 1980s and continue even today (Tomas 1995). Many authors, from different disciplines and contexts, have identified this evolution as the result of a series of crises in urban governance necessitating a rethinking of the frameworks and scales of public action (Ascher 2001). The resultant crisis of expert legitimacy (Healey 1992; Hohn and Neuer 2006) has led to a failure of urban planning instruments to respond to a new policy context. Multiple responses have been provided to these dilemmas, orienting urban planning towards collaboration and opening it up to actors other than architects and urban planners (Healey 1998). In France, for example, the notion of “urban planning” is gradually being replaced by that of the “urban project”, reflecting a more inclusive, iterative approach and taking more account of the historical and social context.1 The notions of “experience”, “design”, and even “affect” are becoming increasingly important in the composition and management of urban spaces. Some authors have referred to this shift as the “new spirit of urbanism” (Devisme 2005; Ouvrard 2016; Pattaroni 2011),2 where urban planning has reinvented its methods by incorporating the criticisms addressed to it.3 In addition to challenging the principles of functionalism, decentralising decision-making processes, and recontextualising urban and architectural responses, this renewal has also contributed to changing the discursive forces behind the legitimisation of the city’s production. Leaving aside the traditional indicators and tools of urban diagnosis, urban planning is increasingly invoking the vague notion of “quality of urban life” (Deutsche 1996, p. 275). For this purpose, urban planning tends to rely on experience (Grant 2009) and effect (Ernwein and Matthey 2018), while in turn producing new indicators to assess this “quality” (Breviglieri 2013). The 1 The

notion of “urban project” is based on that of an “industrial project” and borrows, in its organisation, from project management (Bourdin 2001). The turn of the century gave rise to an important literature on the urban project and on the impact of this new modus operandi on urban planning practice (Chalas 2004; Hayot and Sauvage 2000; Toussaint and Zimmermann 1998). 2 This concept is based on Boltanski and Chiapello’s New Spirit of Capitalism (2005 [1999]). 3 On this subject, see Devisme (2005) and Ouvrard (2016) for a precise and ethnographic description of the mechanisms for incorporating this “new spirit” into professional circles.

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paradigmatic change is embodied notably in a shortening of the temporalities of urban action (Madanipour 2017a; Bishop and Williams 2012), characterised by what has been coined as “temporary urbanism”. While the term primarily referred to particular forms of festivalisation of urban public space management policies (Pradel 2008), in recent years, scientific debate has broadened its definition to include various forms of integration of short temporalities into urban space practices and uses. Whether it originates in grassroots movements (Douglas 2013; Iveson 2013)—often referred as tactical urbanism—or is part of an adaptation of public policies to allow for transitional land uses, to encourage the emergence of new practices in public space, or as means of staging urban public policies (Colomb 2012b), temporary urbanism often aims to initiate a broader transformation of its neighbourhood. Therefore, temporary urbanism gained in popularity, carried by advocates who describe its positive effects (Haydn and Temel 2006; Portas 2011; Montgomery 2013; Lydon et al. 2015). Although critical accounts have emerged in the scientific arena in recent years, it tends to be more and more mobilised by urban policies as an opportunity to promote urban development. In this chapter, we will focus on a particular form of temporary urban planning, namely its event-driven aspect. This point of focus is informative as these kinds of events force planners to collaborate with people outside the world of urban planning to seek skills they do not have themselves. In addition, the eventification of planning (Jakob 2013) tends to make art emerge as a legitimate tool for the city’s production, borrowing skills and methods from the worlds of art and culture. The literature on temporary urban planning has mainly focused on the social and spatial effects of such policies (Finn 2014; Rota and Salone 2014), citizens’ involvement (Groth and Corijn 2005; Tardiveau and Mallo 2014), as well as on the underlying urban strategies of urban promotion (Colomb 2012b; Gravari-Barbas and Jacquot 2007). And while, on the other hand, urban studies have since the turn of the century placed much emphasis on the evolution of urban planning professions, and on new forms of collaboration (Arab 2001; Healey 1998), the literature has shown little interest in the everyday rhythms of professional practices and in the way in which such collaborations are carried out within the framework of temporary urbanism. Thus, this chapter aims to focus on artistic events. After having explained the concept of hybridisation and presented different regimes of the encounter between the worlds of urban planning and art in the context of temporary urban planning, we will consider three case studies to explore the modalities of collaboration between urban planners and cultural actors. How does it inform on the expectations of urban planning professionals regarding these new forms of public action? What are the pitfalls of the encounter between different professional ethos—those of the planners and those of the artists?

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4.2 A Tale of Two Worlds: Three Regimes of Hybridisation As we pointed out, the intrusion of artistic and temporary modes as a legitimate means of urban planning has led to hybrid collaborations between artists and urban planners. Art as an urban promotional strategy has been widely described in the literature (Evans 2003; Zukin 1995). Following competition between cities and the entrepreneurial shift in urban governance (Harvey 1989), art worlds have been used— in temporary urbanism projects—as a resource by planners in the daily exercise of their functions through artistic and cultural temporary use of vacant space as a lever for development (Ambrosino and Andres 2008; Andres 2013; Németh and Langhorst 2014); the transposition of the vocabulary of tactical urbanism into urban management (Finn 2014; Mould 2014); or the use of events as a “soft” planning technique for urban space (Pradel 2013). More recently, researchers have focused on the direct integration of artists and art professionals into the classical processes of urban planning and construction, in the diagnostic, consultation, or building phases (Arab et al. 2016; Arab and Vivant 2018; Tonnelat 2015). The use of art is often perceived by the administrations that advocate it as a contribution to the creation of a singular urban narrative, as art participates in this staging of the project and the socio-urbanistic directives attributed to it (Redondo 2015, p. 4). While, most of the time, temporary urbanism represents an adaptation of planning methods to new temporalities and new modes of governance, projects mixing artistic dimensions with urban planning objectives require more than adaptation; they require a hybridisation of methods that raises operational questions and requires the cooperation of distinct worlds: those of art and of urban planning. Art worlds have been theorised by Howard Becker as networks of cooperation, characterised by a division of labour and skills as well as professional conventions mastered by all within these networks (Becker 2008 [1982]). While Becker mostly describes conventions of aesthetic nature, his examination of the art worlds also covers practices and methods that are accepted and internalised by an entire professional group. Theorised first in the field of art, this notion of worlds also applies to that of urban planning, composed of groups with distinct knowledge and know-how but led to cooperate within a unique framework (Bossé and Roy 2017; Claude 2009). This ethos of planning is reflected in common ways of thinking and structuring action (codified competition practices, conventions governing client–contractor relationships, procedural sequencing of the project, etc.). In the field of the history of science, Joseph Ben-David (1991 [1960]) theorised innovation as the result of a “hybridisation of roles”, i.e. the shift of conventions from one disciplinary field to another by outsiders that promote such translation. We can, without taking many risks, put forward the hypothesis that innovation in urban planning proceeds in a similar way, that is, through the emergence of outsiders bringing with them new knowledge and practices (Maeder et al. 2019). As Ben-David summarises: “The innovation is the result of an attempt to apply the usual means in Role A to achieve the goals of Role B” (1991 [1960], p. 45). Urban planners’ use of art as a tool in their professional practices thus falls within the scope of the hybridisation of roles. However, there are different ways in which

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the encounter between these worlds is structured and in which outsiders are involved as pivotal players. In some cases—mostly grassroot temporary projects that involve cultural actors “coming from outside the official, institutionalized domain of urban planning” (Groth and Corijn 2005, p. 506)—an adjustment is needed to fit the projects into a regulatory framework, but also to initiate a dialogue with the professional culture and business practices of urban operators. The cases studied by Dumont and Vivant (2016) show how artistic collectives develop specific skills in management and cultural services. These collectives go as far as to adopt the codes and language of the administrations to facilitate negotiations and maximise their chances in competitive situations. In other cases, administrations wishing to develop hybrid approaches resort to operators who have specialised as mediators in artistic events and who act as a “bridge” between the two worlds. This may be a public structure created within the administrative apparatus to take charge of the organisation of festive events and the management of public spaces (Pradel 2013). Additionally, for transitional events organisation, municipalities can recruit private operators who specialise in the design and organisation of artistic events and have expertise in sensitive diagnosis using artistic methods (Gwiazdzinski 2006; Kullmann and Bouhaddou 2018), or in using art as an accompaniment during building phases (Tonnelat 2015). Finally, urban planning departments may decide to take on the role of artistic curators themselves by mobilising internal resources to organise the process, thus interacting directly with the artist-partners through calls for projects or competitions. While such organisational modes can be justified by a concern for savings—different tasks can be redistributed among employees—or by the desire to maintain control over the process and its outputs, they require administrations to adapt to any methods, deadlines, or professionals with whom they are not used to working. The three cases presented here fall within the scope of this third regime of the encounter between artists and urban planners. They consist of three artistic events (or series of events) organised directly by the urban planning departments of the city and state of Geneva between 2003 and 2014. They show how urban planning professionals deal with events and artistic issues in their daily work, how expectations of innovative methods materialise, and the methodological tinkering that has been put in place to bring together two distinct worlds. The case studies are constructed on a hermeneutical approach, based on interviews with managers, administrative staff, artists and commissioned architects. The article also analyses archives of the events: internal documents, competition specifications, communication documents, etc.4 These case studies are part of a broader study on the hybridisation of urban planning and artistic methods in French-speaking Switzerland, begun in 2015, the data of which are not directly mobilised herein, but inform both the professional and political context of the cases studied.

4 All

quotations from interviews or archives are translated from French by the author.

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4.3 Mediatising Urban Planning Through Artistic Events: Case Studies The first case is a series of events organised by the City of Geneva’s Urban Planning Department during the summers of 2003–2006. The city temporarily closed streets to car traffic, commissioned ephemeral installations from artists or architects, and planned a programme of cultural events and performances in conjunction with local associations. The event, initiated by a newly formed municipal government, was part of a sustainable pedestrianisation strategy for the city centre and included three objectives. First, it aimed to test in vivo new traffic configurations and possible load deferrals following street closures. Second, it tested the reception by the population and local businesses of the pedestrianisation of their neighbourhood. These “lifesize models” would then make it possible to adjust and define priorities for the sustainability of pedestrian spaces. Finally, the events aimed to promote the public space policy conducted by the city council, in the hope of changing the balance of power between the municipality and the state, which alone decides on the permanent closure of a traffic route (and which generally appears to be more unfavourable to pedestrianisation). The use of temporary artworks and performances appeared to be only a pretext to facilitate the acceptance of a planning policy, as described by a city employee in charge of the project: “In fact, the use of temporary facilities is clearly intended to modify the city in a sustainable way. We use it as a life-size model. And then when it’s artistic, it goes better”. The second case study is a programme of performances carried out by the State of Geneva’s urban planning department, which started in 2010 in connection with the redevelopment of a vast industrial area on the outskirts of the city. The programme consisted of two components. On the one hand, it mobilised the department’s urban planners in the search for and identification of vacant areas that could be made available to artists and cultural actors, and on the other hand, it provided a fund for the organisation of events and performances within the project area and support for existing festivals to occupy the site. The programme was managed by a curator/communication officer within the planning department whose role was to contact local cultural actors by inviting them to make proposals for interventions in a call for projects. Its organisers intended that the cultural programme introduce inhabitants to little-known areas by inviting them to visit, and the programme provided interventions requiring direct public involvement—urban safaris, artistic walks, etc.—which provided information to the public about the projects in progress. At the same time, some planning officials involved in the cultural programme hoped that the approach would make it possible to initiate a dialogue with the actors on the perimeter. The curator stated the purpose as a way “to forge close links with the inhabitants, the population, the cultural actors, the various municipalities”. While the programme itself lasted only until 2012, the urban planning department continues to work with local cultural actors to organise events in the sector (Fig. 4.1). The third case is an exhibition of site-specific artworks also organised by the State Planning Department in 2014. Its development began in 2012 in a tense context. The

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Fig. 4.1 An urban safari featuring artistic performances, organised with the support of the Urban Planning Department, whose invitation to the public promised “a new look on a fast-growing Geneva” illustrates the long-term collaboration between urban planners and the artistic community. (Photograph: Thierry Maeder 2017)

Canton’s new master plan was challenged on the densification measures it provided for, and several referendums called into question plans for densification and extension in the agricultural zone. Officials of the administration had imagined this large-scale exhibition—extending over more than five kilometres and which would last for the whole summer—as an arena for debates and a way to defuse opposition. As one urban planner confided, “[We] hoped that the cultural scene, the debate, the exhibition – on a level other than purely technocratic—could be a way out to exchange ideas and make things happen. That was the hope at first”. The exhibition was the subject of a competition aimed at artists, architects, and landscape architects for interventions arranged on the outskirts of the city, along a future soft mobility route, at the interface between agriculture and urbanisation, a sector that is expected to grow strongly in the coming decades. According to the competition’s specifications, the proposals were to explore “renewed alliances between agricultural and urban development”. Indeed, the interventions demonstrated a clearly established theme and generally approached it with an experiential dimension: an ephemeral bar with local beers, a belvedere, a vegetable garden, etc. The three examples, briefly presented above, use the event to varying degrees as an instrument for “validation through use” (Pradel 2007, p. 4) of project options. The event had a direct impact in the first case, since the feedback—in the form of petitions and quantitative traffic surveys—has made it possible to influence and

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define the priorities of the pedestrianisation programme. In the latter case the event had an indirect impact, where the preliminary studies carried out for the event and the contacts made in its preparation are still used by the planners in charge of the ongoing urbanisation project. However, above all, in the three cases studied, the aim of the artistic interventions presented is to construct a narrative of the city in the making (Matthey 2014a), in a more or less explicit way, by staging urban action. The first case, for example, made extensive use of iconography inspired by the squat scene (from which several commissioned artists were also drawn) to signify the appropriation of urban space by its inhabitants; the second used the grammar of urban planning as an aestheticised motif: certain performances used cranes or projections of urban plans. In the third case, the theme of the city–country relationship was one criterion used to judge the competition. Thematisation of urban change in the events studied here is mediated through art. This translation invites visitors to experience the changing city rather than simply talk about it. By perceiving changes through the body and emotions (Ernwein and Matthey 2018) rather than through the intellect, the inhabitants, via their involvement in the spaces created by the events, become the subjects of ongoing urban changes, without actually taking part in this change. This play on involvement has been particularly evident in the setting in motion of visitors—through the use of itineraries—as a prefiguration and staging device (Redondo 2015; Urlberger 2003) (Fig. 4.2). Fig. 4.2 Several artistic proposals took the form of itineraries. In the second case studied one of the events called on the public to come and walk along a footpath that was soon to be built through the development area. On the route, objects were displayed to represent the future recreational uses of the site—roller skates, hula hoop, running shoes. The flyer of the event itself was a red sock. (Photograph: Thierry Maeder 2019)

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In all three cases, the promoters—whether the professionals who organised them or the politicians who carried them out—saw artistic events as an intermediary for their action. In a politically tense context where public discussions on urban development often end in blockages, some may have seen in the aesthetic experience the possibility of a common language to address urban planning themes, without resorting to urban planning jargon. Indeed, it seems easier to discuss a project with local residents during a cultural walk, an outdoor tango lesson, or a tasting of local beers, rather than in a town hall meeting. This willingness to use artistic events to create direct links with residents and owners is attested to by one of the employees interviewed: Finally, we really touched on all the themes that we review in a development plan. But at the population level. […] With a language that is not that of the urban planner. The pretext for this was that cultural event. They were sorts of round tables, but they were not actually.

For another employee, the moments of informal exchanges with local residents made it possible for them to “put a face on the bastard”. By becoming the receptacle of the residents’ complaints, this planner was able to open a more symmetrical dialogue: the involvement of the public, in the experience of urban change mentioned above, responds to the direct involvement of the urban planner—often physically present during events—as the personification of public policy.

4.4 Extension of the Scope of Action and Misunderstandings The transitory extension of the urban planners’ domain is not without disruption to their daily practices. While urban planners are generally accustomed to working within more or less heterogeneous coalitions (Arab 2001), temporary urbanism tends to extend the scope of urban planning (Kossak 2012) and to blur the boundaries between professional groups (Bishop 2015). Specifically, collaborations during artistic events question both the temporalities of urban planning action as well as the modalities of cooperation with other professional groups. These pose problems of compatibility between these two distinct worlds. Indeed, while experiences of integrating artistic approaches into the city’s production processes are likely to multiply, curatorial skills and the management of cultural projects remain skills that urban planners generally do not possess (Kullmann and Bouhaddou 2018). Similarly, while cultural actors tend to adapt to the framework set by this renewed relationship between cultural and urban policies (Dumont and Vivant 2016), the fact remains that these two worlds reflect different practices, which sometimes struggle to agree, as revealed by the case studies. We note three pitfalls that were encountered by the organisers, the urban planning professionals, when setting up these artistic events: a problem of temporalities, a misunderstanding about distinct professional ethos, and an ambiguity about the role of mediation.

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4.4.1 Temporalities In all the cases studied, urban planners report difficulties in adapting to unusual temporalities. The event format of the action imposed very tight operational deadlines. In the first case, for example, since the event was repeated for three months for several consecutive years, the preparatory phase was to be held during the remaining month of the year. Competitions were launched in autumn for an inauguration in June of the following year, an unusually fast agenda for both urban planning and public art procedures. However, these measures were part of a legal framework that was not designed to accommodate this type of rhythm—traffic modifications, building permit applications, safety risks assessment procedures, etc. Given the public relation risk incurred in the case of unforeseen incidents, organisers were generally not able to benefit from administrative facilities linked to their ephemeral nature. Indeed, the events had to comply with space regulations as well as sustainable projects, particularly in terms of health and safety standards. As one of the organisers said: It was perhaps the most difficult thing in fact, to have project owners who did not know these mechanics of short deadlines. It’s very fast, the State is not used to making such fast projects. They were the project owners of something where it was necessary to facilitate procedures. But they are in a timing logic that lasts three, four, five years, and then you have time to file a request and discuss. There, we didn’t have time to discuss it; we had to be quick.

Moreover, the temporality of the artistic project does not necessarily match that of the permanent project that legitimises it (Pollock and Sharp 2012). While, in the first case study, pedestrianisation and permanent traffic modification procedures were quickly implemented where the events had obtained the support of local residents, the other cases were carried out in much more abstract time frames. While the artistic and cultural events in the industrial zone have undoubtedly contributed to placing the urban renewal project on the mental map of the inhabitants, the real transformation will take place over several decades. This incompatibility of the rhythms of the event and urban transformations tends to dilute the expected effects in terms of mediation: Well, it was criticised, to organise events as a smokescreen at a time when [the project] hadn’t started, when it was still just elaboration. It was like saying “it’s happening,” when nothing happens. […] Maybe because it was too early. Because in fact there was no immediate result. It should have been part of a whole. In fact, from the moment there is continuity, it can enter the memory.

This is also true for the third case, where the links forged before and during the events between urban planners and local actors did not withstand the test of longer periods of time; hence, the difficulty, expressed by one of the planners in charge, of maintaining the “trust capital” earned over the long term. The very structure of the organisation chart of the events does not facilitate long-term monitoring, or the valorisation of acquired experience. Requiring significant human resources over short periods, some of the tasks were outsourced—the organisation of competitions and the monitoring of achievements were assigned to a landscape architects’ office in the third case—or entrusted to administrative employees on fixed-term contracts. As a result, it has not been possible for the urban planning services to capitalise on

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the experiences gained and the contacts established with local actors during these projects, even though it was one of the goals of their organisation.

4.4.2 Ethos The encounter between these two worlds reflects different ways of approaching the project. First of all, there seems to be a hiatus in the place and legitimacy of the actors in the processes, which is particularly expressed in the varied methods of actualising the expectations of the programming. Thus, the competition specifications for the cases studied5 imposed the themes that the artistic proposals had to follow, and they clearly formulated the objectives of the request in the form of a call to respond to a given problem. In the case of ephemeral pedestrianisation, the proposals had to be conceived as “life-size models for possible future projects”, and expectations, in terms of atmosphere and effects on traffic, cars, cyclists, and pedestrians, were detailed by the programme. For the third event, in addition to the imposition of the theme city–country relations, site specifications detailed precise spatial expectations to which the proposals should respond: the specifications thus mandated the current allocation of each site, its (supposed) future use, as well as a transitional state, the time of the event, that was supposed to accompany or prefigure the change. One site was to become, during the event, “a renovated village square”, another “a playful lookout”, or another was required to “transform fields into parks” to accommodate future development before permanent reallocation into a park. The precision of these specifications reflects current practices in the world of architecture and urban planning where competitions are governed by a programme defining the expectations of the commissioner towards the future mandate (Quincerot and Nicolas 1980, p. 37) but rather unusual in the case of public artistic commissions.6 These differences in practice may have caused some confusion during the selection procedure and the production of the works, particularly in cases where the competitors did not include any architect or landscape designer in their team.7 The organising planners may have felt frustrated by the competitors’ liberality towards the specifications and their constraints; or they may have had to ensure, during the implementation, that the winners did not significantly modify their proposal in relation to the competition project. As one of the organisers of the third event explains about one of the installations: 5 Where

competitions have been organised, some contracts have been awarded by invitation-totender or by mutual agreement. In the second case, the contracts with the artists were all given conferred by mutual agreement. 6 This is evidenced by several art competitions in the public space recently launched in Geneva. Reflection on the context has been one of the conditions for the emergence of site-specific art (Deutsche 1988). 7 With the exception of the second case, where service providers were recruited exclusively from the artistic community, many proposals were put forward by mixed teams of artists and architects/landscape designers.

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T. Maeder One of the team was very art-oriented, not much in landscape design. So, they had a discourse; it was quite difficult to negotiate with them. And when they decided to [modify their project], we were on the front line. […] We held on. I appealed to the higher authorities of the competition to intervene so that they could do their thing until the end. […] We had to make sure that the basic idea of the competition was respected until the end.

This difference in professional ethos is at the root of a misunderstanding where, in architecture and urban planning, the relationship between the commissioner and the agent provides for a precise and definitive description of a “problem to be solved” (Dubey 2010, p. 176). Conversely, the artistic commission is based a contrario more on the search for a spatial issue and its expression through the creation of a work.

4.4.3 Mediation As previously mentioned, the urban planning services that have organised artistic events have done so with a view towards mediating their action. Related but distinct from communication, mediation is first and foremost the work of linking and clarifying an artwork, an action, or a discipline. Mediation has been present in the art world since the 1990s, where it has tended to be an essential part of cultural policies in the name of the democratisation of culture, and has become essential in recent years in the fields of architecture and urban planning (Tapie 2018). If we follow the typology of Chaumier and Mairesse (2013), the cases studied are indeed mediation in that, at least in their intentions, they combine interpretation and maieutic. It is interpretation, because more than instructing on an ongoing policy, the events seek to arouse curiosity, sometimes to provoke; and they do not target the intellect, but the senses and affect them through the direct involvement of visitors in defined spaces. It is also maieutic, because in all the cases studied, the objective was for the public to see for itself the validity of the underlying policies, whether it be pedestrianisation, urban renewal, or rethinking the relationship between the city and its hinterland. As one urban planner summarised it, the events were intended to “convey the good intention of the State”. However, by using artistic work to mediatise planning policies, the organisers have perhaps too quickly forgotten that artistic activity itself requires mediation to be perceived by all audiences. In general, it seems that the organisers favoured clearly intelligible proposals, whose iconography was easily linked to urban planning action. In some cases, the organisers have had to abandon collaboration with some of the artists chosen by the procedures, for fear that the proposals selected would be too incomprehensible to the general public. There was a problem with the target audience. Let’s say the problem is that it was a demonstration that wanted to concern ordinary people. But that the language and means used were made for an elite. And in a contemporary art event it’s a bit like that all the time.

Nevertheless, while it is generally difficult to assess the impact of this type of collaboration between artists and urban planners (Metzger 2011), the general feeling

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seems to be one of the disappointments with the outputs they have been able to generate. The first series of events, held between 2003 and 2006, was probably the one in which implementation came closest to the measures it was mediating. The events received a mixed media and popular response. Although it allowed some streets to be pedestrianised, the strategy was not renewed after the change of the city council in 2007 because closure of traffic routes became too controversial. As for the other two events, the urban planners who participated in their organisation acknowledge they have been successful in the dialogue they opened with the local residents but generally consider it difficult to capitalise on these experiences as a catalyst of popular support for urban projects. I think that one did not see the artistic approach as an accompaniment to a planning study. I get the feeling that it was taken for itself. As an event in its own, for entertainment. So, what [annoys me is wasted] time. It was 2014, what is left today in 2018? Nothing. I’m submitting plans for public inquiry, I have objections. What is the share of people who were seduced at the time of the events, and then disappointed by the reality we propose?

Finally, some still feel that they have distanced themselves too far from their objectives and skills by engaging in the organisation of artistic events themselves.

4.5 Conclusion These cases show some of the pitfalls of urban planning’s use of artistic and cultural events as project tools. Often perceived as a panacea by city professionals, cultural action is part of the new “calls for skills” (Biau 2018, p. 5) that urban planning has been experiencing since the turn of the century and which tends to open new “professional niches”, particularly in the field of communication and intermediation in urban planning. As mentioned above, the literature on temporary urbanism has focused mainly on the issue of placemaking, governance or initiatives carried out by citizens’ groups. In this chapter, we have tried to show how event-driven temporary urbanism is largely based on actors who, while they are also professionals, come from the world of culture and art. Urban planners sometimes have too high expectations of this type of project and the collaborations generated by it. The cases studied particularly illustrate the strong desire of urban planners to make their project understood and the need for a different, more audible vocabulary in a context of political tension around the development and modification of the urban living environment. As we have seen, the artistic dimension of the events is perceived by city professionals as a solution to the semantic impasse of the contemporary debate on the city. A field often presented as going through successive crises, urban planning increasingly relies on a discourse based on values rather than on technical and scientific imperatives (Matthey 2014b; Tiano 2010). This need to mobilise values finds here a particular embodiment in that the aesthetic dimension, specific to artistic interventions and invites us to debate the meaning to be given to urban policies—quality of life, use of the street,

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relationship to the landscape, etc.—rather than to concrete urban planning actions: densification, decommissioning of agricultural areas, reorganisation of traffic, and so forth. Nevertheless, the cases presented in this article illustrate a certain lack of precision in the expectations placed on cultural action when it is taken up by urban planners. Often thought of as a facilitator of action—because they are playful, poetic, and a roundabout way of talking about the problems of the city—artistic events are nonetheless unknown territory for urban planners who have neither the skills nor the knowledge to grasp cultural action as an instrument of their daily practice. Our analysis has thus illustrated the obstacles inherent in the hybridisation of urban planning methods. As we have discussed, using Ben-David’s theory of innovation (1991 [1960]), hybridisation between distinct fields of competence and professional cultures is generally based on outsiders who, on the margins of their own world, create niches by importing methods and practices from neighbouring professional worlds. But hybridisation requires translations and bridges, which are conditions for the transposition of conventions that are sometimes incompatible. We have addressed here attempts at hybridisation that have shown the limits of the direct application, in urban planning frameworks, of methods borrowed from the art world. The question of innovation in urban planning, through hybridisation and the emergence of new “bridge” profiles, is an object of study that is beginning to be developed (Maeder et al. 2019), but it still requires a more in-depth examination in order to understand the tenants of these phenomena, the paths of these professionals, and the modalities of translation. Temporary urban planning in general transforms the conditions of practice of the profession and invites us to study its evolution and the emergence of in-between actors (Kullmann and Bouhaddou 2018). Thus, the main contribution of this chapter was to examine the condition of innovation in urban planning methods in the context of event-driven temporary urbanism and call for a rethinking of the modalities of collaborations between artists and urban planners in the case of artistic events used as planning tools.

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Chapter 5

Informality and Temporary Urbanism as Defiance: Tales of the Everyday Life and Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa Hakeem Bakare, Stuart Denoon Stevens, and Lorena Melgaço

Abstract The role of informality in African citizens’ everyday survival reflects the strategies and attitudes of citizens towards state plans and policies. This chapter dissociates the discussion of temporary urbanism from its typical Global North perspective to explore how this concept plays out in a Southern context, namely Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We look at the relationships between temporary urban settlements, citizens’ resilience to socio-economic deprivation, loss of trust in government, and resistance to neoliberal policies in such a context. The chapter begins with a historical account of informality in SSA in order to explain its socio-political construction in the present. We then explore how informality is addressed in its ‘temporariness’ as a state strategy to evade the realities of African cities or to avoid providing adequate housing. The overall argument of this chapter is that there is a need for attitudinal change in the political disposition to informality, which could help to recognise the value and permanence of informality in SSA. Keywords Informality · Urban planning · Temporary urbanism · Resilience · Sub-Saharan Africa

H. Bakare (B) Department of Strategy and International Business, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT, UK e-mail: [email protected] S. D. Stevens Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of the Free State, PO Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, Republic of South Africa e-mail: [email protected] L. Melgaço Institute for Urban Research, Malmö University, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1, 211 19 Malmö, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_5

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5.1 Introduction The dominance of informal economic activities and informal settlements on urban economic space in Sub-Saharan African cities highlights the growing permanence of temporary settlements (Brown et al. 2014) and underscores the socio-spatial, environmental and political challenges and opportunities posed by precarity as well as the repercussions. The subject has drawn the attention of policymakers and academics to question the role of urban planning amidst temporary and insurgent urbanism, which are fast becoming permanent features of urban environments in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Miraftab 2009). This chapter draws on temporary urbanism (TU), which is defined as ‘any initiative on unoccupied land or buildings that aim[s] to revitalise local life before development occurs’ (IAU île-de-France 2017). In the Global North, TU has been a recent response and resistance to neoliberal globalisation. In SSA, ‘temporary’ urban space has been used by the state as a tool to deny acceptance of forms of urbanism which are perceived as unwanted, but which are necessary for the continued functioning of the urban area. The chapter explores the links in SSA between the rise of temporary urban settlements, citizens’ resilience to socio-economic deprivation, loss of trust in government, and resistance to exclusive neoliberal policies. We present a historical perspective of the rise and meaning of informality, followed by a discussion of informality within the context of SSA. We then review how ‘temporary’ urban space has been used by the state in SSA, exposing the darker side of TU.

5.2 The Historical Context of Informality in Sub-Saharan Africa The city as an engine of growth amidst informalities is one of the most contentious issues in SSA. While informality has both positive and negative features, the typical pattern of informal development in SSA raises cause for concern in the achievement of Urban Sustainable Development Goals in SSA (Pieterse and Parnell 2014). Considering the human and natural resources endowment of many countries in SSA, coupled with the international support enjoyed by many, potential for systematic, incremental and sustainable transformation abounds. However, the reverse seems to be the case, as population growth far outpaces infrastructure development in virtually all African cities (Middleton 2016). The informal social and spatial processes and patterns in African cities that are normatively temporary have become permanent because of the lack of sustainable alternatives in view (Richmond et al. 2018). Lwasa (2016) states that the ‘informal city’ is actually the city in Africa, judging by the magnitude of diverse informal infrastructure and services provision that contrast with formal, centralised systems.

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In a similar vein, it has also been noted that informality incorporates behavioural, social, and governance elements (Simone and Abouhani 2005), relating to culturalcognitive components of the pillars of the institution (Scott 2005). According to Scott, cultural-cognitive components hold the shared beliefs and practices of society. The pattern of informal settlements in African cities has recently been the focus of temporary and informal urbanism studies (Dodman et al. 2017; Okyere et al. 2017). However, the social and spatial perspectives of the relations between cities and citizens, which play significant parts in the economy and social relations of these cities also require significant attention (Berenschot and van Klinken 2018). As an all-encompassing concept, informality entails every aspect of life and livelihood such as settlement, social and health services, socio-political organisation, and socio-economic processes (Pieterse and Parnell 2014). While there exist varying definitions and functions for informal practices between cities and countries, the concept is constantly shaping lives and livelihood in SSA cities (Middleton 2016). According to the International Labour Organization (2009), about 72% of all employment in SSA involves informal work. As a form of resistance to poverty, many African citizens live and work outside the laws to adapt and survive to defy the detrimental impacts that may arise (De Soto 2000). Informality provides economic flexibility in terms of direct bargaining power, less vulnerability and better returns on investment (Richmond et al. 2018). Although formalisation provides economic security and tax revenue, it threatens social networks and access to social capital, thereby strengthening inequalities inherent in globalisation. As a result, people tend to engage in informality in SSA (Lince 2011). More recently, informality has become a buzzword for understanding not only the social deviations from formal regulations but also the spatial patterning of these deviations in developing countries (Myers 2016; Okyere et al. 2017). The socio-spatial eminence of informal activities underscores the complexity and scarcity of urban space in meeting the socio-economic and environmental rights of city citizens (Richmond et al. 2018). However, despite the significant contribution of informality to employment and economic growth in SSA, it has largely been ignored, marginalised and even demonised (Middleton 2016). Okpala (2009) relates that before colonialism in SSA there were ‘unplanned’ but orderly physical structures based on tribal and traditional land tenure and land-use systems. Amankwah-Ayeh (1996) reveals that indigenous patterns of planning which encouraged collective actions were firmly rooted in precolonial towns and cities in Africa. Public spaces such as the market squares, farms, and playgrounds were properly structured. Although it was reported that the morphology of the settlements varied according to which ethnic group occupied the space, a recognised and accepted form of physical order existed. The circular patterns of dwellings and town spaces reported in precolonial cities in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt were used to promote a ‘good sense of control of the environment’ (Amankwah-Ayeh 1996, p. 63). Other important precolonial planning features in Africa include dispersal of facilities across the towns to prevent conflicts and overcrowding, presence of plazas, public social interaction in central places and building of walls to control urban sprawl and provide security. These processes promote social cohesion, inclusiveness and create

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common goals for the collective benefits of the people. More importantly, there were orderly passageways and roads, despite the construction of dwellings close to each other. Precolonial towns in Africa could act as a guide for a response to the present challenges of urbanisation in SSA, in particular regarding informality. For example, Steyn (2005) attempts to draw on traditional forms of African courtyard architecture, which was traditionally used in a rural dwelling, and to consider ways this could be used to develop a form of urbanism that remains true to indigenous African settlement design principles but is adapted to a modern urban environment. Through this, he identifies ways of building that are superior to the sprawling model of Western ‘modern’ settlement building, as well as addressing the inefficiencies of typical informal settlements. Colonialism ushered in exclusive planning intended to segregate people in class based on race and social status, thereby providing the basis for land use leading ultimately to informality. The emergence of modern urban planning in Africa has been linked to addressing health problems that occurred as a result of urbanisation (Mabin and Smit 1997). These measures often took the form of slum clearance, with the indigenous population being rehoused away from the primarily white colonists in ‘locations’, given that the African population were blamed for the spread of the bubonic plague (see Kinkead-Weekes 1985 with regard to the example of Ndabeni in Cape Town). Essentially, this was an approach that blamed the poor for health issues and used segregation to protect the colonists from the ‘unclean’ indigenous population. The British approach to slum clearance was introduced and tested in South Africa and Nigeria in 1927 and 1928, respectively. Thereafter, this approach was used in other African colonies. By 1947, previous legislation was revised and updated to become the British Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. The ideas in this legislation, despite promoting a Western colonial model of development, still inform the majority of planning laws in SSA (Okpala 2009). The postcolonial planning approaches did little to address the anomalies of colonial planning. Rather, postcolonial governments tended to continue using plans and land management tools inherited from the colonial government. The advancement of freehold title over the use of indigenous forms of tenure was justified on the basis that freehold title was perceived as the ‘modern’ approach. It allowed the state to use land as a mechanism through which to raise revenue, and provided a means by which politicians could reward faithful supporters (Watson 2009). More recently, we have started to see these colonial plans being replaced by grand visions of modern urban utopias. These plans are typically drafted by firms based in the Global North, and present an unrealistic ‘Wakanda’-like vision of future African cities, which has little to no place for informality (Watson 2014). To some extent, this can be counted as a form of neocolonialism (see Hartley (2015) and Moser (2015) for a discussion of this in relation to Asian cities, with many arguments also applicable to Africa). As such, planning in Africa continues to be dominated by Western ideas with limited relevance for the African urban context, and with continued rejection of any form of development that is not formal.

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5.3 The State in Sub-Saharan Africa, Policy Failure, and Socio-Political Informality Urban development policy and plans are state activities, at both the national and city level, that relate to processes of development and management of urban areas. The state develops urban policy and plans to manage the ‘common good’ so that the city can develop sustainably (Pillay 2008). Although local or global forces influence urban development policies and plans, political and economic imperatives influence the success of any urban policy more. These imperatives have significant implications on the success of urban policy and plans. Political imperatives, for instance, usually manifest from conflicting roles between national and local governments, who may have different interests based on personal or political differences. In most instances, financial reasons are often the factor driving the implementation of urban policy. Schlager and Blomquist (1996, p. 652) attest that ‘political actors engage in the policy process not only-indeed, perhaps not primarily-in order to respond to perceived social problems, but also to advance their own political interests and careers’. The literature on plans and policy issues in Africa is filled with examples of SSA states failing to implement the plans that are made (Choudhury and Armstrong, 2013; Killick 1983; Sebego and Gwebu 2013). Some authors have argued further that plans were used as a means of ‘power, domination and social control’ (Njoh 2009: 301). In most cases, the presence of informality is cited as an example of plan failure. One contrasting perspective comes from Cirolia and Berrisford (2017), who argue that a simple ‘all or nothing’ perspective on plan implementation misses the nuances of how the state uses plans and planning to ‘negotiate’ for control, usually achieving some, albeit limited, success in this regard. In this perspective, informality is an expression of citizens resisting the state’s unrealistic vision for urban spaces, a move born more out of necessity than ideology. Implementation failure in part can be attributed to political factors more than socioeconomic or financial factors. A major example is the experience of development plans in Nigeria. After independence, successive governments have made several plans based on political inclinations, most of which were not fully implemented or not achievable (Iheanacho 2014). An important issue is, however, what guides the development process when formal policies are unenforceable or unattainable? Addis Ababa’s experience is also like that of Nigeria. Nine urban master plans have been made to date to promote both socio-economic and socio-political interests, but the plans did little to guide the development of the city (Mahiteme 2007). Despite this, many practitioners consider these policies ‘good’, as they say the ‘right’ things. It can be argued that for most of its history, Addis Ababa has been growing with alternative-substitute plans determined by political interest rather than the needs of the people. Furthermore, many of the modern plans are too Western and lack recognition of local and indigenous practices (personal communication with local planning practitioner in Addis Abba) (c.f. Cirolia and Berrisford 2017). Uganda’s experiences further highlight the manifestation of socio-political informality through politics. Kampala city has been dubbed a ‘modern executive slum’ owing to the failure

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of the state to provide social services needed by the citizens (Otage and Ngosa 2011). This has been attributed to partisan politics which gradually eroded citizens’ trust in government (Lambright 2014). Unequivocally, the inability of the government to provide adequate social and political goods for the people has affected people’s reliance on and trust of government policies and the need to explore the different informal opportunities available to them to address their socio-economic needs. As a result, the emerging literature on informality in the developing world suggests the need to consider how state–citizen interaction is affected by socio-political informality. In the light of the manifestation of citizens’ reliance on the strength of their personal social networks to access public goods and deal with unresponsive and unpredictable state institutions, it has been argued that such connection should be seen as constituting citizenship (Berenschot and van Klinken 2018).

5.4 Informality and Temporary Urbanism: A Manifestation of Social Neglect and Exclusion Typically, TU is seen as a positive endeavour, a means to test and demonstrate potential ideas, and a cost-effective approach to uplift the image of a local area. To date, most documented TU initiatives have primarily occurred in the North. In the South, the notion of temporariness in urban areas has a much darker history and present usage. In former British colonies (and in the case of South Africa, also during Apartheid), urban areas were for the colonists and functioned as administrative and military centres from which the surrounding areas could be controlled and exploited (Brockett 1998). In most colonies, the indigenous population was used to provide labour, but there was a desire on the part of the colonists to avoid the provision of any permanent settlements for the labour force. On this basis, land ownership was denied to the so-called temporary occupants. Thus, the notion of temporariness in urban areas was used to ensure that the colonialists had access to labour, while denying said labour force access to adequate housing or land ownership. In some colonies, such as Kenya, this initially took the form of accepting ‘squatting’ as a legitimate form of housing, given the temporary nature thereof (Kobiah 1978). In others, such as South Africa, squatting was largely rejected, and slum clearance becomes a common strategy (Harrison 1992). Squatting in South Africa was, at least initially, an attempt by the indigenous population to access the amenities of a city, but its rejection by the state kept these settlements as temporary fixtures, which could be eradicated at any time. Where (some) permanent housing was built, it often took the form of hostels, whose early inspiration was the Brazilian Diamond Field slave lodges (Weiss 2011). These were built intentionally to be unattractive and uncomfortable (Thurman 1997), to discourage permanent occupancy. In postcolonial times, the philosophy has changed, but the state has continued to designate spaces that it sees as being undesirable but which it cannot remove as

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‘temporary’. Through doing this, the state is still able to maintain the image of being in control and maintain the illusion that it can create an ordered, purely formal, city (Charlton 2018; Robins 2002). An example of this is the backyard shack/dwelling in South Africa, where a second dwelling of formal or informal building materials is built on a property. There is evidence of this from as early as the 1920s (Harrison 1992), but this became more prominent from the early 1970s. As a response to the government not building houses in black areas, backyard dwellings became one of the main ways that a growing black population could find housing in urban areas (Gilbert et al. 1997). Since 1994, as the state has produced new public houses, the backyards of the new housing have created space for backyard dwellings to grow (Lemanski 2009). To put this in perspective, in 2016/2017, it is estimated that between 9.7% of all households live in a backyard dwelling of some type (5.6% informal, 4.1% formal). In contrast, shacks in informal settlements make up an estimated 7.6% of all housing (Statistics South Africa 2018). Despite the history and prominence of this housing type and the value it brings, the South African state has refused to recognise it as a permanent feature of the urban landscape, designating it as ‘temporary’/transitional, something that will ultimately be replaced by state-provided housing: a completely unrealistic outcome (Bank 2007). And because the state refuses to recognise its permanency, public housing developments are not designed with backyard shacks in mind. This has had serious consequences; for example, the bulk infrastructure often cannot handle the additional demand on services in public housing settlements, leading to service failures (Govender et al. 2010; Lemanski 2009; Turok and Borel-Saladin 2016). Furthermore, backyard dwellings use unsafe illegal electrical connections owing to the lack of a second connection point, which pose a fire risk, and the increased demand on the sanitation infrastructure (toilet, etc.) often results in breakages, and increased incidents of diarrhoeal diseases (Govender et al. 2010). Furthermore, the crowding of formal and informal dwellings increases the risk and speed of shack fire spread (Walls et al. 2017), and, combined with poor ventilation, exacerbates the risk of tuberculous infection, and other diseases that rely on airborne transmission. These issues are relatively straightforward if accounted for in the early planning stages, but because of the state’s unwillingness to deal with anything that is not perceived as ‘proper’ housing, they are not addressed (Charlton 2018). In this way, the state rejects what it perceives as undesirable by labelling it as temporary. A second articulation of the state’s use of ‘temporary’ settlements is where the state is attempting to justify providing inadequate housing by designating these settlements as temporary, despite many of them lasting for years, and even decades. A major case example can be found in the slum upgrading project of the Kenyan government in the biggest slum in Africa, Kibera. The first phase of this project provided about 822 units while displacing a little above 6,000 residents (personal communication with a practitioner in Nairobi). Moreover, the temporary camp that was meant for transitioning during the different phases of the slum upgrade project is now being permanently occupied by many of the 6,000 displaced during the first phase of the project. A key issue here is that rather than learning from the first phase of the project and rethinking the strategies considering the needs of the people, the second phase

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proposed to displace close to 8,000 residents. Yet, there remains no assurance that the project will rehouse up to 50% of the people being displaced. This substantiates the argument that the project is more one of slum relocation rather than upgrading (Tairo 2013). As many are displaced and few are relocated, it is logical that the displaced would find alternatives elsewhere according to their capacity. The broader implication for TU is that any attempt to pursue such experiments in the South will need to be carefully designed to avoid being associated with this negative history. Still, there are some promising initiatives, albeit few and relatively small, which are attempting to apply TU in Africa. One such example is Open Streets Cape Town. This project works both in the central business district of Cape Town and in the townships, where a street is closed for a day, and replaced with a space where people can walk, cycle and skate. This is usually associated with fun activities, such as music, dancing and soccer. In 2018, a forum was held, and the activists and officials from ten other African cities were introduced to this concept (Open Streets Cape Town 2019a, b). This project provides a strong example of how TU could be pursued in other Southern contexts, in such a way that deviates significantly from the historical association with ‘temporariness’ in the South.

5.5 Conclusion: Informality and Everyday Living in Sub-Saharan Africa In these socio-political and socio-spatial forms of informality elicited above, informality has become a key aspect of everyday life in SSA. The importance of informality as a weapon for everyday survival now reflects in the strategies and attitudes of citizens to state plans and policies. The everyday struggle of citizens shows the imprint of informal processes to meet essential needs including shelter. While we used the political and economic connotations of informality here, to bolster our argument, we acknowledge that it requires more empirical evidence than that of this paper. However, our wish is to establish the failure of the political process that eroded the trust of the society in government, necessitating informality as a weapon of survival. The failure of urban development policies and plans and the dominance of alternative decisions are testaments to socio-political informality. TU and the permanence of informal settlements testify to the failure of formal plans and distrust between state and citizens. The need to rethink urban development planning around informality could help foster the achievement of sustainable development goals in Africa. This must involve planning with the people and for the people, as the ‘master plan’ in the Western inherited colonial sense does not reflect the true needs of the people. Moreover, ignoring the needs of the people will continue to encourage the spread of informality socially, economically and spatially. This chapter has also drawn attention to the ways in which the state uses the notion of ‘temporariness’ to avoid acknowledging the realities of African cities or to justify providing inadequate housing. The challenge then is to consider how to change

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the attitudes of politicians and officials to recognise the value, and permanence, of informality. How to achieve this is unclear, given that this requires politicians and officials to relinquish their dreams of formal ‘suburban bliss’ (Robins 2002). Achieving this is vital, as this mismatch between the reality of permanent informality and the perception of informality as being temporary, means that the state is constantly under servicing low-income neighbourhoods. Given this, this is a vital area of future research. The state’s use of the notion of informality to justify the provision of inadequate housing and infrastructure provision is a vital area for lobbying and advocacy to ensure that clear legislative standards are set for what constitutes a ‘temporary’ period of occupation. Such legislation would provide a mechanism by which residents and civil society can hold the state accountable. From a research perspective, this also opens a conversation about creating a typology of urban forms that does not just look at morphology, but also takes into account temporality. This would distinguish between urban forms designed to be genuinely temporary, and those that have longer periods in mind, which may or may not be permanent.

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Chapter 6

Temporary Forms of Urbanism in Contested Urban Spaces in Lebanon: The Case of Dbayeh Camp Paul Moawad

Abstract The living conditions of Palestinian and Syrian refugees in informal settlements in and on the outskirts of Beirut remain precarious and ambivalent. They live in a state of limbo and their transient living mode induces subordination and exclusion from the surrounding host community. To cope with this exclusion, refugees have developed specific place-making practices that tend to reactivate the liminal spaces, reconstruct their cultural identity, and recreate their lost original ‘home’. Relying on shared estrangement experiences and collective memory, ‘waiting’ is activated, enhancing coping mechanisms and communal productivity. This chapter investigates how hybrid formal and informal spatial practices engender opportunities in temporary urbanism to construct communal connectedness. These spatial practices activate ambivalent ‘waiting’, relying on vertical collaborations and bottom-up approaches. It is through the lenses of participatory and nexus-thinking frameworks that a quadrant composition can assist in sowing a people–place platform open and accessible to all, revolving around four main players: the architect, the host community, the government and camp inhabitants. Keywords Connectedness · Nexus-thinking · Participatory · Temporary urbanism · Waiting

6.1 Introduction The displaced and refugees live in limbo and a state of uncertainty when inhabiting squatted and informal settlements. Their temporal state induces conflict and exclusion from the hosting community, turning space into a contested landscape. This paper examines the socio-spatial forms of inclusion and exclusion of protracted refugees and residents of the Dbayeh camp in Lebanon (see Fig. 6.1), and how an active use of time while ‘waiting’ can induce productivity and coping. This case study is used as a vignette to illustrate how temporary urbanism, while it congeals formality and P. Moawad (B) Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1h 0NN, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_6

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Fig. 6.1 Dbayeh camp as seen from the camp water tank. Source author

informality. However, the crux of creating temporal spatial alternatives and flexibility depends not only on the intention of the user (protracted refugees) assisted by planning experts (Bishop and Williams 2012) but also on ‘incremental, flexible and experimental’ topologies (Nemeth and Langhorst 2013, p.1). Deciphered via a tripartite framework of sense of place, users and materiality, this insight into the field of temporary urbanism in the context of encampments has not been investigated to date. In the last decade, temporary urbanism has been an emerging experimental design tool in urban planning, embroidered with a myriad of strategies and in vogue frameworks such as ‘guerilla urbanism’ (Hou 2010), ‘pop-up urbanism’ (Barnett 2011) ‘urban catalyst’ (Oswalt et al. 2013), ‘urban acupuncture’ (Casagrande 2014) and more recently ‘tactical urbanism’ (Lydon and Garcia 2015); however, such initiatives have remained absent from encampments’ urban settings. Thus, through a deconstruction exercise of temporal urbanism, socio-spatial alternatives are to be examined via the lens of a participatory and nexus-thinking advocacy. The manifold of nexus assessments, participatory insights and a polyvocal analysis conveyed by camp inhabitants present the opportunity to unmask and recalibrate current habitable and livelihood conditions. Such insights are clearly vocalised through residents’ architectural readings spanning from a common collective memory to multifaceted spatial and ‘home’ modalities. These architectural readings are the result of a reconstruction process of what ‘home’ means via a myriad of materiality and the assemblage of a rich urban palette.

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6.2 Permanent Temporariness: Layers of Informality According to Müller (2017), Keith Hart coined the word informality in 1973 and since then it has been used to counter formal planning typologies. Informal settlements are a dominant urban reality in which inadequate living and environmental dimensions present anomalous conditions. However, it is beyond the scope of this book chapter to give a detailed urban investigation into Lebanese informal settlements for it requires a multiplex assemblage of several planning disciplines and ethnographic considerations. Therefore, mapping the Lebanese informal settlements presents a considerable challenge due to ‘the absence of a unified understanding of the city’ (Fawaz and Peillen 2003, p. 1), the overcrowded Palestinian camps (12 camps according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 2019), the scarcity of cartographic and census data, as well as the continuous mobility of their inhabitants and, in some instances, informal settlements’ mutable porosity.

6.2.1 Informality in the Lebanese Context: The Palestinian Spectrum Informal settlements are considered to be a derivative of the urbanisation process (Jones 2017) and are perceived as urban informalities, read as ‘grey spaces’ (Yiftachel 2009). Hence in addition to their precarious conditions, informal spaces are liminal spaces where ‘people live informal lives within fissures between legality and informality’ (Pasquetti and Picker 2017, p. 1). Hence, the definition of informal settlements is wide yet contextual and typically engulfs slums, squatters, and deprived, overcrowded settlements. The perception of informal settlements tends to eradicate the humane factor and shelf the reasons behind their socio-spatial exclusion and marginalisation. ‘Words matter, these informal settlements are neither informal nor irregular–they are above all, human settlements’ (Zárate 2016, p. 1). Within the Lebanese context, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines an informal settlement as ‘a settlement that was established in an unplanned and unmanaged manner, which means they are generally unrecognised. There may or may not be an informal or formal agreement between landlords and residents of the settlement’ (UNHCR 2019, p. 1). It is clear that this definition solely targets the contextual conditions of the Syrian and Palestinians refugees in both informal settlements and camps and does not encapsulate the broader urban planning empirical and theoretical reading of informal settlements. That said, the informal versus the formal is almost blurred in the Lebanese context and the unsteady and precarious conditions of these informal settlements led to an urban sprawl, with an uncontrollable regional influx of refugees towards the camps. The ceaseless internal displacement of Lebanese citizens was scarcely investigated. Major internal displacement took place during the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) and also due to the Israeli assaults on Lebanese territory (1982, 2006).

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The 2006 Israeli–Lebanese conflict induced a displacement of 900,000 people that took refuge in ‘schools, mosques and other centres’ (Kelly and White 2006, p. 16). Hence, shreds of temporary urbanism present in the temporary reappropriation of these spaces emanated from ‘emergency urbanism’ (Knudsen 2019). Since the formation of the Lebanese state in parallel to the early twentieth-century rural migration, the large-scale mass influx to Lebanon of the Armenians, Syriacs and Palestinians in addition to the internally displaced Lebanese due to the political tumultuous instability, the civil war and lastly the Syrian refugee crisis, led to an urban sprawl manifested by informal settlements and illegal encroachments. While the Armenians and Syriacs are considered to be the first refugees to settle in Lebanon at the turn of the twentieth century, it was the Arab–Israeli war in 1948 that had the most seismic effect in creating informal settlements and encampments on the Lebanese territory. The informal settlements were concentrated in Beirut and its outskirts, mainly in the Ouzai neighbourhood, south-western suburbs of Beirut (Dahiya), eastern suburbs of Beirut (Roueissat), Dbayeh (Dbayeh camp) and along the Beirut River. According to Fawaz and Peillen (2003, p. 10), ‘Palestinians refugees in Beirut either rented places or lived in camps originally established for Armenian refugees especially Qarantina’. Since then the number has increased from six camps in 1952–12 camps in 2019 (UNRWA) and they remain overcrowded, marginalised, and perceived as ‘spaces of agency and struggle’ (Ramadan 2013, p. 74). The Dbayeh camp started as a peri-urban camp in 1952 and expanded in 1963 (UNRWA 2019). It is perched on a sloping church-owned terrain leased by UNRWA and is adjacent to the main seaside arterial road, overlooking the capital city, Beirut. Given the haphazard urban sprawl that peaked during the Lebanese civil war years (1975–1990), the Dbayeh camp transitioned from being a peri-urban camp on the city outskirts to becoming one of the ubiquitous informal urban spaces with its open fringes; it remains marginalised and a transient place of encounter.

6.2.2 Informality of Dbayeh Camp: A Permanent ‘Terrain Vague’ The Dbayeh camp currently encompasses Palestinians refugees, Lebanese displaced rural migrants and urbanites, and lately witnessed an influx of approximately 50 Syrian refugee families according to the UNRWA camp director (March, 2019). Hence, the Dbayeh camp stands as ‘sites of an enduring organisation of space, social life and system of power that exist nowhere else’ (Agier 2002, p. 332), an urban archipelago and an urban typology of what was described as ‘spaces of exception’ (Agamben 1998) in the midst of an urban context that keeps expanding haphazardly towards the four quadrants of the camp.

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With ephemeral, uncertain territories and spatial anomalies, the Dbayeh camp emerges as an informal ‘terrain vague’ (wasteland or abandoned), an urban terminology coined by the Spanish architect, de Sola-Morales (2013), which describes urban unoccupied and abandoned interstitial territories as marginalised and nonproductive. Those terrains are, by essence, triggers of diverse forms of temporary uses where short- and long-term effects need further investigation (Andres 2013; Madanipour 2017). This dichotomous and dualist plural reading is explicit by evidence of the temporary spatial constructs, the absence of social cohesion with the surrounding community and the inactive use and consumption of time. While socio-spatial constructs were addressed in liminal urban spaces mainly by Lefebvre (1974), a reappropriation exercise in decoupling the relational dimension of the human agency with its environment and time relying on both internalisation and externalisation practices transpires hope and urban inclusion for Dbayeh camp residents. That said, it is trivial to denote that the Dbayeh camp in comparison to other urban Palestinian camps did not increase in size and is defined and sliced by four main streets, labelled and known to its inhabitants as street 1, street 2, street 3 and street 4. In addition, the contrast that Dbayeh camp exhibits is that it remains ostracised regardless of the openness of these four streets towards the urban fabric around it. Dbayeh camp, almost 70 years after its inception, is still perceived by residents around the camp as a spatial anomaly, and by what Agier (2011) describes as ‘hors-lieux’ (off-sites), where its inhabitants are ‘exed’ and submerged in forms of exclusion, extraterritoriality, thus remaining a territorial exception where temporariness blurs with permanence and the ‘in-limbo’ status replaces security.

6.3 People: Waiting Embodiment ‘Waiting’ is a ‘derive’ (derivative) of the ‘in limbo’ and the ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner 1969) experienced on a daily basis not only by the camp inhabitants but also by the community residents. This in-betweeness is a form of ‘haecceity’, a ‘rhizome’ (Loovers 2015) that is continuously perpetual. This symbiotic relationship accentuates the ‘waiting’ in limbo and in-between state of human agency where ‘waiting… is numb, muted, dead…marked by contingency–the perhaps–and all the anxiety that comes with the experience of contingency. It is a passive activity’ (Cranpanzano 1985, p. 45). This numbness and all the other associated scarred feelings are a direct result of an anxious and nostalgic state mainly lived by the Dbayeh inhabitants and is associated with the one constant: ‘time’. The ‘time’ dimension can orchestrate a ‘time-focused design’ in temporary urbanism, that could be paired with cyclical individual and community needs transforming transience into permanence via ‘repetition and adaptation’ (Akiko 2014, p. 400).

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6.3.1 Passive Waiting: A Form of Subordination and Feminisation Time remains the basal metric in exploring embodied waiting experiences in marginalised urban spaces. ‘Waiting’ is a complex and temporal phenomenon, where time can be quantified, subjective, sequentially phased, ‘consumed in sequence and volume’ (Schwartz 1978, p. 2) and if catatonically mismanaged, counter-topophobic facets and experiences can be generated while ‘waiting’, such as anxiety and perpetual fear. That being said, the relativity and subjectivity of how time is used expand the complexity of ‘waiting’ topologies in ‘disintegrating time’, whereas a passive longing for an uncertain future can render the ‘waiting’ process banal and stalled (Brekke 2004). This dimension is similarly echoed in Turnbull’s investigation of time and agency factors where coping levels depend on the spatial setting of each individual (Turnbull 2015). This time subjectivity and dependency if not well-channelled can induce despair and internal conflicts, jeopardising integration that Brekke considers one arm of his ‘triangle of waiting’ where time, integration and return constitute its vertices. It spawns passive waiting where Dbayeh camp inhabitants find themselves stuck in a self-imposed urban confinement deprived of productivity and communal integration. This lack of productivity, a consequence of complex factors such external sociopolitical forces as well as the ‘dependency syndrome’ on the habitual provided humanitarian aid, led to inhibiting community–camp social relationships. As McFarlane and Waibel (2012) described it, the combination of paternalistic approaches with the ‘dependency syndrome’ does exclude the displaced and refugees from the ‘right to the city’. This purposefully injects staleness and leads to passivity rather than productivity. Hence, fear and anxiety surface and evoke vulnerability when dealing with the host community and forms of ‘stuckedness’ (Hage 2009) arise in the daily lives of refugees. In addition, in being stuck the refugee is being trapped, immobilised, paralysed, confined, and hence being deprived of hope and kept suspended in space with no certainty of when they will be able to go back to the original ‘home’ or even to reach out to the surrounding community.

6.3.2 Active Waiting: A Constructive Force in Building Resiliency ‘Waiting’ can be ‘liberating’ (Van Houtum 2010, p. 294) for hope and desire remain rooted within the cognitive functioning of the human agency. ‘Waiting’ is not only liberating but presents opportunities where social and cultural integration is possible.

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Exclusionary policies induce a paralytic aspect in ‘waiting’, thus reducing the potential added value Dbayeh camp residents can bring in their mundane transience unless inclusive policies are instead implemented. In contrast to the Kafkaesque figures in the ‘before the law’ parable that transcends power, subordination, confusion and stuckedness, the Beckettesque figures in ‘en attendant godot’ (1952), (waiting for godot) still generate ‘trivial activities…brimming with doings’ (Ibanez Tirado 2019) while being in a ‘waiting’ abstract mode. Hence, it is through activities that ‘waiting’ can turn into a constructive force generating resiliency and contextual adaptation. ‘Waiting’ can be a force of defiance used collectively and become a ‘weapon of the weak’ (cf. Scott 1985, cited in Sutton et al. 2011, p. 31). Drawing on scholarly works in relation to ‘waiting’ done by Jeffrey (2010), Gasparini (1995), Ibanez Tirado (2019) and Sutton et al. (2011), it is observed that ‘waiting’ inertia can be activated and transform passiveness into productive forms of social assemblages. Hence, these productive and active modes of ‘waiting’, create forms of resiliency and defiance as counter-hegemonic tools. Time consumed in ‘waiting’ modalities, if managed properly through social and communal cohesion, can promote resiliency and defiance collectively and individually. Therefore, the intersection between ‘time’ modalities and ‘waiting’ modalities becomes the crux in understanding how individual and collective memories congeal to offer an opportunity to construct a sustainable socio-communal space that can turn into a place for all users. That said, it is through a participatory spatial manifestation that ‘uneven geographies of waiting’ (Sanyal 2018, p. 68) do transform into socio-cultural ‘geographies of architecture’. This interconnectedness between residents and architecture has the ability to replace what is perceived as a spatial shrinkage, a residual of inactive ‘waiting’ practices into a ‘Sojan-like’ socially produced space (Soja 1989), in which the hierarchy of power is reshuffled and rearranged due to a collaborative place-making process (Andres 2013, p. 14).

6.4 Materiality: Spatial Strategies and Place-Attachment As previously denoted, ‘waiting’ can be regarded as a spatial practice if activated via frameworks such as situated intersectionality (Yuval-Davis 2015), multiscalar (McGrane et al. 2018), participatory, top-down and bottom-up approaches that will metastasise opportunities in the spatial production benefiting a concatenation of decision-makers and users (Madanipour 2018, p. 1101). While all these frameworks engage the residents and community in a joint effort in shaping a more inclusive place to live and work in, the materiality articulation and adopted architectural alternatives are at the fulcrum of this socio-communal exercise and in sculpting a temporal

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urban environment. Hence, space created through active ‘waiting’ becomes a characterisation of adaptability and a symbol of defiance where temporality and adaptability stratified, generate interconnectedness and hybridity between short-term and long-term performative spatial practices.

6.4.1 Informality and Formality: A Hybridist Approach via Materiality and Praxis For Teddy Cruz (architect and urbanist), the informal space is a place where the production of ‘infrastructure, property and citizenship’ takes place. Hence, working with contextual informality rather than imposing a formal strategy presenting spatial opportunities for informality should be worked with and not erased. That said, working solely with informality presents limitations when it comes to producing a healthy and liveable architectural space via environmentally responsive materials. However, it is within the choreographies of materiality that flexibility and temporality are harnessed via spatial modularity. For now, the hybrid model blending formal and informal practices have been presented as a successfully tested pragmatic approach. It should be noted that this blend is still absent between the Dbayeh camp and the surrounding urban tissue. The spatial manifestations are currently confined to residents constructing their own subjective topophilic spaces. The result is a mosaic of materiality assembled organically and, in some cases, haphazardly to meet their needs whether aesthetic, functional or structural (see Fig. 6.2). Introverted alcoves, roof gardens, uncanny patios and ornamented porches are projects that transform Dbayeh camp households into architects of necessity. Hence, though this informal personification those inhabitants assert their symbiotic relationship with ‘territories, space, practices’ and unravel their capabilities to tailor-make temporal space according to their collective needs (Lutzoni 2016). Fig. 6.2 Filled plastic bottles ensuring roof structural stability. Source author

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Fig. 6.3 Palestinian flag next to a well-maintained timber door with Arabic writing on the wall recalling the plight and resiliency of Palestine Source author

The materiality perceived in the camp stems from a non-fading collective memory where fear is replaced by hope and uncertainty by desire, leading to a proliferating socio-spatial construct (see Fig. 6.3). They are partially temporal and made of tin sheets, plastic bottles, squandered metal scrap, reused timber panels and fabric. In these spatial modalities geographies of architecture clearly stem from cultural geographies in which geographies of architecture tie materiality with effect, making ‘architecture to be taken as a referent’ (Kraftl 2010, p. 4). Hence, the role of an architect coming as a mediator/coordinator between residents and liminal space is critical in assisting a marginalised community to celebrate its cultural strata through spatial alternatives. Alejandro Aravena, a Chilean architect, applied this hybrid model through his ‘ELEMENTAL’ design studio in his Quinta Monroy affordable housing project in Chile, which was completed in 2004. Aravena embraced informality and adopted a relational approach in which the nexus lay between a tripartite framework, the government, the architect and the community. Aravena reverted to a simple design approach yet complex in praxis, engaging the masses and users in the process of designing and constructing their ‘home’. To achieve a balance between formal and informal spatial practices, he devised a new methodology and labelled it ‘the halffinished home’ (Aravena, 2018). Aravena’s work is a rare example of how formal and informal spatial practices intertwined to produce a subjective perception of ‘home’ based on individual and collective memories. The ‘other half’ will be informally completed by each user. The ‘other half’ is predominantly dense with symbolic artefacts and materiality embroidery based on a subjective imaginary perception of what is ‘home’. Along the same lines, Teddy Cruz architects introduced informal bottom-up practices while intervening in informal settlements located on the Mexican–American borderland where ‘fostering unwalling activities’, produces ‘corridors of exchange’ where knowledge, social and economic interaction, and collaborative efforts were implemented (Misra, 2017). Cruz, similar to Aravena, accentuates the use of materiality to strengthen place-identity in ‘home-making’. The use of raw materials in

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building temporary settlements in Tijuana manifested a form of cultural and social exchange through borders between San Diego and Tijuana. Hence, individual and collective memories constitute the backbone of reconstructing spatial familiarity and temporal place-attachment through informal architecture. Even if individualised memories are forgotten, they will be compensated by the community collective memory (Ahmed 1999), highly present in the choice of materiality and the urban texture of the camp. It is within this production of memories that place-making emerges and a Lefebvrian social space is triggered by informal temporal performative urban practices.

6.4.2 Abandoned School: An Opportunity to ‘Unwall’ the Social Barrier According to Sarah Meys (2005), neighbourhoods are spaces with no defined boundaries. In examining neighbourhoods, Meys brought forward the notion of place and communal identities. Drawing on the works of Ouwehand and Van der horst (2005) and Giuliani and Fieldman (1993), Meys concludes that a neighbourhood identity lies in the physical, social and individual experiences leading to a closely-knit sense of community, place-attachment and safety. Hence, the relation between individuals and community accentuates place-attachment and forges social ties. This social and communal knitting remains absent till present time between Dbayeh inhabitants and the surrounding community. Even though the Dbayeh camp is located in a middle-class neighbourhood, it still engenders intrinsic and precarious urban characteristics. This precarity lies in its Janus-faced nature, where while it appears permeable to the surrounding urban tissue (an exception in comparison with the majority of urban Palestinian camps in the Lebanese territory where barriers and security checkpoints define their entrances) from its four defining streets, the social barrier remains and the camp is perpetually stigmatised. For the camp’s social edges to be ‘unwalled’, collective and social knitting between camp inhabitants and their environment is necessary. The slipknot that could complete the sowing of place-attachment and spatial communal tapestry lies in an abandoned school at the edge of the camp (see Fig. 6.4). According to the UNRWA camp director (March 2019), the camp does not have a supportive UNRWA school serving it and the bullet-riddled adjacent school has been abandoned since the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) and its basement was used as a bunker and ammunition stockpile. The school is partially damaged, pockmarked and tainted by political and sectarian graffiti. In repositioning the school, a new temporary function might arise, either in parallel or as a total functional overhaul, bringing a short-term spatial reappropriation. Hence, an opportunity arises for active temporality in a sustainable manner benefiting all stakeholders ‘creating immediate and intermediate benefits that are contextual and flexible and support an incremental process of urban transformation’ (Nemeth and Langhorst 2013, p. 145).

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Fig. 6.4 Abandoned bullet-riddled school. Source author

A successful example where a balanced approach was adopted is observed in the recently opened Jarahieh School in the Jarahieh informal settlement, located in Marj town, Beqaa. Efforts led by a non-profit organisation based on the UK, ‘CatalyticAction’ and two other development organisations, ‘Jusoor’ and ‘Sawa’ with the host community and refugees were rewarded in reappropriating an unwanted pavilion into a school. The innovative part of this project was not only in reclaiming a temporary constructed pavilion in Milan by ‘Save the Children’ in reappropriating its materiality to fit the new function, but also by implementing a complete social engagement between the host community, refugees and builders. This temporary implementation was triggered by upcycling architecture and reshaping the space to meet specific needs. In addition, the use of modular systems, an ease of assembly– disassembly operation and a retrofitting of materiality enhanced a wider participation from all the stakeholders. This ties strongly to the ‘waiting’ and productivity themes within temporary urbanism, applying intersectionality, materiality and a refugee-centred perspective. However, one hurdle in sowing and strengthening ties between the community and Dbayeh camp residents is that the Palestinians are forbidden from working in ‘syndicated’ professions by the state-governing entities (ILO and CEP 2012) and that encompasses school teaching. Hence, an approach that necessitates communal involvement, political willingness and reactionary design to the users’ needs is required. To embody a new urban integration with a temporary territory such as the Dbayeh camp, a hybrid approach blending the formal with the informal collectively is recommended. David Gouverneur (2014) labels this hybrid approach in his urban studies on informal settlements as the ‘informal armatures’ (IA) approach merging the informal and formal via collective performative conditions. The IA approach stemming from active waiting is considered to benefit the community, the individual, and the governing bodies and produce an upgraded infrastructure and promises enhanced educational and economic conditions to all parties. Even though this hybrid model in the Dbayeh camp scenario is confined to an educational spatial manifestation, it can set the stage for further social and communal activities to follow.

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Hence, through a ‘nexus-thinking’ methodology that relies on a tripartite participatory approach the in limbo state of users in temporal urban contexts is alleviated and forms of social inclusion emerge. It is within this process of forging connections and active production while waiting that place-attachment and place-identity are strengthened, collaborative efforts are made and socio-spatial constructs are generated. Hence, the next threshold is the crystallisation of these efforts for the opportunity is there to embrace in temporary urbanism within a stigmatised encamped context.

6.5 Conclusion Palestinian refugees since their exodus to Lebanon have been perceived as the ‘scarecrow’ in Lebanese politics (Hanafi 2010, p. 7) with a social phobia of their permanent resettlement in Lebanon revealed in their excision from the Lebanese community. The Dbayeh camp along the several decades of its existence has been transformed from being a temporary monovalent urban archipelago to a polyvalent permanent one, including displaced Lebanese families and recently Syrian refugees, but still remains ostracised. Even though polyvalence has emerged, the Dbayeh camp remains an ‘extra-territorial’ space, a post-city space, a space where the ‘trinity of state/subject/space’ still prevails (Alsayyad and Roy 2006). In that post-space, waiting is the crux point where hope, desire, subordination, stillness, productivity, longing for ‘home’ and an infinite strata of topophobic and topophilic congeal. Hence, the camp within this urban sprawl and density turns to be a space-in-waiting, an isolated and stigmatised urban archipelago. This spatial shrinkage is a residual of ‘waiting’ practices and is not limited to spatial manifestations but overflows to the social and cultural dimensions, where the exclusion and lack of integration of Dbayeh residents with the surrounding milieu create a form of ‘enforcement archipelago’ (Mountz 2011). Hence, ‘waiting’ can be regarded as a spatial practice bounded within the present tense in which the uncertainty of the future is the main onus. To make a précis of what was previously discussed, a convoluted temporal spatial intertextuality that relies on a ‘nexus-thinking’ methodology and intersectional and externalisation practices is the synovial joint. Within it, axioms such as participatory approaches and a hybrid between formal and informal (e.g. informal armatures) could assist in deconstructing and reconstructing a temporary topophilic sense of place and fostering communal connectedness, spatially processed. In adopting ‘geographies of architecture’ as praxis, spatial practices can be constructed based on a quadrant composition where the architect, the host community, the government and camp inhabitants can assist in sowing a people–place platform open and accessible to all. Hence, such active participation of all stakeholders could be the threshold to foreshadow future temporary urban projects within the camp and at its boundaries harnessed by a sense of place-attachment and empowering subaltern communities. Andres (2013) is cited in Lehtovuori and Ruoppila (2017, pp. 57–58) to have decoded a distinction between ‘place shaping’ and ‘place-making’ where the latter provides

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the opportunity to trigger a sustainable temporary use asserting the legacy and empowerment of temporary users in engaging them in a ‘long-term role in planned place-making’. Therefore, a vertical collaborative use of time surges as a prerequisite for the inhabitants of urban encampments to actively generate temporary social spaces, forging continual social cohesion with the community and reshuffling the power hierarchy within their spatial temporality.

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Chapter 7

Political Protest, Temporary Urbanism and the Deactivation of Urban Spaces Tihomir Topuzovski and Lauren Andres

Abstract This chapter opens new avenues of research in positioning ‘temporary urbanism’ as a manifestation or rise of a particular so-called ‘aesthetic-political regime’ established during periods of public political contest. To do so, it examines temporary urbanism through the scope of artistic interventions aiming to deactivate spaces, in other words, challenge their value and symbolism through a form of visual political protest. It draws on Rancière’s theoretical insights on the relationships between space, political protest and art. Further, it challenges the traditional approaches of temporary interventions and their related areas of queries. It uses Skopje and the example of the ‘Colorful Revolution’ in the Republic of Macedonia to develop this argument. Keywords Deactivation · Political protest · Aesthetic-political regime · Art · Macedonia · Colorful revolution

7.1 Introduction Art as a form of political protest is a common practice in the urban landscape, displayed in various actions, from the occupation of buildings (squats) to the use of outdoor walls as canvasses (typically Banksy’s work). Through the message developed such artistic interventions create “spaces of resistance”, which “somehow transform public space, in order to count as an ethical or political intervention” (Amoore and Hall 2010, p. 30). Protesters are hence space producers, manipulating places and producing new ones (Martin and Miller 2003). Protests are emotionally intense and can contribute to constructing the “sense of place” and can also change its symbolic meaning (Piazza 2018). T. Topuzovski (B) Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Samoilova Bb, Skopje 1000, Republic of North Macedonia e-mail: [email protected] L. Andres Bartlett, School of Planning, UCL, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1h 0NN, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_7

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Artistic practices seek to disrupt and alter the perceptions and understanding of a politically marked spatiality. We use the notion of “aesthetic-political regime” to refer to this context in which aesthetical manifestations are embedded into politics, or which precisely belong to political regime principles. The idea of an aestheticpolitical regime draws upon Rancière’s theory and examines how artists intervene within these regimes by producing a different contextualisation of visible objects through their own political marked spatialities. Barney and Kalin (2014, p. 596), referring to Rancière’s work, argue “that art as politics moves in the direction of an aesthetic dissensus, a rupture, or productive gap in common sense towards the invention of new forms and arrangements, redefining what can be felt and thought by the occupants of a space”. This power of resistance, as per the nature of arts, is often limited in time and set up within specific temporal contexts of protest. Within the urban landscape, it raises questions on the impact and meaning of space; positioning those artistic interventions within aesthetic-political regimes stresses that what is at stake is understanding new forms of political and spatial expressions as ruptures. To understand the spatial and political meaning of those ruptures, discussions need to take into account the importance of temporalities, and specifically temporariness, which to date has not been achieved. This chapter thus aims to make a contribution to such debates by positioning itself within the “temporary urbanism” literature. Temporary urbanism refers to non-permanent actions designed and thought through with the ambition of changing a space and impacting the surrounding socioeconomic environment. Temporary urbanism involves adaptability and sits within a mix of timescales; it is connected to the planning system as well as to the complex urban governance regimes within which it sits. It has been argued that temporary uses mostly spread themselves out within a context of weak planning (Andres 2013), when flexibility is permitted thanks to uncertainties and deadlocks, extending towards a planned framework of redevelopment aspired to by local authorities and landowners. This process of space shaping contrasts with the formal dynamic of place making, inherent to masterplanning, which displays the traditional constitution of meaning and hence a strategic vision about a space (Andres 2013). To date, studies in the field of temporary urbanism (e.g. Groth and Corijn 2005; Colomb 2012; Bishop and Williams 2012) have focused on space shaping, looking at temporary artistic and cultural uses as ways to activate or even reactivate spaces. The reverse phenomenon, in other words the deactivation of a space, has not been explored to date. In this entanglement of the dissensus, deactivation is a meaningful concept employed to highlight the purpose and often political and/or social significance of alternative uses. It puts the act of “protesting” as leverage for deactivation and hence correlatively emphasises the relation between political and spatial expressions. When protests relate to art, deactivation becomes a feature of the aesthetic-political regime by positioning the “temporary” as a process through which art as politics moves in the direction of an aesthetic dissensus and hence rupture (Rancière 2010). We argue that the novel approach allows a more exhaustive decryption of the dialectic relationship between art, politics and the rhythms of production and reproduction of space. To do so, it engages with a unique form of political protest: the use of balloons

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filled with colour, thrown at monuments, buildings and different architectonic structures in Skopje (Republic of Macedonia), named the “Xapena Pevolycija”, i.e. the Colourful Revolution.

7.2 Methodology Data used in this paper are drawn from three main research projects. First, the data gathered for the Skopje case study is based on a six-month research study conducted between April and November 2016, involving the collection of a range of secondary materials (press releases, policy, twitter feeds, etc.). A total of 22 interviews were conducted with members of political parties, participants in the Colourful Revolution, journalists, architects, art historians and citizens of Skopje. Interview questions covered a wide range of areas divided into three categories, and investigated the citizens’ perceptions about the protests in Skopje and the impacts of the Colourful Revolution, governmental architecture, and urban planning over the last ten years, and the monuments, buildings and structures of the project Skopje 2014. Secondly, the core theoretical framework of the paper embraces the authors’ expertise; it sits within a range of research conducted by Andres in the area of temporary urbanism combined with Topuzovski’s expertise on the political and spatial aspects of artistic practices in the Balkan and East European context.

7.3 The Meaning of Artistic Practices as a Form of Protest The connection between art and protest as a verbal or physical process or act through which individuals express their strong disagreement with decisions, policies or values driven by governing and/or powerful bodies is a long-standing phenomenon. Artists are well-known for their active role in social movements, hence demonstrating their connection with political activism. Since the 1990s, scholars have paid increasing attention to those manifestations, and numerous research studies in sociology, urban studies and geography have assessed the connection between space, the arts, protest and activism (see for example Teune 2005; Ibrahim 2009; Piazza 2018; and Ratliff and Hall 2014). Significant attention has been paid by scholars to artistic political activism in the contexts of severe tensions between governing institutions and groups of citizens (e.g. Steinberg (2004) worked on popular music during Miloševi´c’s regime in Serbia, and Adams (2002) researched tapestry during the Pinochet rule). Teune (2005, p.13) notes that “unlike artists in earlier stages of social movement history, contemporary artists offer workshops and ‘professional’ assistance to translate a political message into a protest event”. This means that individuals gathering with the purpose of protest are able to get together thanks to the use of networks and collectives as well as social media. Artistic practices as a form of protest offer a new understanding of contentious politics and the spatialities of such protest. Protesters draw

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their imaginaries, and the discourses of rights and citizenship, which produce multiple specialities (Leitner et al. 2007). They demonstrate the intersection of creative routes of resistance and the formation of alternative political visions. In our attempt to formulate a theoretical framework that explains these cases, we interpret artistic practices as a form of protest close to Rancière’s (2007) notion of “dissensus”. Rancière (2010, p. 69) argues that “a dissensus is a division inserted in ‘common sense’: a dispute over what is given and about the frame within which we see something as ‘given’ or defined institutionally”. This positioning allows artistic practices to make changes in what symbolises a political system spatially. Rancière suggests that dissensus “consists in an activity that redraws the frame within which common objects are determined” (p. 139). As a result, every arranged meaning of a space or every situation “can be cracked open from the inside, reconfigured in a different regime of perception and signification” (Rancière 2009, pp. 48–9). A regime “specifies the ways in which these expressions take their place within society, what their functions are within social life in general and in relation to the other social activities in particular” (Deranty 2010, p. 119). What this means is that artistic practices as dissensus interrupt “a set of principles by which a given society is symbolically staged” (Marchart 2011, p. 143). This happens within aestheticpolitical regimes where specific spheres of experience and meanings are established at one period of time. The period of time outlines “the specific ways in which a given epoch conceives of the nature and logic of artistic representation” (Deranty 2010, p. 119) and culture in general. Moving the argument further, artistic practices as a form of protest are an expression of a “struggle over what politics is, of a disagreement or dissensus that interrupts and redistributes that system of places” (Bowman and Stamp 2011, p. XII). This attempt places art near to politics, where a key aspect of Rancière’s thought is that “art and politics each define a form of dissensus, a dissensual re-configuration of the common experience of the sensible” (2010, p. 140); this delineates a specific space and order. In that sense, these acts “are intertwined with political and activist movements opposing consensus”. It means that a particular system where artistic practices can be incorporated into a political order can be taken into account “through given roles and competencies” (p. 263) which neutralise artistic creativity. Rancière provides a crucial insight into the essential frame of the political for those who protest, resist and take active part in the social dynamic. Thus, the political is “made by a group that is not yet inscribed in this order to have itself recognised in the name of” or “a right that is yet to be inscribed in facts” (Rancière 2009, p. 115). As this quote makes evident, the political to a certain extent is an action aimed at inscription and achieving visibility for those who are in fragile positions. Rancière states how these acts as “political demonstration makes visible what had no reason to be seen; it places one world in another” (2010, p. 38). The theory on dissensus allows an interpretation of artistic practices as a form of protest considering their dissenting effects on arranged spatial meanings. The significance of those interventions displayed diverse degrees of activism and engagements binding political messages through events and brought new ways of

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engaging social consciousness. Those practices are a form of engagement with the general public as a way to pass over a specific message. Reflecting on the complex theoretical connotations of dissensus, the latest cannot be considered in an empirical context without specification. This is why in this section we investigate characteristics of dissensus through the lens of deactivation and how it connects to the wider debates on temporary urbanism, specifically by materialising the voices given to artists in labelling the spaces within which, or on which, they express themselves (Andres 2013).

7.4 Deactivation as a New Expression of Temporary Interventions The act of deactivation embodies Rancière’s view on dissensus and it triggers the (temporary) collapse of the meaning of urban forms and spaces. Thus, a key aspect of deactivation within temporary urbanism is expressed through art’s ability to desymbolise and change the framed meaning of urban structures and politically charged spaces. Now, deactivation has not been, to date, a concept through which temporary uses have been assessed; on the contrary, temporary uses have been related to the idea of activation and transformation. The idea of activation and transformation rests upon the nature of urban differential spaces (Andres 2013), being witnesses of former urban uses, but stranded within a range of deadlocks: for example, a weak property market (economic crisis or over-supply of derelict land), the financial non-viability of a redevelopment project (for various reasons, including decontamination costs), and strong disagreements between stakeholders or planning restrictions, particularly towards land-use modification (Andres 2013). Even within a reverse process of deactivation, scrutinising artistic intervention into spaces as a way of temporarily invalidating their values allows a clear positioning of the power dynamics behind the processes of differentiation, disorder and spontaneity. It allows a new glance towards the political dimension of space, and hence the emergence of alternative and temporary figures of power on space typical of the ongoing intensification of the contradictory processes of globalisation, fragmentation and reterritorialisation. The idea of deactivation reinforces the importance of the distinction made between weak planning and masterplanning (Andres 2013), though looking at it in a reverse way. Deactivation as a form of temporary urbanism allows a process of place unmaking from a symbolic and visual perspective; the temporary intervention aims to destroy the image and meaning of the space, and hence demonstrates protest. It clearly aims to contrast with the existing built environment, intrinsically masterplanned, and its pillars of permanence, stability, linearity and control. It changes its sense of place (Cresswell 2013) by creating new representations, memories and identities. The process towards determining which space is deactivated is similar to the one of activation in the sense that it is a form of transitional space shaping and remodelling, highly conflictual, and sitting within a governance process where traditional power

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elites and their opponents, i.e. activists, fight to express opposite views and values. Such manifestations can take a more explicit or stronger form in contexts of conflicts and political tensions, which is the case examined in this chapter with the example of Skopje.

7.5 Political Transition in the Balkans and the Rise of Skopje as the European Capital of Kitsch In the early 1990s, the geopolitical rearrangement of Eastern European territories of the former communist bloc coupled with the process of Europeanisation has become a determinant of Eastern European urban development (Sassen 2006; Wiest 2012). The urban built environment tends to mirror economic structural changes and industrial restructuring (Hamilton et al. 2005; Harvey 1989). The most obvious aspects of this transition have been the emergence of several new states and hence the development of a new geopolitical context (Goddard et al. 1994). This led to new countries principally aiming to strengthen their integrated state territory and establishing national capital cities and new administrative centres (Hajdú and Rácz 2011). Urban development and planning have been a key part of those transformations. In the case of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, the new master plan “Skopje 2014” was originally announced in 2010 by the elected political party VMRO-DPMNE (The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity). This conservative party, which had already been in power for almost a decade, aimed to reconstruct the national identity and Macedonia’s national roots. Skopje 2014 was dedicated to giving the city a more impressive and “historic” appearance, drawing inspiration from the architectural styles of “Classical Antiquity” (Marusic 2016). It consisted of 137 urban structures (buildings, a triumphal arch, façade, sculptures, bridges, fountains and public squares) and cost around 671 million Euros. The realisation of the master plan exemplified what we mean by an aestheticpolitical regime in terms of framing new meaning to urban spaces, in this case with neoclassical and baroque architecture and sculptures and also involving the population of the Republic of Macedonia in the drive for a new symbolic momentum (see Fig. 7.1). Consequently, an inappropriate combination of architectural styles from a technical, aesthetic and even legal standpoint has resulted in negatively critical reviews from all over the world. Skopje has been named the new European capital of kitsch by several international newspapers (Der Spiegel in 2013, the Guardian in 2015, the New York Times in 2016). Those “new” buildings became the receptacles of protest and symbols of the government’s vision; discontent rested upon the lack of transparency and poor quality which characterised the project. This lack of transparency has also been embedded in several political disorders, including growing authoritarianism, the silencing of dissent, accusations of abuse of power by the governing party, rigged elections,

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Fig. 7.1 Byzantine emperor justinian and national archaelogical museum Photo: Tihomir Topuzovski and Lauren Andres

and the manipulation of independent institutions and the media (Brunwasseroct 2011; MacDowall 2015). To this were added accusations of corrupt practices. The combination of those factors led to the Colourful Revolution. Citizens protested through the streets of Macedonia in the name of freedom and justice. As usual, protests every day have begun in the front of the Special Prosecutor’s Office as a support for their work against government crimes. They painted many buildings and monuments such as the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, the Arch of Triumph, lion sculptures on bridges, court façade and public squares were also coloured several times. (Colourful Revolution) (Author’s interview with a journalist).

This latest movement represents a moment of rupture, embedded in political turbulence and protest; it allows us, as such, to develop further the different mechanisms of deactivation and interrogate their impact on the urban and political landscape.

7.6 Deactivation as “Dissensual Moments” to Break Spatial Meaning The constitution of an aesthetic-political regime in Skopje is here understood as a result of two conjoint transitions: a national (geo) political transition and a local planning and architectural remodelling embedded within a new social and political agenda. The process of deactivation is to be understood by drawing on Rancière’s works as “dissensual moments” in the context of the complex political changes affecting the country, especially after the president pardoned politicians charged with crimes. The protests started on 12 April 2016 when crowds broke through a police cordon guarding one of the president’s information offices in the city centre, throwing flares and burning presidential portraits. The main characteristic of these protests was the act of colouring public buildings, the Skopje 2014 monuments,

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Fig. 7.2 02.06.2016, “Colouring” of the building of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia (Vanco Dzambaski)

city squares and urban spaces, which are all symbols of governmental politics (see Figs. 7.2 and 7.3). Artistic and political practices can negate urban spaces and architectonic meanings, putting them in entirely different contexts or “multiplying [them] in a polemical way” (Rancière 2010, p. 149). As asserted by one of the interviewees: “It was the visible manifestation and rebellion against unchecked government corruption, social engineering, and the regime’s arrogant, non-inclusive, non-transparent and non-participatory [practice]” (Author’s interview with a historian of art). Colouring acts continued for four months as a challenge to the government’s spatial footprint in the city and hence intended to alter by such temporary interventions the significance of those spaces in the landscape. As stated by one of the interviewees, “the architecture and urban spaces created by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia became the battlefield during the Colourful Revolution, putting the political crisis on a symbolic level, fighting around urban spaces and iconographies of Skopje” (Author’s interview with a historian of art). The dynamics of the protest consisted of choosing a precise target every day. For example, on 16 April 2016 the

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Fig. 7.3 22.04.2016, “Colouring” of the building of the agency for audio and audiovisual media services Courtesy Vanco Dzambaski

Arch of Triumph was coloured as the main symbol of the regime over the last ten years; further, on 26 April 2016 it was the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Macedonia for its series of unjust policies and corrupt decisions; on 18 April 2016, the Ministry of Culture was the target for its constant instrumentalisation of culture to serve governmental politics. On 22 April 2016, protesters coloured the façade of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services as the symbol of the state control of the media. On 3 June 2016, protesters used improvised slingshots to throw colour over the police cordons and barricades at the buildings of the Parliament and the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. Finally, on 6 June 2016 the capital’s central square and fountain were coloured in red, marking the day on which in 2011, according to the protesters, the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Macedonia initially tried to cover up the murder of a young man during a political rally. The meaning of these dissensual moments were important “in producing a sensory form of strangeness, a clash of heterogeneous elements provoking a rupture in the way of seeing and, therewith, an examination of the cause of that oddity” (Rancière 2009, p. 74). Those “moments” opened possibilities for the consideration of artistic practices as activities that could disturb “the ordinary regime of that connection such as it is employed in the official system of information” (Rancière 2009, p. 95) or in the context of previous meanings. Art became expressed in “elusive spaces” (Merrifield 1993) by allowing the imagination to freely challenge the existing meaning of those spaces as symbols of order and hence to de-codify their political purposes. This is described best in the following statement: “We fought for urban spaces in

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Skopje. With stencils and sprays we confronted their iconography. We looked at their architecture as worthless” (Author’s interview with Civil Rights Activist). Within this argument, the significance is perhaps that the Colourful Revolution led to the “creative destruction of Gruevski’s idea of faux-grandeur” (Author’s interview with an architect) and to a temporary deactivation of the established aestheticpolitical regime. By this process, coloured differential buildings became symbols of resistance to the governmental forces in places. Naturally, the deactivation then led to the creation of temporary power relationships which challenged the governance arrangements in place.

7.7 Deactivation as Catalyst for Temporary Differential Spaces With the acts of deactivation, protesters were fighting to take back control of urban spaces, both symbolically and visually. We can argue that it officially and temporally created a context of weak planning, where the masterplanned and ordered vision of the urban landscape, particularly the vision of Skopje 2014, were modified, challenged and re-oriented towards more weak and fuzzy boundaries. Such practices unlinked these spaces of possibilities from the previous set of power relationships dominated by regulatory bodies. Deactivation allowed the development of a new set of temporary power relationships, where the civilians participating in these protests took back control over those spaces, even though only temporally and symbolically (only the façade was reconquered), hence embedding them within their own spheres of representations and imaginations. This highlights the ability of protesters as political subjects to develop “a capacity for staging scenes of dissensus” (Rancière 2010, p. 69). Yet these actions can never be purely symbolic forms of domination, but can also be seen in terms of imposing civil power over urban spaces (Topuzovski 2017). This is reinforced by the following: The citizens took back urban spaces in the way they saw most appropriate, for the first time engaging with Gruevski’s revamping project in a process of creative destruction, they built something new out of dismantling the old, creating an unprecedented potential for creative social and political change (Author’s interview with a member of opposition political party).

The deactivation established a unique activity, with close attention being paid to the aspects of creating temporary power relationships among citizens and putting the arts, and hence freedom of expression, at the head. It is worth noting that the civil movement that grew around the Colourful Revolution under the motto “No Justice, No Peace” did not become a legal political entity per se. Also, often protesters wearing no signs of allegiance to any political party loudly or quietly proclaimed their civil status. The temporary changes in power relationships reinforced the credo behind the protests, which aimed to break the codes, symbols and meaning of spaces representative of corrupt political bodies, and instead triggered new spatial visualisations and representations. In that situation though, the biggest oppositional party,

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the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) benefited the most from those activities, even though the civil protest remained independent from it. The crisis ended with the political agreement between the main political actors and early elections in the Republic of Macedonia on 11 December 2016. At the elections, the ruling party, VMRO, and the biggest oppositional party, SDSM, won almost an identical number of votes. VMRO won 51 seats and SDSM 49 seats. In spite of its narrow win, the ruling party was not in a position to form a government. New elections were demanded, and SDSM finally succeeded in forming a new government on 31 May 2017. Those electoral outcomes reveal the impact the Colourful Revolution had. Breaking the significance and the meaning of a given space introduced a new wave of power distributions. In the political context of the country, the act of deactivation can be considered as “a struggle about what politics is, a struggle that is waged about such original issues as: ‘where are we?’, ‘who are we?’, ‘what makes us a we?’” (Rancière 2009, p. 116). In the larger sense, dissensus “has to be heard as an argument on justice” (Bowman and Stamp 2011, p. 2). Debates are still ongoing, and those who did not support the Colourful Revolution try to reinterpret the acts of deactivation, claiming that “protesters and their supporters veiling SDSM’s desire to come to power without elections and disregarding the will of the people” is nothing more than camouflage; they argue it is a foreign-supported government change attempt that involves “art-political technologies” (Author’s interview with a member of leading political party). Several interviewees reiterate this criticism, considering the acts of spray painting a kind of vandalism of the city’s brand-new monuments. Drawing on this, the heritage of the deactivation is in question, and particularly any memories of temporary interventions in challenging existing governmental architecture and its representational meanings. Finally, as well as from the polemical and factual aspects, it is clear that the situation which emerged following the fall of governments after 2017 has confirmed that when mass protests have disappeared from view the colour of the buildings no longer embodies the political momentum. Since the crisis was settled through political negotiations, it is difficult to say whether something has actually changed radically, and “if the current political momentum in the Republic of Macedonia is a solution for the protesters’ initial requests” (Author’s interview with a participant in a protest). Thus, even though the country’s reputation has changed internationally, many problems still exist and only limited progress has been achieved towards the rule of law, health and social care system and education reforms by comparing the present situation with a decade ago (author’s interview with a political analyst). Along these lines, the legacy of the Colourful Revolution remains with uncertain implications, especially of its long-term effects.

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7.8 Memories of Deactivation or the Permanence of the Temporary? Halvorsen (2015, p. 406) argues that “moments play a role in any revolutionary social change, but they should not be prioritised or understood as something external or separate to the geographies of everyday life”. In the case of Skopje and the Republic of Macedonia, they constituted a catalyst triggering political changes by allowing citizens to visually protest and contest existing policy and actions. The deactivation engendered by the process of colourisation led to a destabilisation of the idea framed by the aesthetic-political regime of the project Skopje 2014. While the impact of power relationships and political changes is noticeable in the country, the heritage of the protest on the meaning of the project Skopje 2014 and its grandiose buildings is much more unclear. Most of the targeted façades and monuments are currently being restored, and hence, their initial symbols are being reinstalled. Reflecting on what this means for the significance of temporary urbanism, it could be argued that the heritage of colouring is very limited within a longer time frame, as the memories of the political changes will prevail over the artistic interventions, particularly as targeted spaces lose their temporary capacity to challenge representations and imaginations once they go back to their initially conceived order and appearance. However, it appears that there is a legacy being currently built behind the Colourful Revolution that aims to sustain visually the memories of the “moments”, building upon the sense of place that was created during the Colourful Revolution. The former Minister of Culture Robert Alagozoski, in an interview for the local media on 8 June 2017, “Press 24”, claimed that the coloured façade of the building of the Ministry of Culture will remain as such. He underlined that the “colourful façade is a result of a spirit of the citizens for freedom, and this façade represents a small history of the country”. In addition, the legacy of the Colourful Revolution is raised in a few cases. For example, Macedonian’s artist Sašo Stanojkovik submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia that all colourful interventions on buildings and monuments in Skopje need to be declared cultural heritage. This proposal was submitted in 2016, but, the artist has never received a reply. In addition, the same artist in 2018 counted that only nine buildings and one monument in the city centre still have stains and dots as remnants of the Colourful Revolution. According to his statement, the Colourful Revolution was an artistic-participatory project and coloured monuments and buildings are outstanding examples representing multinational and multicultural objects that rise civil consciousness and solidarity among citizens with different social and cultural backgrounds in the country. Having said this, the Colourful Revolution memory is sustained by key cultural institutions. For example, the contemporary art centre (CAC) gallery in Skopje in 2018 presented an exhibition on “Creative Activism” that gathered items from various protest movements in Macedonia. This included protesters masks, tools that have been used for throwing colour, banners, flags and slogans used by protesters in the Colourful Revolution. Such legacy attempts, even minor in their extent, are important because they

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Fig. 7.4 Facade of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia in 2019. Photo: Tihomir Topuzovski and Lauren Andres

open possibilities for symbolic and legal institutionalisation of the Colourful Revolution. However, throughout 2019 almost all building façades are repaired and only a few coloured parts on various objects are still present. It seems worth noting that the building of the Ministry of Culture remains with colour as it was when it was coloured during the protest (see Fig. 7.4). Reflecting upon this, we can argue that the legacy of the Colourful Revolution is dialectical. The lack of definition and role given to those spaces and buildings is noticeable and has been amplified by the process of deactivation, which was in essence an act of triggering alternative meanings and sense of place. Through this point of thinking, we can again trace back to Rancière’s idea that: The ontology of the dissensual is actually a fictional ontology, a play of aesthetic idea. The set of relations that constitute the work operates as if it had a different ontological texture from the sensations that make up everyday experience. But there is neither a sensory difference nor an ontological difference (Rancière 2009, p. 67).

The trajectory of deactivation is thus here exemplary of the importance of temporary interventions, and hence of temporary urbanism in the shaping and making of spaces and their ability to shape and challenge meanings and symbols. In the case of deactivation displayed in this paper, and similar to other processes of activation in other contexts of temporary urbanism, it is the constitution of alternative pathways to

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modify linear time, and hence code and regulate spaces, which is in question. Thus, the complexity behind the debates that are the legacy of the project Skopje 2014, and furthermore the Colourful Revolution, attests to the contradictory and conflicted urban and geopolitical landscape of the country and its perpetual transition process, which have taken a great toll on the city’s culture and its development and led to an all-encompassing decay. To some extent, this raises wider debates regarding the role given to non-traditional forms of culture (see Andres and Golubchikov 2016) and the limited scope offered to creativity, currently sitting outside traditional cultural boundaries. What we argue further is that those alternative pathways are embedded within highly complex systems where art, protest and political regimes co-exist, forming dissensual moments triggering new possibilities in the production and reproduction of urban spaces, while giving meaningful voices to artistic interventions.

7.9 Conclusion This chapter has sought to build a new and unprecedented understanding of the role of artistic protests in the context of complex political and urban landscapes by merging complementary ways of looking at the production of spaces and the relation between arts and politics. It used Rancière’s work to display the nature of aestheticpolitical regimes, and the role of dissensus to interpret artistic practices as a form of protest, considering their dissenting effects on arranged spatial meanings. The evidence displayed in the chapter shows how artistic practices identified through the act of colouring assist in our understanding of temporary urbanism and the deactivation of urban forms and spaces, impacting the political context. Artistic practices can oppose the main political trends, whatever the political mainstream may be, through various forms of direct interventions in public spaces. Thus, these practices escape from their passive forms and embrace an active contribution to socio-political change. Deactivation through colourisation shows how artistic means can be involved in civil movements and initiatives and feature the development of temporary spaces of resistance. Artistic ideas expressed in public spaces aim to give more significance to actions; by adding creative momentum, protesters, as space producers, aim to convince the public, but also to compel the authorities to correct erroneous policies. In that sense, by going public “they resist agendas of control from the centre” and they have affected “the spatiality by occupying space and thereby claimed it, physically and politically, with their bodies, their noise, their banners” (Jansen 2001, pp. 38– 40)—and in this case their colour. The use of colour, and the way it has been raised as an artistic practice, challenges traditional ways of perceiving arts and culture, on the same lines of other forms of expressions (e.g. graffiti). The issue of the artificialisation of architecture, culture within national political strategies, and then the question of heritage, is not unique to the Republic of Macedonia, but links back to debates about the Balkans and other former communist bloc countries.

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Reflecting upon the lessons learnt for the field of temporary urbanism the argument, we have been making about deactivation adds to the wider understanding of the role of rhythms and temporalities in cities. It thus creates a precedent for widening the debate on temporary urbanism by displacing the focus of adding value through activation to instead exploring attempts to challenge the meaning (hence value) of a space by deactivation. By doing this, it makes the point that the decryption of the production and reproduction of the city needs to be embedded within a cyclical understanding of the range of alternative processes affecting the use of spaces, physically and symbolically. This understanding then connects with other alternative ways of thinking about (temporary or not) urban transformations and calls to reread cities as a system of systems to account for all its diversity and complexity (see Bryson et al. 2018).

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Part II

Unwrapping the Complexity and Diversity of Temporary Urbanisms

Chapter 8

Reimagining Urban Planning: From Institution to Innovation—A Comparative Exploration of Temporary Urbanism and the Future of City-Making Liz Crump Abstract Temporary urbanism (TU) remains an emerging phenomenon in the field of urban planning. Referred to by a myriad of terms including ‘DIY’, ‘tactical’ and ‘guerrilla’, it is characterised as low cost, participatory and innovative. Its arbitrariness and limited infrastructure are a contradiction to what traditional planning practice would consider permanent land use. Nevertheless, TU is increasingly used across the world as a method of dealing with urban change. Through a comparative case study approach this chapter researches TU and its relationship with urban planning under diverse urban conditions: in London (United Kingdom) and Santiago (Chile). It examines the emergence of TU and assesses the impacts and prospects of temporary uses in relation to formal planning processes. It is found that TU in both developed and developing contexts is a valuable complementary practice to spatial planning for finding opportunities in complex and evolving urban conditions. The chapter concludes by making recommendations for planning practice and identifies areas for further research. Keywords Temporary urbanism · Meanwhile · City-making · Incremental · Social value

8.1 Introduction The city is complex and evolving. It comprises multiple spaces, uses and users interconnected in a concrete spatiality (Amin and Graham 1997). Urban planning and policy would have us believe that the urban structure is developed and defined by specific uses and designated functions. However, across urban space, there are more complex areas that are not so easily developed; they are difficult to plan as they transcend the more traditional functional categories of land use within the city and challenge the traditional approach of a planned metropolis (Groth and Corijn L. Crump (B) Ove Arup & Partners (Urban Planner), 13 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 4BQ, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_8

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2005). However, as more marginal spaces are emerging within the urban fabric of cities worldwide, a new form of urbanism is responding, specifically targeted at reactivating these spaces through temporary means. Temporary use of space has always occurred in cities (Talen 2012), but the capacity of the temporary to go beyond the small scale and contribute to a systemised way of city-making remains uncertain. In the twenty-first century, the modernist concept of the city is subject to profound changes as new dynamic typologies call for creative solutions to ever more complex urban environments. Temporary urbanism (TU) represents an emerging phenomenon which has grown in both popularity and practice as the prevailing conceptual frameworks that dominate conventional planning theory no longer seem capable of fully dealing with evolving patterns of city-making. The modern city continues to be developed according to long-term visions and strategic development goals. However, with changing perceptions of urban issues, growing technological trends and a climate of political change, complexity and connectedness there is an urgent need to address the relationship between long-term planned development and small-scale interventions that characterise TU. Whilst temporary uses can comprise relatively small and transient interventions, they are not inconsequential in the larger scale of the city or its long-term vision (Tonkiss 2013). Rather, the micro- and meso-scale of TU is increasingly identified as an important arena for innovations in urban governance that can have an influential impact on spatial planning and the social impacts on the city (Hall 2015). This research stems from an interest in alternative approaches to urban development and the increased application of TU across the globe. Whilst recent examples explore TU and its conditions and drivers (Bishop and Williams 2012; Lydon 2012; Lydon and Garcia 2015; Oswalt et al. 2013; Iveson 2013; Madanipour 2017), there has been relatively little discussion regarding its potential wider benefits for planning and how it could better relate to practice (Honeck 2017). Research, therefore, questions whether an urbanism formed of temporary structures offers successful, sustainable solutions to the varied range of problems that cities face today. Through a comparative analysis of two capital cities, London (UK) and Santiago (Chile), formed by two different urban contexts, this chapter responds to a gap in the literature by stretching “across the global North-South divide” (Robinson 2011, p. 18) and considers the world of comparative urbanisms and imaginations about TU outside the Global North. It seeks to better understand the reasons for the emergence of TU at a global scale and to discern whether a larger picture is emerging that provokes new and radical alternative urbanisms (Zeiger 2011).

8.2 Methodology A qualitative research methodology that is interpretive and explorative (Cloke et al. 2004) is considered the best approach due to its descriptive qualities. The research uses qualitative methods for data collection and analysis based on several sources: (1) in-depth interviews; (2) case study analysis; and, (3) content analysis. The overall

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validity of the data is improved through data triangulation (Bryman 2004). The case studies illustrate as fully as possible the existing diversity of TU, offer successful examples and deal with the themes of the right to the city and the production of urban space within cities that both follow a market-led development approach. This makes it possible to compare and investigate different approaches and experiences in an exploratory research design (Gerring 2004; Baxter 2010). Results are not intended to provide a comprehensive account of TU. Rather the research design and data collection aims to provide a wider account of this emerging practice as it relates to urban planning. It is hoped that the comparative lens leads to fresh insights and provokes debate regarding the potential of TU as a viable means for affecting longterm urban change, identifying gaps in knowledge and possible directions for future research.

8.3 Defining the Terms The concept of the temporary has existed for centuries, yet there remains no clear definition. It is a term that has different meanings to different people and disciplines; a general rubric through which to capture a broad range of emergent, provisional and experimental urban projects (Ferreri 2015). Practitioners and academics have to date only offered expansive interpretations alongside a myriad of terms including “guerrilla”, “insurgent” (Hou 2010), “pop-up”, “DIY” (Iveson 2013; Finn 2014) and “tactical” (Lydon 2012; Tonkiss 2013), or as part of wider discussion on interim spaces and their socio-spatial implications (Colomb 2012; Andres 2013; Tonkiss 2013; Németh and Langhorst 2014). This research defines TU not by its longevity but by the intention of its user(s) (Bishop and Williams 2012). It explores the incremental form of urban development that TU produces, where its key ingredient is inclusion, innovation and an intentional catalytic characteristic and “give it a go” attitude. It has some limitation in time and space, from short to intermediate timeframes and micro- to meso-scales but does not exclude uses or users (Andres 2013). It is a form of urbanism that has social, political and economic value and power within the city; it questions the spatial and temporal nature of the urban and creates an incremental approach to city-making. It defines TU as temporary uses that “seek to derive unique qualities from the idea of temporality” and as such “can be interesting both for planning and the economy as well as for groups of users who usually have little to do with planning or economy on the large scale” (Haydn and Temel 2006, p. 17). Analysis will demonstrate how the alignment of this form of TU with formal planning processes can create fundamental transformations in terms of urban development and “contribute to the transformation of planning itself” (Patti and Polyak 2015, p. 123). The research also distinguishes between formal and informal planning processes. It considers informality to be the “soft” spaces of governance that counteract the “hard” spaces or formal statutory processes that typically have responsibilities and powers (Haughton et al. 2010). Soft spaces are generally considered non-statutory and

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“exist both beyond and in parallel to the statutory scales of government” (Haughton et al. 2013, p. 218). In this respect, formal decision structures are those that sit within the traditional top-down approaches of larger authoritarian and market-led systems of urban development in both Chile and the UK. Informal modes of space production on the other hand reflect a widespread mode of everyday practices, creating “fuzzy boundaries” of spatial governance (Haughton et al. 2013).

8.4 Reviewing Planning Practice The recent surge of interest in TU has individuals, academics and urban practitioners rethinking the debate on the use and concept of space in cities across the world. This wave of rethinking is not new to the fields of urban practice but has consumed much planning theory since the 1960s. Authors have notably challenged planning theories of their time by questioning how urban form influences behaviour, habits and disposition (Schmidt 2010), exploring alternative appropriations of space and asking whether planning requires new platforms to support equitable citizen engagement and just city-making (Jacobs 1961; Arnstein 1969; Healey 1997; Fainstein 2000, 2010). One could argue that the increased application of TU has revived these questions and ideas about the right to the city through social and political agency (Lefebvre 1996; Harvey 2003, 2008; Marcuse 2009; Brenner et al. 2012; Mayer 2013), the enabling of urban politics and the role of planning. It raises important research questions, such as how these micro-spatial interventions may create or reveal alternative cities within the existing city (Hou 2010; Iveson 2013); how small-scale place appropriations can impact longer-term changes; and how TU can facilitate more democratic participatory city-making. As Lefebvre (2003 [1970]) suggested, the reconceptualisation of the urban is an essential epistemological and political precondition for understanding the nature of society itself. This proposition appears more apt than ever as TU offers alternative practices and concepts that are far more emancipatory than traditional urban discourse (Crawford 2012). It brings alive the dialectical relationship that exists between people and place that is fundamental to the urban process (Simmel 1950 [1903]). The dynamics between the built environment and society are crucial to how we experience the urban and respond to its future development.

8.5 A Global Urban Reality Although such planning theory is largely centred within a “Western” context, with literature predominantly focused on Europe and North America (Bishop and Williams 2012; Iveson 2013; Tonkiss 2013; Andres and Grésillon 2013; Douglas 2014; Finn 2014), it is also relevant to the developing context of Santiago where the concepts of the production of space and the right to the city emerged much later

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(Castells 1983; Davis 2006; Souza 2006). Only recently has development policy begun to view residents here as engaged, active participants rather than objects of policy implementation, as its approach to urban development traditionally reinforced the role of planners and architects as experts (Irazábel 2009; Cruz 2011). However, despite greater recognition for more participatory decision-making in theory, in practice there is strong evidence to suggest that market-led development, which has fundamentally driven planning and governing in London and Santiago (Mayer 2013; Cruz 2011), has failed systematically to distribute economic growth equitably, resulting in growing socio-economic polarisation and disenfranchisement (Harvey 2006; Irazábel 2009). This is a resulting urban form that Harvey (1989) would refer to as the “neoliberal city”. Despite changes in both cities that have seen the expansion of the urban political system from “government” to “governance” representing a response to the growing complexity of governing in a globalising and multi-scalar context, significant failures in civic identity and social cohesion are evident. This suggests, politically, that urban governance and spatial planning is no more capable of, nor interested in, increasing participation in decision-making and creating flexible spaces for the dynamic urban population of the twenty-first century. Remarkably, many cities in both developing and developed contexts still use variations of an approach to urban planning which emerged in the West in the early part of the twentieth century, “adapted to forms of government and urban conditions which have changed significantly” (Watson 2009, p. 2261).

8.6 Disconnect Between Theory and Practice Although urban space has always been produced, changed, activated and challenged by resisting discourses that claim a right to the city, where creativity and innovation develop alternative understandings of urban life and use of space, in the twenty-firstcentury urban residents are once again actively, and tactfully, participating in the debate of planning (Bishop and Williams 2012; Fabian and Samson 2016). This fundamental gap between theory and practice has also been termed “weak planning” and is attributed explicitly to the absence of collaborative planning in the process. Andres (2013, p. 763) refers to weak planning as a “lack of coordination, strategic guidelines, clear objectives and control by any higher authority” and this is only heightened by a pronounced plurality and fragmentation in twenty-first-century urban contexts (Marcuse and van Kempen 2000). Planning has found itself to be unpopular and marginalised, caught between contradictory pressures on government to promote urban economic competitiveness on the one hand, whilst on the other dealing with the fallout from globalisation in the form of growing social exclusion, poverty, unemployment and rapid population growth, evident in London and Santiago (Watson 2009, p. 2267). Andres (2013) argues that whatever the national planning framework is, the political negligence of the use of urban space has turned weak planning into a hotbed for

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the appropriation of differential space. These new urban contestations and appropriations of space emerging today draw parallels with Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the contradictory nature of abstract space where he suggests there is the potential for “differential space” to emerge–space that is spontaneous and heterogeneous–the opposite of an orderly vision of the city. Groth and Corijn (2005) argue that such space can integrate a high degree of diversity of use and capability of change due to its largely unspecified economic viability. These projects focus on the quality and relevance of urban space in terms of day-to-day life. Iveson (2013, p. 954) questions how these micro-spatial practices of the urban can, through the appropriation of urban space, constitute a new urban politics that has the potential to reshape cities to be more just places by “pointing to the alternative possibilities”.

8.7 Emergence of Alternative Practice Whilst planning has for years been the defining and regulatory body in urban development, changing political and economic contexts have given rise to different forms of urban space. Temporary urbanism is one such practice. Whilst existing planning and policy arrangements can relate to temporary practices in several ways, “the degree to which they facilitate alternative urbanisms does not map straightforwardly onto relatively more progressive or conservative planning regimes” (Tonkiss 2013, p. 313) nor correspond to traditional planning processes (Donovan 2014; Zimmerman 2015). Consequently, there is a growing literature and argument that suggests there is a need to rely on more out-of-the-box creative and flexible thinking in order to successfully and sustainably respond to new urban challenges. Whilst developing cities may have always been the subject of creative, dynamic and more informal forms of urbanism, the failures of governance and growing dissatisfaction with conventional planning practice and its engagement with civic participation have meant such urbanism has also become an ever more common sight in the developed world. Private and public sectors are increasingly acknowledging more flexible modes of urban placemaking through temporary uses, “a form of soft rebellion against a planning status quo that is perceived to lack creativity, flexibility, imagination and efficacy” (Finn 2014, p. 391). TU is evidence of the proliferation of soft spaces that are emerging with the changing nature of spatial governance and planning in the twenty-first century as it seeks to develop new consensus-based approaches to achieving agreement across diverse societal actors (Haughton et al. 2013). Ever since Jacobs (1961) outlined the failures of large, top-down and technocratic schemes there has been a growing recognition of the need for an urbanism that works “between the cracks” (Tonkiss 2013). Whilst some scholars have begun to look at the possibilities of TU for urban planners (Haydn and Temel 2006; Oswalt et al. 2013; Bishop and Williams 2012; Silva 2016; Madanipour 2017), there has been only limited discussion regarding its potential impacts, its effect on the (re)distribution of power and how it may inform

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practice. As cities and our urban social networks become more heterogeneous, fragmented and exposed to increasingly stronger and less predictable global processes (Sandercock 1998; Marcuse 2006), there is a critical need to rethink the planning status quo in search of just, functional, diverse and liveable cities (Marcuse et al. 2011; Fainstein 2010; Madanipour 2017).

8.8 The Caselets By applying perspectives from the Global North and South, the case studies provide an alternative approach to taken-for-granted assumptions about how planning addresses global trends and urban issues and opens the possibility for exploring alternative approaches to planning in the twenty-first century. They illustrate as fully as possible the existing diversity and successful outcomes of TU and deal with the themes of the right to the city and the production of urban space and make it possible to compare and investigate different approaches and experiences in an exploratory research design. Success is defined partly by each project having achieved some impact on urban development and partly by its efforts to defend inclusiveness and gain a degree of public recognition and legitimacy.

8.9 Santiago 8.9.1 Ciudad Emergente Ciudad Emergente describes itself as a laboratory of tools and tactics for citizen urbanism. A not-for-profit organisation, it seeks to improve the quality of life in cities for emerging communities through innovation. The application of TU helps to identify issues, inform debate and build agendas to support the processes of urban co-production, based on the capabilities approach to urban development (Sen 1999 [1985]). The organisation effectively assumes a mediating role between citizens on one side and landlords, institutions, government and planners on the other. Ciudad Emergente has numerous successful temporary projects, all of which seek to engender high-impact social innovation processes. Examples studied include an experimental bike path and urban malones (gatherings). The organisation claims that the temporary methods are “short-term actions that seek to generate profound long-term changes, aimed at improving the quality of life in cities” (Interview A).

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8.9.2 Mapocho Pedaleable Conceived of by a graduate landscape architect in 2011, Mapocho Pedaleable proposes the recuperation of Santiago’s Mapocho River as a public space, through the construction of a 4.3 km paved route for pedestrians and cyclists through the most dense and congested part of the city. The creator describes it as “the minimum necessary to recompose accessibility, so the river returns to an active public space” (Interview B). Over five years the project instigated informal public uses of the river for the public, from cycling to picnics. These temporary uses aimed at activating the river, with the principal objective of promoting a reconnection between underutilised space and the citizen. The temporary uses built a social following and political interest over the long-term and have successfully changed the mentality of the public and city authorities who now envisage the river as a useable space and important environmental asset of the city. Over a period of formalisation, the concept has been adopted by the government, receiving presidential and constitutional backing in June 2017. The temporary uses informed a new city project Paseo Fluvial Rio Mapocho (River Mapocho River Walk) that will be built and operational by 2022.

8.9.3 Plazas de Bolsillo A government initiative, Santiago’s Pocket Squares (Plazas de Bolsillo) have created temporary public spaces from vacant sites that have been closed to the city and residents, in some cases for decades. The idea behind the initiative emerged from an opportunity when the Ministry of Public Works were asked to clean up a vacant prominent site in the historical city centre to cover up the “absence of investment” (Colomb 2012, p. 135) after the Municipality failed to find a long-term use for it (Interview C). A significant member of the team, influenced by temporary initiatives in cities across the world, suggested the Municipality “could adapt these initiatives… to temporarily occupy the spaces that for years could not be developed” (Interview C). By applying the concepts of TU–low-cost, small-scale and short-term–the Squares were able to skirt around bureaucratic planning regulations, inaugurating the first site within three months. This, explains the creator, “is the key to their existence” (Interview C). Currently, nine squares are in existence with a second cohort in the pipeline.

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8.10 London 8.10.1 Guerrilla Gardening For thirteen years, Richard Reynolds has been gardening public spaces without asking for permission to do so, “frustrated by the obvious neglect in public space… I started gardening at night and blogging about it” (Interview D). He has since attracted a great deal of interest as he pursues the act of informal, micro-scale gardening in urban spaces around the Elephant & Castle area with the mission of making people “passionate about public space”, including professional bodies “who are intrigued as to what could be achieved were it tolerated, perhaps even… legitimised” (Interview D). In 2011, he jointly set up Mobile Gardeners to provide local opportunities in public space and eventually developed numerous interim parks on the former Heygate development site culminating in the project Grow Elephant. As Grow Elephant struggled to thrive, Reynolds and Mobile Gardeners retracted to the original guerrilla movement, continuing to work on public spaces not earmarked for substantial change. Grow Elephant persists and is expanding gradually as the Elephant Park development and communities grow.

8.10.2 Skip Garden (King’s Cross) King’s Cross is one of the most emblematic regeneration sites in London. Although critics question its collaborative processes and social benefits, it is without doubt one of London’s first major regeneration schemes to adopt multiple temporary uses as a fundamental part of its development strategy. Among these is Skip Garden, started by educational charity Global Generation. Working with local children, residents and businesses to produce and sell food from the on-site kitchen, it has continued to move around the site and now has a permanent place within the long-term development because of its social impact and value. It is an example of how bottom-up temporary intervention can be enabled at higher institutional levels. Skip Garden demonstrates the power of TU and collaboration. By being able to try and test schemes, they have improved design, reduced risk and convinced developers and planners that social design is just as vital as physical design, aligned with the needs of the end users. Consequently, it has influenced other large-scale redevelopments such as Canada Water, where temporary use is directly informing the phased development and feeding into the final scheme (Interview F).

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8.10.3 Boxpark Love it or hate it, Boxpark was one of the first major temporary uses to appear in London. Based in Shoreditch, the temporary retail scheme has many critics who suggest it is a mere commercial venture. Nevertheless, it has played a big role in asking questions on the use of urban vacant land, densifying short-term development and challenging traditional planning approaches. It is an example of an innovative reuse of space by an individual entrepreneur. By reusing shipping containers as flexible retail space, the project activates a site that would otherwise have remained empty until its longer-term purpose could be financed. Temporary use as retail brings in revenue in the interim period and shifts perceptions of the site and surrounding area. It has invigorated the local economy and marketing of the wider area whilst creating a replicable model for temporary retail functions. Its replication in Croydon and Wembley is an example of how local authorities and developers are now embracing TU as a legitimate urban development model that has purpose and value.

8.11 Analysis and Discussion 8.11.1 The Emergence of Temporary Urbanism From analysis, TU is very much a production of the physical and political landscapes within London and Santiago. Multiple factors exist as to the reasons for vacant land, including the shift from industrial to service economies and an increase in shared and creative spaces (Bishop and Williams 2012; Oswalt et al. 2013; Madanipour 2017). However, whilst many cities and economies may consider vacant land an issue, analysis suggests that through TU vacancy becomes more of an opportunity and resource (Madanipour 2018). From the more tactile street-level examples through the reclamation of underutilised space to public and private sector-led examples that use interstitial spaces or are set within large-scale regeneration, each project has embraced vacant land and the opportunity it provides to create in-between projects and rationalise land use in the process. The adaptive characteristics and myriad users that these projects have employed illustrate they have the power to “reveal the possibilities of urban space” (Haydn and Temel 2006, p. 14). Although the requirement for vacant land raises questions regarding economic conditions, and concepts of neoliberal urbanism and austerity have been linked to TU (Peck 2012; Tonkiss 2013; Andres 2013), this research instead suggests that TU is neither functional to, nor disruptive of, a neoliberal agenda but rather is a practice that responds to opportunity (Crawford 2012). The success of the case studies suggests there needs to be greater acknowledgement of the less tangible impacts of TU: the social impacts that allow us to question how we plan for the city and the need to look beyond neoliberal conditions in both the Global North and South (Parnell and

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Robinson 2012; Till and McArdle 2015). A focus on the economic connections is too straightforward and narrows the lens through which to expose the rich potential of TU. Another component is the intangible political dynamics surrounding each intervention and the right to create urban space (Marcuse 2009). An increased social commitment and engagement in societal discourses very much forms a basis for the emergence of TU, particularly from a bottom-up perspective. Population profiles also have a large role to play in this increased and visible citizen participation. Shifting urban demographics, with growing young and active populations are very evident in the projects in both cities and put greater pressure on cities to provide for all needs (Bishop and Williams 2012). As Harvey highlights “the current wave of youth-led movements throughout the world, from Cairo to Madrid to Santiago—to say nothing of a street revolt in London… suggests there is something political in the city air struggling to be expressed” (2012, p. 116). A common factor amongst all cases is their desire to inform or have a positive impact on the urban environment in the long term and acknowledge a degree of political engagement is necessary. Two projects in Santiago, a very actively political urban context where parties swing from left to right every electoral cycle, have traversed the political spectrum. Ciudad Emergente and Mapocho Pedaleable have worked with both left and right wing governments and realise that both “are interested by this [form of urbanism]… the right because it’s very popular… and the left because it’s inclusive” (Interview A). In London, where the political space may be less volatile, but increasingly active, all cases are equally aware of the need to engage with politics for the temporary to work. In terms of the private sector, it is acknowledged that “good” developers “recognise that you can buy a lot of political capital by doing temporary stuff with the community” (Interview E). Likewise, the examples of Boxpark and King’s Cross may be criticised for philandering with creative city politics (Peck 2005; Mayer 2013) but demonstrate that where there is value to be extracted from TU and a political willingness to activate, the two can work together to connect planning with political strategy. In both cities, there is evidence that “to engage the political is not to be a ‘politician’ but to enact a course of action” (Cruz 2011, p. 112). It is evident TU is no longer a “nonchalant” bottom-up process but about proactive, visionary and transformative interventions that are rapidly becoming politicised (Spataro 2016). Any urban intervention is highly political but “what’s interesting about temporary is that it’s on the frontline of that engagement, and it opens [up] the ability of people to respond in a way [whereas] planning completely shuts them out” (Interview E). Consequently, resistance to traditional market-led development has heightened in both urban contexts and within a broader governance crisis in contemporary cities. A large diversity of local actors is working to re-establish the critical relationship between people and place by producing urban space and animating community life through temporary interventions. With this political momentum, there is a growing awareness of the need for greater civic engagement and TU is seen as a platform. The power of TU is evident in the projects themselves, where they perform a form of social commentary or expression of the urban issues local people see as significant (Brenner et al. 2012) yet planning

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and government find difficult to tackle. It is not surprising that the driving force of many of these cases has come from a younger generation whose professional, social and economic future is compromised by the failure of the existing systems that produce urban space. These actors are not rebellious but seek to make meaningful contributions to the urban future. A commonality across all projects is that they “hold at their heart a belief that change is possible despite economic or political obstacles or disciplinary or institutional inertia” (Zeiger 2011). In both cities, regardless of differences, TU is used to engage but, more importantly, interact with politics and the urban fabric. It appears the key to delivering growth within a complex policy landscape of potentially irreconcilable issues is the deployment of TU’s “fuzzy concepts” and “fuzzy practices” that play to the rise of identity and issue-specific politics (Swyngedouw 2007, p. 20).

8.11.2 Relationship with Planning Formal planning processes are a key challenge for TU in both cities, with rapidly changing societies showing decreasing patience in institutional systems (Pfeifer 2013). Actors agree that urban planning could learn a lot from the characteristics of TU and the plurality of visions it provides for city-making and stress that TU’s role in testing alternative methods creates new opportunities. In both cities, projects are acting with and against an institutional framework, each claiming its right to the city by demanding a voice in urban decision-making. There is no intent on upsetting the “system” but equally the current systems do not facilitate alternative methods. In Santiago, all cases state the traditional planning approach is problematic due to complex evaluations “measured by very rigid methods” (Interview B) and a protracted design process that can take years. By applying TU, each case has found a way around the system and worked to legitimise their projects. This demonstrates one of the advantages of TU: the ability to shift the balance of power in an entrenched system of policymaking. All six cases in both cities demonstrate how the intangible metrics of TU like social value do not currently fit within the traditional rubric of planning. Similarly, in London the projects have found a way to work with planning and inform an alternative development approach that considers long-term visions and citizen engagement. The more grassroots initiative envisions a longer-term impact within a small space and scale with little involvement from formal planning processes. On the other hand, the larger-scale projects, which arguably have a greater commercial angle, have a more established relationship with planning and openly admit that TU is used as part of the wider development strategy. However, when applied, its ability “to test” has informed development evolution. The new soft space forms of governance of TU are clearly positioned as experiments in new spatial thinking, where “the relation between the higher scale soft space and lower scale statutory spaces of planning is informative” (Haughton et al. 2013, p. 219). TU adapts key aspects of projects to engage civic society and think about

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how the short and intermediate term informs the longer-term vision, increasingly commanding an ever-broadening influence over the urban future.

8.12 A Transformative Practice Although critics argue that TU can be used as an economic development and city marketing tool (Colomb 2012; Mayer 2013), evidence suggests this is problematical as it ignores the wider politics and potential of TU (Iveson 2013). All cases demonstrate that TU brings a new manifestation to the political side of planning; it allows for testing but critically it provokes questions, even exposes issues and power relations at play in the city. The most successful and powerful impacts emerge where there is a degree of collaboration, where formal agreements mix with more informal approaches and promote degrees of ownership. Despite a tendency towards initial informality, the gradual formalisation or acknowledgement of these projects in both cities is evidence of this form of urbanism beginning to influence practice (see Fig. 8.1). Drawing on literature that has tried to classify forms of TU and collaborative practices (Arnstein 1969; Crawford 2011; Lydon 2012; Iveson 2013) Fig. 8.1 categorises the case studies in terms of actors, actions and degree of formalisation. It seeks to depict the distribution of power and highlights the synergies that can be

Fig. 8.1 Formalisation of temporary urbanism case studies

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realised from TU. Although greatly simplified, the fundamental patterns highlighted provide a useful reference for further investigation. It demonstrates how projects, whether originating from sanctioned or unsanctioned activities, can move towards gradual acceptance and in some instances influence the production of urban space. Each case study has moved within the framework, shifting power dynamics and appropriation of space in the urban contexts of both cities. This suggests the planning and urban design professions are beginning to acknowledge the significant role of TU in the evolution of the city and the creation of convivial urban spaces where the “soft spaces of delivery can be developed in partnership and seek to assemble land, create consensus around a scheme, and garner private sector confidence and finance” (Haughton et al. 2013, p. 219). Critically, where projects have been implemented without permission or have worked around formal processes it raises wider issues regarding the current gap that exists between what planning currently delivers and what society needs. A fundamental reorganisation of social systems is emerging in London and Santiago that capitalises on the creative intelligence of communities and activists, mobilising both citizen-led and top-down collaborations in the face of pressing urban problems in the contemporary city. Through the incremental layering of urban development these small but persistent interventions are a huge step-change from a decade ago.

8.12.1 Reimagining Urban Planning Where planning and TU successfully collaborate, a new dynamism emerges resulting in a new attitude to social engagement and reflecting a new approach to city-making. In London and Santiago, the use of incremental, temporary approaches to development increasingly appear to be a viable means for affecting long-term change and a more just urban future. The initiatives illustrate how TU can be a valuable contributor to regeneration and creative growth and emphasise the importance of facilitating TU within planning. Whilst planning for the permanent remains a crucial component of strategic development, analysis suggests planning also needs to recognise and respond to the shortand intermediate-term needs of the urban. The examples demonstrate that TU is not replacing formalised planning processes, nor forcing it into obsolescence, but is providing solutions. It appears that within a more globally connected and mutually responsible world activation is required and demanded; it is about doing “something rather than doing nothing” (Temel 2006, p. 56). The proliferation of TU across the globe presents new challenges for the urban planning zeitgeist but fundamentally offers opportunities from which to learn and engage in new approaches. Critically, the comparative nature of this research demonstrates that conditions of urban life in the Global North and South are subject to new forces and are displaying new characteristics to which TU is successfully responding. Fundamentally, it exposes that TU is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of a wider global challenge for urban planning as “soft spaces appear to be an international phenomenon

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that exist well beyond the sectoral confines of planning” (Haughton et al. 2013, p. 217). Where traditionally informality and precarity were deeply associated with a developing urban context, they now have a global presence, expanding the definition of planning and the need for an approach that reflects more accurately the multidimensional and complex sum of a city’s narratives: an urbanism that is informed by heterogeneity and formed by innovative action. The comparative provides a better understanding of the benefits of adopting TU within planning as a new way of thinking about how we use urban spaces to greater effect in such economic and more socially aware times and how global urban theory should better reflect practice-driven knowledge (Yiftachel 2006). It provokes considerable debate about our contemporary planetary urban condition and, more specifically, about the capacities of planners to influence the latter in progressive, productive ways.

8.13 Conclusion: A New Form of City-Making The forms of soft spaces emerging through TU in both developed and developing urban contexts are varied in both rationale and function, but ultimately driven by a different kind of politics, characterised by decreased confidence in government and planning as being capable of mediating and delivering the just city (Marcuse et al. 2011; Haughton et al. 2013). Instead, a post-ideological thinking has emerged in the twenty-first century as the key driver of TU which emphasises coordination, integration and consensus building in a new, more progressive form of city-making (Swyngedouw 2007; Brenner and Schmid 2015). Just as scholars challenged the traditional, rational approach to planning and revolutionised its thinking in the late twentieth century, TU is evidently becoming a very valid expression of societal changes today, seeking yet another review of planning practice and driving new creative city politics. There is a growing need for planners to re-engage with urban creativity and review the purpose and meaning of the “temporary”, to understand it as part of a sophisticated, multi-layered approach to city-making rather than a marginal practice that occurs in in-between spaces, left out of “time and place” (Groth and Corijn 2005, p. 503). TU is reimagining the ways urban space is used. It readdresses the right to the city, informing a more flexible, collaborative and performative approach to citymaking. It plays on the physical landscapes of London and Santiago; it is both instrumental and political and cannot be disentangled from matters of governance and participation. It is experimental and gives voice and agency to multiple actors and “urban planners need to that this enthusiasm is not incidental but represents an appreciation of experimentation and a willingness to “see what happens” that is perhaps the spirit of our time” (Bishop and Williams 2012, p. 35). TU not only provides a chance to experiment, but critically the right to fail and the opportunity to succeed.

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Planning needs to find a way to work with more informal processes, supporting the efforts of the urban population and practitioners alike in the new urban conditions of the twenty-first century (Watson 2009). This will require planning to think creatively about the challenges and opportunities that various forms of change in the urban space may bring, expanding the planning imaginary (Moore-Cherry 2015). Planning as a practice must re-evaluate the use of TU initiatives alongside formal regulation, to consider TU as a complementary practice to the achievements of spatial planning and other utilitarian approaches to city-making. Although TU does not provide an answer to all urban ills, the cases analysed suggest it could be used as a key platform for more inclusive and socially more sensitive urban planning. TU provides a complementary approach to improving existing conditions that offers sources of planning innovation (Honeck 2017) and inclusivity; it is an equal partner in the planning process (Fabian and Samson 2016) that contributes to a greater autonomy, whilst remaining pertinent to the potential to normalise the precariousness of urban life (Ferreri 2015; Madanipour 2018). If acknowledged and applied effectively, TU offers intuitive opportunities that are proficient in addressing some of the most aspirational, complex and intangible goals in the urban world that planning currently sets out to achieve but so often fails to deliver: the need to create diverse, resilient and just cities.

8.14 Case Study Interviews Interview A—Ciudad Emergente, Santiago Interview B—Mapocho Pedaleable, Santiago Interview C—Plazas de Bolsillo (Ministry of Public Works, Santiago Metropolitan Government), Santiago Interview D—Guerrilla Gardening, London Interview E—Skip Garden (King’s Cross—LB Camden), London Interview F—Skip Garden (King’s Cross—Argent), London Interview G—Boxpark, London

References Amin A, Graham S (1997) The ordinary city. Trans Inst Brit Geogr 22(4):411–429 Andres L (2013) Differential spaces, power hierarchy and collaborative planning: A critique of the role of temporary uses in shaping and making places. Urban Stud 50(4):759–775 Andres L, Grésillon B (2013) Cultural brownfields in European cities: a new mainstream object for cultural and urban policies. Int J Cult Policy 19(1):40–62 Arnstein SR (1969) A ladder of citizen participation. J Am Inst Planners 35(4):216–224 Baxter J (2010) Case studies in qualitative research. In: Hay I (ed) Qualitative research methods in human geography. Oxford University Press, Don Mills, pp 81–97

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Chapter 9

The Usefulness of Temporary Use: Narratives from Santiago’s Contemporary Urban Practices Marisol García

Abstract Temporary use practices, enacted in spaces of uncertainty, arise from citizens’ self-made actions to reclaim and appropriate spaces for their unmet needs, but also, from urban change driven by public and private institutions. Such practices have an ambiguous character because they are emerging as alternative approaches to the conventional logics of city production using incremental learning and experimentation to demonstrate possible changes, while also being used instrumentally as palliative solutions to urban problems. This research critically explores the extent to which these practices challenge the production of public space by examining the role and usefulness of temporary interventions in the city of Santiago, Chile. The topic, widely explored in the North, has had limited academic explorations in the South, and particularly in the Chilean context where this research focuses. Instead of aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of specific temporary urbanisms from the field, this paper focuses on the narratives of multiple actors that are engaged with the making, imagining, use and regulation of different temporary use practices in Santiago. Using an interpretive approach to qualitative research, through this chapter, I examine the relevance of temporary use by challenging two rooted assumptions regarding the production of public space. Keywords Temporary use · Temporary urbanism · Usefulness · Incrementality · Santiago

9.1 Introduction Interim pocket parks, free-traffic open-street events, guerrilla gardens and the flourishing movement of food trucks around cities are fragments of a current global trend heralded as temporary urbanism (Fernandez 2014; Ferreri 2015; Gadanho 2014; Hou 2010; Madanipour 2017). Emerging from a variety of interests including social, environmental, political and economic purposes, these temporary practices are not M. García (B) DPU, University College London, 48 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PJ, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_9

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merely driven by self-made or insurgent actions of citizens reclaiming and appropriating spaces to tackle unmet needs, but also by practices of urban change driven by private and public institutions. Situated beyond dominant practices, these temporary urbanisms occupy spaces of opportunity and uncertainty with spontaneous or unexpected responses which are either supposed to produce impermanent (although perhaps recurrent) changes on ‘unused spaces’ or to use ephemeral actions as a way to incite long-lasting changes in the city. These research views temporary urbanism as a global emergent paradigm through which individuals and organisations engage with the making, imagining, use and regulation of urban spaces passing through moments of transition and uncertainty. Temporary use is an emergent topic of growing public and academic interest as can be seen in an expanding literature on temporary urbanism. The dispersed body of literature covers a wide range of topics and uses a variety of concepts to emphasise either the transient use of space or its self-made form of production–such as temporary use (Colomb 2012; Haydn and Temel 2006; Madanipour 2017; Oswalt et al. 2013; Temporiuso 2012), temporary urbanism (Ferreri 2015; Madanipour 2017; Overmeyer 2007; Tardiveau and Mallo 2014), tactical urbanism (Brenner 2015; Gadanho 2014; Lydon and Garcia 2015) and DIY urbanism (Fabian and Samson 2016; Finn 2014; Sawhney et al. 2015; Spataro, 2016) among others. However, it is geographically focused in the Global North, mainly showcasing European and North American examples. This paper refers to a case from the Southern context–particularly investigating temporary urbanisms from the city of Santiago de Chile–identifying a gap in the literature and suggesting the southern perspective could enrich the debates. In Latin America, and particularly in Chile, the subject has grabbed public and professional interest which can be seen, for instance, by the involvement of government institutions1 in such practices and by the considerable attention received within popular media,2 but the academic literature has not reflected the growing interest. An article published by La Segunda newspaper in Chile posed the question: ‘Are [temporary practices] the solution to the needs of the city, a patch to replace public policies or an alternative that opens doors for a definite change’? (Sanchez 2018). By doing so, the journalist provokes an interesting debate among architects, urbanists and planners about the role, relevance and usefulness of temporary practices for the 1 Local and central government institutions have initiated and supported temporary use interventions

in the city (e.g. Plazas de Bolsillo, Paseo Bandera, Ciclovías Provisorias en el Mapocho, etc.). Public procurement processes and official public documents have been using the term urbanismo táctico (tactical urbanism) since 2015 (see Municipalidad de Las Condes 2019; Municipalidad de Providencia 2015; SEREMI MTT RM 2017). 2 Practices of temporary use have been gaining increased attention by the media, and the concept of urbanismo táctico (tactical urbanism) has been heading press articles such as “La estrategia del ‘urbanismo táctico’ se sigue expandiendo en Santiago y ahora convierte a la calle Bandera en un colorido e inédito paseo peatonal”/ “The tactical urbanism strategy has been expanded on Santiago and now turns Bandera street into a colourful pedestrian promenade” (El Mercurio 2017); Urbanismo táctico, ¿un parche a los problemas de ciudad?: El juicio de los arquitectos/ “Tactical Urbanism: a patch to the problems of the city? The architect’s judgement” (Sanchez 2018); and “Las ‘guerrillas’ de Urbanismo Táctico/ “The guerrillas of tactical urbanism” (Laborde 2018), among others.

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production of public spaces in Santiago. However, the question is in itself misleading. First, because it implies these practices should be considered as unique solutions to solve city needs (‘the solution’). Second, because it leads us to think about these practices as something entirely disconnected from policy (a ‘replacement’) and finally because it sees the city as a fixed entity that can be changed permanently (a ‘definitive change’). However, regardless of its intention of framing the debate as a polarised division among ‘experts’, the article is provocative and interrogates the relevance of the transient urban actions and the character of temporary use as having been demonstrative, or rather, just palliative. Building on this debate, this paper discusses the usefulness of temporary practices for the production of urban spaces in the particular context of Santiago, Chile. Are temporary uses significant for demonstrating possible changes, which arise from the radical discomfort of citizens about the development of their cities? Are temporary practices used instrumentally to show rapid results without going through long bureaucratic processes to bring about changes in the city? I argue that temporary practices have an ambiguous character because they use incremental learning and experimentation as a means to demonstrate possible changes, thus moving the limits of the production of public spaces; but at the same time, they are used instrumentally and conceived as palliative solutions to urban problems. Furthermore, I propose that in order to recognise the transformative potential of temporary use, we need to at least challenge two rooted assumptions which are explicitly exposed in the question posed by the newspaper’s article. Firstly, we should contest the assumption that ‘definitive’ projects are fixed entities that must be completed to transform the city, by instead, blurring the dichotomy between the transitory and the permanent as opposing forces and understanding the city as a process in constant remaking. Secondly, we should question the assumption that temporary practices are antagonists to urban planning and development, by instead, considering how they could challenge the discipline through the potential use of incremental development and experiential knowledge as tools for urban learning. After conveying a brief review of the literature and intending to expose its geographical gap, the paper will focus on two tensions linked to the mentioned assumptions, which are related to the transitory and incremental character of the practices. First, it will discuss the dichotomic understanding of urban temporalities in opposition to permanent and fixed urban structures and propose a more relational understanding of time to expand the potential of temporary use. Then, rather than considering temporary practices as antagonistic to planning, it will discuss the potential of incrementality to encourage urban learning while acknowledging the lack of existing mechanisms in Chile for incorporating such learning into the planning process. The aim is to discuss the usefulness of temporary use and the limitations against expanding its transformative potential in Santiago. This paper is an extract of a wider and ongoing Ph.D. research project, which seeks to understand the extent to which temporary practices challenge the conventional forms of public space production. The study, framed within a social constructivist worldview, seeks to explore and interpret the perceptions and intentions of the agents

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involved in the process of production of temporary use in the field. It uses a mixedmethods approach to qualitative research, including interviews, user assessments and field observations complemented with archival research. During the fieldwork in Santiago, conducted between December 2017 and May 2018, more than 60 interviews were held with different actors–such as activists, artists, architects, planners, community leaders, government representatives and authorities, among others–who were involved in the making, use and regulation of the temporary use practices in Santiago on which the research focuses.3 However, instead of doing a sequential analysis of specific temporary practices and analysing them compressively, the narratives about particular practices are used indistinctively to support the findings, which were obtained following a process of thematic analysis whose intent was to analyse and interpret the narratives of the different agents, through focusing on the means and ends of the production of temporary use.

9.2 The Literature and Its Geographical Gap The temporary use literature is particularly heterogeneous and oscillates between: (1) the linkage between temporary use and planning and its understanding as an alternative form of spatial production (Andres 2013; Ferreri 2015; Groth and Corijn 2005; Hou 2010; Oswalt et al. 2013); (2) its conceptual understanding as a gap in the cycle of utilisation (Haydn and Temel 2006; Temporiuso 2009–2012); (3) its relation to the transformation of unused spaces (Colomb 2012; Groth and Corijn 2005; Haydn and Temel 2006; Németh and Langhorst 2014; Oswalt et al. 2013; Webster and Lai 2003); and (4) the collective logic of its strategies led by citizens (Finn 2014; Hou 2010; Sawhney et al. 2015). As the authors of this edited volume argue, although many scholars have studied the reasons why temporary use has been triggered, research has been weak in providing strong theoretical conceptualisations (Andres and Zhang 2017; Madanipour 2017) and limited in offering critical stances for examining their role. However, as noted in the introduction, seen through geographical lenses, most studies in the field have mainly focused on the ‘Global North’, often using European and North American examples. For instance, Haydn and Temel’s book (2006) 3 For

the Ph.D. research project, the following four temporary practices in Santiago were chosen as the focus of analysis: (1) Mapocho Pedaleable (Mapocho for cycling): activists and architects supported by pro-cycling civil society organisations have been reclaiming the public use of the Mapocho riverbank through temporary actions since 2011; (2) Invernadero Quinta Normal (Greenhouse Quinta Normal): an insurgent and symbolic act of seed bombing, was driven by community of residents of Yungay’s neighbourhood and their social organisation Ecobarrio Yungay (Econeighbourhood Yungay), for recovering a derelict and abandoned public greenhouse through urban gardening in 2016; (3) Plazas de Bolsillo (Pocket Parks): a regional government’s pocket parks programme to regenerate vacant spaces in the city initiated in 2016; and, (4) Paseo Bandera (Bandera pedestrian promenade): the temporary transformation of a street into a pedestrian promenade through street art in 2017, driven by a local municipality in collaboration with a group of artists and architects and funded by private sponsors.

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Temporary Urban Spaces illustrates their arguments by disclosing thirty-two European case studies and three projects from the United States. The Urban Catalyst, Oswalt et al. (2013) study analyses more than twenty cases, all European, and was based on an original study done by one of the authors in 2004–2005 of Berlin’s temporary uses on a hundred vacant sites (Overmeyer 2007). The Temporary City of Bishops and Williams (2012) draws mainly on case studies from Europe (49) and North America (16) showing only one case outside these territories and a couple of worldwide examples. The book, Insurgent Public Space, from Hou (2010) is one of the few studies going beyond such a divide, including cases from North East Asia (9), together with one European case and several North American cases (10). Nevertheless, the significance of this practice within the Latin American context has been understudied. The causes of the emergence of temporary urbanisms across the Global North have been widely documented and vary among different countries. One of the reasons put forward by researchers (Andres 2013; Fernandez 2014) was the 2008–2009 financial and economic crisis that started with the 2007 collapse of the housing bubble in the USA and the UK and spread mostly across Europe and to other worldwide interconnected economies; the crises affected the welfare state of many European countries and manifested itself in a cut of municipal budgets and austerity measures. In Berlin, for instance, the temporary use phenomenon was triggered due to the explosive process of urban development after the fall of the wall (Colomb 2012; Overmeyer 2007) and in Christchurch, following the intense post-disaster recovery process after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes (Brand and Nicholson 2016; Wesener 2015). In Chile, the emergence of temporary urbanisms cannot be explained as a direct response to a single political, environmental or economic crisis but it is possibly a symptom of the neoliberal and centralised model of development which permeates the urban development of the city and also, a sign of the global interconnection of cities which have opened processes of exchange, learning and adaptation among different urban contexts.4 From the fieldwork, the findings show scarcity and opportunity are the main reasons driving the occurrence of temporary use in Santiago. Scarcity of resources is acknowledged by a diverse range of actors and does not only refer to lack of economic means, but also to the lack of time to produce changes–due to the short length of political cycles and needs for accelerating change–and to the absence of appropriate planning regulatory frameworks for engaging with creativity in practice.5 Furthermore, the emergence of these practices is recognised as a ‘space of opportunity’ by different actors from the public sector and the civil society6 : the 4 Several

interviewees from the field mentioned other countries’ experiences as examples from which they draw their own perspectives and practise of temporary use (Interviewees 3, 15, 20, 42, 64). 5 Several interviewees from the field ranging from community representatives, practitioners, civil society representatives, policymakers and authorities acknowledged scarcity as a driver of temporary use interventions (Interviewees 01, 03, 10, 12, 24, 31. 36, 62, 65, 66, 67). 6 Several interviewees from the field ranging from artists, civil society representatives, private sector and public sector representatives describe the emergence of these practices as a response to an opportunity (Interviewees 3,7,15,21,24,29,33,35,36,46,48).

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opportunity to use unused spaces; to reverse a misuse; to use a space ‘meanwhile’ in time; to leave a legacy within short political cycles; to demonstrate possible changes by experimenting and therefore, allowing failure as a possibility; and also, to earn a living, perceiving it as a space for an entrepreneurial opportunity. Temporary urbanisms are emerging in the Southern context, hence, what are the reasons for the geographical gap in the literature? Back in 2012 some scholars argued the topic was not of interest to Southern economies, including large parts of the Latin American region: The interest in temporariness is arguably a luxury afforded only to those cities that are part of the post-industrial economy. In large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, many structures and activities are more tenuous or temporary and this reflects a hand-to-mouth existence where permanent structures, institutions, even hopes, are an impossible luxury (Bishop and Williams 2012, p. 6).

The key problem with this Western perspective is that it overlooks the richness, complexity and diversity of the Global South context, disregarding the differences within the Southern context. Moreover, this view ignores the rooted structures of public institutions and urban infrastructures (e.g. transportation, water, electricity, etc.) of the Latin America region. United Nations data from 2014 shows that Latin America and the Caribbean together with North America have the higher levels of urbanisation of the world, at or above 80%. In contrast, only 40 and 48% of the population of Africa and Asia live in urban areas (United Nations 2014). The temporary urbanism paradigm is not just a matter of post-industrial economies. It is not a ‘luxury’ of some, but possibly, it is a symptom of the accelerated pace of development and of a growing consumerism society (Madanipour 2017). Latin American cities have been used as a canvas for creative temporal interventions performed by activists, civil society and public agents. Temporary events such as the protests for the right to cycle–known as ‘critical mass’–can be witnessed throughout many cities in the world including cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Permanent structures and hopes might be an ‘impossible luxury’ everywhere, as impermanence is the essential condition of cities, given their continuous process of change and transformation.

9.3 Blurring the Dichotomy Between the Transitory and the Permanent The notion of permanence is rooted in a Western conception of architecture, by which buildings are planned to become monuments, yet the city is a constant becoming: a space were multiple temporalities are coming together (Crang 2001; Lefebvre 1996). The urban space is characterised by a multiplicity of time beats, ‘some long run, some short term, some frequent, some rare, some collective, some personal, some largescale, some hardly noticed’ (Crang 2001, pp. 189–190). Time is cyclical and linear (Lefebvre 1996), absolute and relative, historical (past), present and future (Lynch 1972). Time is non-reversible (Kofman and Lebas 1996, p. 31), although spaces in

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time can be reversible. The linear time is a measurable, uniform and quantifiable succession of comings and goings (Lefebvre 1996, p. 222), whereas the cyclical time is relative, qualifies space and is composed of rhythms that imply repetitions (Kofman and Lebas 1996, p. 31) such as the everyday ritual of day and night, the weekly cycles of work and leisure and the annual seasons that are marked by weather changes. Lefebvre’s concept of Rhythmanalysis, ‘interweaves cyclical and linear rhythms in the everyday’ (Kofman and Lebas 1996, p. 31). The circulation and constant recombination of people and things makes the urban space a being in time, an object in motion (Crang 2001, p. 190) and an unfixed entity that cannot be set apart from the ‘lived time’ of its users (Lefebvre 2009 [1974]). Following Lefebvre’s thoughts, the changing and ephemeral condition of urban space responds to the movements of multiple temporalities: Space is nothing but the inscription of time in the world […], the city will only be rethought and reconstructed on its current ruins when we have properly understood that the city is the deployment of time, and that it is this time, … of those who are its inhabitants (Kofman and Lebas 1996, p. 16).

When analysing the narratives of temporary use in Santiago from multiple interviewees–such as activists, artists, architects and government representatives–an instrumental conception of temporary practices emerges. Temporary use practices are perceived by government representatives as serving ‘to evaluate a more definite thing’ (Interviewee 31) and presented as pilot projects and as ‘models in scale 1:1 [..] that will later give rise to a definitive [emphasis added] project’ (Interviewee 3). An architect being interviewed criticised temporary practices when they are not oriented to ‘long-term strategies’ (referring to more permanent material changes) and when they ‘do not go beyond doing the action in itself’ (Interviewee 15). This critical perspective assumes the role of temporary use as merely instrumental for planning purposes, considering the ephemeral as a precondition for the ‘permanent’ (or ‘definitive’) physical change in the city. This implies an emphasis on planning with a focus on ‘the object’, conceived under a Euclidean time-space perspective, rather than emphasising its ‘relational turn’, which has moved the practice of planning towards more contingent, rhythmical and procedural aspects of change (Wohl 2018). By doing so, the transformative potential of temporary use practices is limited as it lacks the acknowledgement of its potential for socio-cultural transformation, by instead focusing on the physical and the material change. As the following political authority interviewee argues, the transformative potential of the practices is expanded when perceiving the city as a deployment of the time of its inhabitants: it seems relevant to me that [temporary use] is a clear proof of how the change of a place changes everything. It changes the feeling of the people, the attitude of the people, the disposition of the people, the relationship of the people with each other. The urban sensation can change a lot at times for quite minor interventions, which are not so radical or so costly but that change the dynamics (Interviewee 41).

If we consider space as a mere technical construct rather than also as a social construct, and these practices just as a means to model a new spatial configuration, then the radical potential of these practices will be obscured. The city is in a constant

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process of remaking, and space in the city is unfixed, changeable and constituted of multiple time beats represented by long-lasting developments, alternative uses of space and the everyday movements of its inhabitants, among others. Space in the city is never ‘definitive’, as neither are projects in space. Projects are possibilities, projections, plans, which, in contrast to reality, always change, such as the city does. I argue that only by blurring the dichotomy of the permanent and the temporary, and conceiving these practices in different time registers, one can expand their potential and usefulness.

9.4 Incrementality: A Tool for Urban Learning Incrementality can be defined as a gradual process of additions occurring over time, particularly, in a series of small ‘increments’ or amounts (Cambridge University Press 2019; Merriam-Webster 2019). From the field of urbanism, incrementality can be described as a scale and form of production of ‘making do’ (De Certau 1984, p. xv) and of learning and adaptation for shaping the city (Dovey 2014; McFarlane 2011, 2017). But, why does the concept emerge in the field when discussing practices of temporary use? The narratives about incrementalism gathered from the field relate to the idea of incrementalism as a process of sequential additions but also as a process of urban learning. The interviewees declared that they used incrementality–as a mode of production–for different purposes: for rapid implementation of urban projects, to gain knowledge with the aim of avoiding failure or failing quickly, to ‘bypass’ traditional building procedures and regulations, to position a message and build networks, and to adapt urban processes and learning from experience. Considering incrementality as a process of gradual addition, some mentioned it as an instrumental tool for avoiding the requirement of permits from high-level organisms (Interviewee 31, Interviewee 15, Interviewee 54). For instance, when working at the local level, incrementality is used to avoid the requirement of having projects approved by a central and/or regional government organisation. This mechanism of a ‘bypass’ of conventional regulations is possible to effect when the urban intervention does not involve radical changes to the urban morphology (Interviewee 31, Interviewee 54). The gradual additions allow a faster implementation of the projects from the local level, and this quicker implementation is declared useful by local government officials because some spaces require ‘super-fast actions’ as they are ‘being misused’ and ‘taken over by gangs’ (Interviewee 54),7 linking incrementality with processes of acceleration and possibilities of reversing the use of space. Moreover, the faster implementation is explained by the short political cycles and the need 7 More

context to the quote here: “It occurred to me to say that tactical urbanism for us was rapid urbanism, which is the notion that there are things that you cannot do quickly, that take a lot of time and that the speed of the changes we need to make in the public space, because of being misused […] that is, there are places that are taken by gangs, by bands of people charging for parking, where you need a super-fast action, we need to close [the projects] quickly in order to reverse that use” (Interviewee 54, local government representative).

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of the authorities to show results, because traditional procedures for the production of public spaces could overcome political cycles (Interviewee 31, Interviewee 12). For instance, the Mapocho Pedaleable,8 the riverside reclamation of the city’s founding river to provide an urban corridor, is described by its creators, by civic representatives and by local government officials as an ‘incremental process’ and as a practice of ‘incremental urbanism’ (Interviewee 15). Incrementality has been described as a process of improvement of the built form but also the urban experience of its users has been described as an incremental process. A representative of a local municipality explains incrementalism as a process of improvement of the ‘design’ proposed to the riverbank, limiting ‘design’ to the quality of the physical and the material. However, interviewees also consider the urban experience as incremental. They perceive that the users’ recurrent process of engagement with urban space makes the temporary initiative known and ‘stronger’ (Interviewee 31). Also, from the perspective of a government authority, the temporary occupations of the river helped raise political support for the initiative (Interviewee 12). The incremental character of the practice is also defined by the networks this incremental form of production helped to create. One of its creators explains the events or activations on the river– done under ‘an incremental logic’ (Interviewee 15)–help themselves to ‘position a message’, ‘to build a story’ (Interviewee 15). Therefore, the idea of transforming the river ‘starts to exist’ because of the deployment of the temporary events undertaken on the riverbank, and as a result, support networks and new relationships with academic, civil society and public institutions were built incrementally (Interviewee 15). Incrementality was also portrayed as a useful means to increase the speed of the implementation of a ‘project’ within a planning process. Therefore, incrementality is not just perceived by the creators as an incremental mode for reclaiming the river through several activities and events, but as a means to build an urban public infrastructure incrementally. It eases the planning process and ‘avoids problems’ with its authorisation for its implementation: ‘approve the thing, get it built, do a concrete pavement, super boring, super nothing, and then we are going to take over the space, little by little’ (Interviewee 15). Within this narrative, however, ‘little by little’ refers to a gradual process of additions over time. ‘Every day I add a seat, I add something else and you don’t even realise about it’ states the interviewee to then add: ‘suddenly, that same final image, which we had as a goal, we end up building it, but in a longer period of time, and little by little’ (Interviewee 15). However, if this process of gradual additions is meant to build ‘the final’ vision for the space the creators already hold, then incrementalism is perceived as a form to achieve a prevailing plan, and thus, under such framing of incrementality, there is limited space for learning and adaptation. The Mapocho Pedaleable practice, framed under the narrative of incrementalism, shows how incrementalism, in an embedded and experiential way, can be useful not just as a process of improvement of a built form

8 The Mapocho Pedaleable was initiated by two architecture students, Tomas Echiburú and Osvaldo

Larraín, who were supported by activists and pro-cycling civil society organisations (see Echiburú and Larrain 2013).

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but also for the creation of networks and urban experiences. However, framing incrementalism as an instrumental tool for achieving a preconceived end goal fails to grasp the transformative potential of using incrementality as a tool for urban learning and adaptation. Incrementalism, as a process of acquisition of knowledge and learning, requires to be framed under a constant process of building and remaking of the urban: as a process of constant adaptability and change. The problem seems to arise in the intended division of the Mapocho Pedaleable into two separate trajectories. On one hand, it is an envisioned projected end goal conceived under the traditional views of planning and architecture, and on the other, a series of events and temporary activations of the riverbank space conceived as an embodied and experiential form of urban learning. The separation among these two trajectories appears recurrently in the narratives of several representatives of the civil society and government representatives, as it can be exemplified by the following statement given by a representative of a local municipality: Despite the fact that the Mapocho Pedaleable is still being made in a slightly more tactical way, the project has continued to be developed, in all these years, the ‘definitive’ project has continued to be developed, which I think is very good, because in some way it allows you to modify some things in the project, on the trial and error, the evaluation, that you have from day to day, can be carried to practice, to the development of the project (Interviewee 31).

Although the incremental nature of the practice has been explained to be useful for building a process of urban learning, by allowing testing grounds for trial and error, the intended separation between ‘project’ and ‘activation’ makes the urban learning process somehow rhetorical. When a local authority representative was asked about how the process of ‘trial and error’ allows organisers to modify the ‘project’ being developed, she explained a few modifications of the built form that happened during the design process of the ‘project’ (e.g. length and location of ramps) (Interviewee 31), which are somehow unrelated to the ‘temporary trials’. Therefore, the conception of dual trajectories, between a projected end goal and temporary events, does not contribute to build up a more consistent process of urban learning. Possibly, the rigidity of planning mechanisms might be the reason for the intended separation of these two processes, as currently, there seems to be no space in the planning frameworks to incorporate urban learnings arising from incremental processes. Incrementalism can be a powerful tool for urban learning, but to expand the transformative potential of incrementalism we need to find ways in which we can incorporate incremental learnings and experiential knowledge into the design and planning processes.

9.5 Final Reflections In Santiago, temporary use has a long history that can be seen, for instance, by the use of streets for markets and illegal vending or by a few supposedly transient housing emergency operations within the city. However, as in many other cities across the

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world, we could argue we are witnessing the emergence of a new paradigm because of the faster pace of the occurrence of temporary use (Ferreri 2015; Madanipour 2017) and the increasing interest in occupying such practices for political, socio-cultural, economic and environmental aims. Throughout this chapter 1 have argued that the emergence of this new paradigm is twofold and is reflected in the ambiguous nature of its practices. The ‘temporary city’ emerges as an alternative form of production of public spaces when using incrementality and experiential forms of urban learning and adaptation for reimagining possibilities of change in the city. However, at the same time, temporary urbanisms might be used merely for instrumental purposes undermining the potential of incorporating experiential learnings in processes of public space design and production. This paper emerges as a way to present the narratives of different actors involved in the production, the making, the imagining and the use of temporary urban practices in the city of Santiago and hopes to contribute by recognising the transformative potential of the practices and by framing some of the limitations encountered. I argue that to expand the usefulness of such practices we should: (1) consider temporary practices as fragments of the diverse time beats and rhythms of a city in constant transformation, rather than envision them within a fixed notion of time-space; and, (2) consider incremental and embodied experiences as tools for urban learning by engaging them in planning within a relational perspective rather than ignoring their potential to inform planning by ascribing to those practices a merely instrumental role or envisioning them as a ‘patch’. This article has attempted to discuss the role of temporary urbanisms as contingent responses to tackle pressing urban challenges and as alternative possibilities which can inform processes of planning, while addressing the limitations encountered when considering such temporary practices as steps towards achieving a desired end state and therefore, focusing on the design of an object rather than on the procedural and relational aspects of change. The research attempts to contribute to the wider temporary urbanism debate by engaging with the urban narratives related to the transitory nature and incrementality of temporary urbanisms on an understudied geographical area; yet, the elements of discussion are potentially not just bounded by such particular geography. Funding This work was funded by the Becas Chile Program from the Chilean National Commission for Science and Technology (CONICYT), specifically by the CONICYT PFCHA, Doctorado en el Extranjero, Becas Chile, 2015

References Andres L (2013) Differential spaces, power hierarchy and collaborative planning: a critique of the role of temporary uses in shaping and making places. Urban Stud 50(4):759–775 Andres L, Zhang Y (2017) Temporary urbanism: activation, de-activation and adaptability within the urban environment. In: Call for Papers AAG Annual Meeting (New Orleans, 10–14 April 2018) Unpublished material

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Bishop P, Williams L (2012) The temporary city. Routledge, Oxon and New York Brand D, Nicholson H (2016) Public space and recovery: learning from post-earthquake Christchurch. J Urban Des 21(2):159–176 Brenner N (2015) Is ‘tactical urbanism’ an alternative to neoliberal urbanism? http://post.at.moma. org/content_items/587-is-tactical-urbanism-an-alternative-to-neoliberal-urbanism Cambridge University Press (2019) Cambridge dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ Colomb C (2012) Pushing the urban frontier: temporary uses of space, city marketing, and the creative city discourse in 2000s Berlin. J Urban Aff 34(2):131–152 Crang M (2001) Rythms of the city. In: Thrift N, May J (eds) Timespace. Geographies of temporality. Routledge, London De Certau M (1984) The practice of everyday life, vol 1. University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles, London Dovey K (2014) Incremental urbanism: the emergence of informal settlements. In: Haas T, Olsson K (eds) Emergent urbanism. Ashgate, Surrey and Burlington, pp 45–53 Echiburú T, Larrain O (2013) Mapocho pedaleable, Santiago, Chile. Tomás Echiburú, Osvaldo Larrain. ARQ (Santiago) 85:48–51 El Mercurio (2017) La estrategia del ¨Urbanismo táctico¨ se sigue expandiendo en Santiago y ahora convierte a la calle Bandera en un colorido e inédito paseo peatonal. El Mercurio. 21 Dec 2017. http://impresa.elmercurio.com/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?dt=21-12-2017%200:00:00&New sID=538613&dtB=21-12-2017%200:00:00&BodyID=3&PaginaId=12 Fabian L, Samson K (2016) Claiming participation—a comparative analysis of DIY urbanism in Denmark. J Urbanism: Int Res Placemaking Urban Sustain 9(2):166–184 Fernandez M (2014) Estrategias de reactivación transitoria de activos urbanos en desuso. http:// www.ciudadesaescalahumana.org/2014/07/estrategias-de-reactivacion-transitoria.html Ferreri M (2015) The seductions of temporary urbanism. Ephemera 15(1):181 Finn D (2014) DIY urbanism: implications for cities. J Urbanism: Int Res Placemaking Urban Sustain 7(4):381–398 Gadanho P (2014) Uneven growth: tactical urbanisms for expanding megacities. MoMA, New York Groth J, Corijn E (2005) Reclaiming urbanity: indeterminate spaces, informal actors and urban agenda setting. Urban Stud 42(3):503–526 Haydn F, Temel R (2006) Temporary urban spaces: concepts for the use of city spaces. Birkhäuser, Berlin Hou J (2010) Insurgent public space: guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities. Routledge, London Kofman E, Lebas E (1996) Henry Lefebvre: writings on cities (vol 63). Blackwell Publishers Inc, Oxford & Cambridge, MA Laborde M (2018) La guerrillas de Urbanismo Táctico. El Mercurio. 10 Mar 2018. http://www.eco nomiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=449834 Lefebvre H (1996) Elements of rhythmanalysis. In: Kofman E, Lebas E (eds) Henri Lefebvre: writings on cities. Blackwell Publishers Inc, Oxford & Cambridge Lefebvre H (2009 [1974]) The production of space (vol 142). Blackwell Publishers, Oxford Lydon M, Garcia A (2015) Tactical urbanism: short-term action for long-term change. Island Press, Washington Lynch K (1972) What time is this place?. MIT Press, Cambridge and London Madanipour A (2017) Cities in time: temporary urbanism and the future of the city. Bloomsbury Publishing, London and New York McFarlane C (2011) Learning the city: knowledge and translocal assemblage. Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex McFarlane C (2017) Incremental urbanism and tactical learning: relections from Mumbai and Kampala. In: Hall S, Burdett R (eds) The SAGE handbook of the 21st century city. SAGE Publications Ltd, London, pp 416–428 Merriam-Webster (2019) Online dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

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Municipalidad de Las Condes (2019) Bases de licitación: Ejecución de intervenciones de urbanismo táctico. Mercado Público http://www.mercadopublico.cl/Procurement/Modules/RFB/DetailsAc quisition.aspx?qs=v3SNSvojETKgIVGuCRT3zw== Municipalidad de Providencia (2015) Bases tecnicas: Implementación de Ciclovía táctica de Eliodoro Yañez. Mercado Público http://www.mercadopublico.cl/Procurement/Modules/RFB/ DetailsAcquisition.aspx?qs=fwx4ziMJI35mwAJJaxjaYw== Németh J, Langhorst J (2014) Rethinking urban transformation: temporary uses for vacant land. Cities 40:143–150 Oswalt P, Overmeyer K, Misselwitz P (2013) Urban catalyst. DOM Publishers, Berlin Overmeyer K (2007) Urban pioneers: Berlin experience with temporary urbanism. Jovis, Berlin Sanchez D (2018) Urbanismo Táctico, ¿un parche a los problemas de la ciudad?: El juicio de los arquitectos. La Segunda, 5 Jan 2018 pp 24–25 Sawhney N, de Klerk C, Malhotra S (2015) Civic engagement through DIY urbanism and collective networked action. Plann Pract and Res 30(3):337–354 SEREMI MTT RM (2017) Destina como paseo peatonal a calle Bandera en tramo y horario que indica. Official Gazette of the Chilean Republic N. 41913, Martes 21 de Noviembre 2017 Spataro D (2016) Against a de-politicized DIY urbanism: food not bombs and the struggle over public space. J Urbanism: Int Res Placemaking Urban Sustain 9(2):185–201 Tardiveau A, Mallo D (2014) Unpacking and challenging habitus: An approach to temporary urbanism as a socially engaged practice. J Urban Des 19(4):456–472 Temporiuso (2009–2012) What is the temporary reuse? www.temporiuso.org/?page_id=1345 United Nations (2014) World urbanization prospects. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/publications/ files/wup2014-highlights.Pdf Webster CJ, Lai LW-C (2003) Property rights, planning and markets: managing spontaneous cities. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham and Northhampton Wesener A (2015) Temporary urbanism and urban sustainability after a natural disaster: Transitional community-initiated open spaces in Christchurch, New Zealand. J Urbanism: Int Res Placemaking Urban Sustain 8(4):406–422 Wohl S (2018) Tactical urbanism as a means of testing relational processes in space: a complex systems perspective. Plann Theory 17(4):472–493

Chapter 10

Developing ‘Transient Urbanism’ as a New Urban and Real Estate Strategy: The Case of the French National Railway Company (SNCF) Juliette Pinard Abstract The French national railway company (SNCF), the second largest real estate owner in France, has been using its properties for temporary artistic uses since the 1980s. From an initially alternative and pragmatic practice, temporary occupation has gradually become a strategic new activity used by the company to meet urban and real estate challenges. In 2015, the creation of SNCF Immobilier—a new real estate branch within SNCF—marked a turning point in the company’s activity. SNCF Immobilier allows cultural operators to take up temporary occupation of some of its vacant sites, before the arrival of the permanent urban project. Called ‘transient urbanism’, this approach refers to temporary projects carried out specifically on sites intended to host an urban project, in order to initiate the urban transformation and to foreshadow the arrival of the project. This new concept of transient urbanism illustrates the shift from temporary occupation in urban planning and real estate practices, involving multiple strategic issues and informing new reflection by owners on the transformation of their property. This growing appropriation by public and private actors contributes to the dissemination of transient urbanism as reproducible good practice, in the context of keen interest in temporary projects over the past five years in the Greater Paris area. Keywords Transient urbanism · Transitional urban development · Temporary use · Real estate · SNCF · Greater paris

10.1 Introduction In 2019, the city of Paris launched a charter to promote the development of temporary occupation, signed by about 20 major real estate owners in France. In fact, these last five years have been marked by a very strong interest in temporary occupation by public and private actors involved in urban production. Since 2012, about 100 temporary projects have been officially carried out in the Greater Paris area according to J. Pinard (B) LATTS, Université Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, ENPC, 77455 Marne-La-Vallée, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_10

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the Paris Region Development And Urban Planning Institute (Diguet et al. 2017). This growing interest is accompanied by the emergence of a new concept in 2017, that of transient urbanism. This term refers to temporary projects carried out specifically on sites intended to host an urban project, taking advantage of the lag time available before the start of the construction works. In transient urbanism, the temporary occupation is seen as a way to initiate the urban transformation of a site and to foreshadow the arrival of the future urban project. These transitional development projects are led by local authorities, large property owners, real estate developers and social landlords. Their implementation is allowed by the recent professionalisation of new operators, specialised in the development and management of temporary occupancy projects (Pinard and Morteau 2020). The notion of transient urbanism is now a trend phenomenon widely publicised in the professional environment of urban planning and real estate in France, but it is little discussed in the academic field. However, the study of this new practice makes it possible to further analyse temporary occupation as ‘an integral part of the urban development processes’ (Madanipour 2017, p. 1094). In line with the perspective developed by Henneberry in 2017, the notion of ‘transience’ allows the tension between temporary uses and long-term dimensions of urban development to be highlighted (Henneberry 2017). In fact, the development of transient urbanism reveals the increasing use of temporary occupation as a tool for urban development and transformation by public and private actors in urban production. It is part of the long-standing process of the growing instrumentalisation of cultural events in urban development (Gravari-Barbas and Jacquot 2007), for example through alternative or off practices (Vivant 2009; Colomb 2012) or street art (Kullmann 2017). The proliferation of ephemeral and recreational events in the public spaces of metropolitan areas reflects a merging of urban events and urban logics, leading to a new form of public action (Pradel 2010). In this context, owners have long used temporary occupation as a means of securing their properties at low cost while waiting for a more favourable context (Andres 2010), and more recently as a lever for action on land where urban development is at a standstill (Kamvasinou 2017). The temporary use is put forward as an opportunity for the owner to fill some gaps and reduce certain costs (Madanipour 2017). However, the owner’s role and vision is rarely addressed centrally in the literature, which proposes a limited conception of the use of temporary occupation by these actors. This chapter proposes to look in detail at the action concerning temporary occupation carried out by a large owner and real estate player in France: the French national railway company (SNCF). With large assets throughout the country and particularly in urban areas, the SNCF has long been a player in the transformation of cities (Adisson 2017). As the second largest real estate and landowner in France, the SNCF has occasionally been using its properties for temporary purposes since the 1980s. But, from an initially alternative and pragmatic practice, temporary occupation has recently become used by the company as a strategic new activity to meet urban and real estate challenges. The aim of this chapter is to describe the development of the new temporary occupation strategy led by SNCF Immobilier, from the launch of the first projects in an experimental way to the gradual organisation of a new

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internal expertise about transient urbanism. Through the example of the SNCF, I will show how a large landowner and real estate player can take advantage of temporary occupation as a new mode of action to support broader strategic policies. The focus is on the process of learning through experimentation and the reflective posture of SNCF Immobilier, leading to a gradual evolution in the way the company plans and carries out these projects. I show that this internal learning process interlinks with the external influence of a new community of actors, born of a growing interest in transient urbanism. This research work is based on a three-year immersion within SNCF Immobilier, using an ethnographic approach in the company and on the sites of transient urbanism projects developed by the operator. Some 25 interviews were conducted with members of SNCF Immobilier and about 15 with managers of temporary projects. The interviews were combined with many informal conversations with these actors, as well as my participation in several meetings between SNCF Immobilier and the temporary occupant regarding the implementation of these temporary projects. This field research over a long period of time made it possible to monitor the development of SNCF Immobilier’s transient urbanism strategy.

10.2 Renewing with the Temporary Occupation: Resources and Influences for Developing a ‘Cultural Real Estate’ at the SNCF Temporary occupation is a long-standing practice at the SNCF. Over the years, several of its buildings have been used for temporary cultural purposes, notably the creation of artists’ studios, some of which have become recognised as alternative cultural places. This is the case of the Frigos in Paris: former SNCF cold stores rented to artists since the 1980s and now an emblematic place of creation (Vivant 2009). The temporary provision of these buildings by the owner is explained by the pragmatic wish to receive a rent, even a low one, for premises whose configuration is sometimes no longer adapted to regular rental. Through these legal temporary occupations, the owner’s intention has also been to control the use of its buildings, for example to avoid squatting. The development of these temporary uses, often unfamiliar to the organisation, was originally carried out spontaneously, according to local opportunities and without a particular strategic vision. In 2015, the creation of SNCF Immobilier—a new real estate branch within the company including a developer and a social landlord—marked a turning point in the SNCF’s relationship with its assets. This new structure is in charge of managing and enhancing the SNCF’s real estate assets, with the exception of passenger stations, i.e. 8.5 million m2 of the 12.5 million m2 owned by the public rail group. The creation of SNCF Immobilier stems from the wish to reduce the SNCF’s real estate expenses and to finance the group’s rail activities, by transforming the heavy financial burden of its assets into a new opportunity. To this end, a new real estate strategy optimises the

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group activities to sell some assets and to increase the company’s real estate planning and development activities. It is underpinned by the SNCF Immobilier’s wish to assert itself as a new key player in urban transformation, thanks to the urbanisation of those of its properties that are no longer needed for rail activities, i.e. 3,000 m2 currently available in France. In Paris, this has been reflected in the development of strategic urban projects on the capital’s last major urbanisable land. As soon as it was created, SNCF Immobilier put forward the idea of developing ‘cultural real estate’, based on the provision at a low cost, to cultural operators, of certain sites that were no longer needed for railway activities. This provision was to be temporary, since the sites concerned were destined to be transformed during urban projects, in the short or medium term. Temporary occupation is then identified as a potential way to address the various challenges steaming from its creation. One of them concerned the need to increase the visibility of the new company and to showcase its various capabilities, both to real estate players and local authorities, that is, SNCF Immobilier’s future partners in the development of urban projects. Secondly, the creation of SNCF Immobilier required the implementation of a change management policy to support this structure spawned by the gathering of several subsidiaries and employees previously spread throughout the SNCF group. This change management policy also accompanies the transformation of the SNCF’s real estate strategy, and its desire to position itself now as a key player in urban transformation. Finally, as a major real estate owner, SNCF receives many requests from cultural and events operators, looking for spaces to develop their projects. With the creation of SNCF Immobilier, the aim was to find a way to respond transparently, while simultaneously taking advantage of these requests as project opportunities. The company’s wish to experiment with these temporary cultural and artistic uses was based on different inspirations and influences. First, the choice was linked to the widespread images associating industrial wastelands with cultural and artistic activities (Raffin 1998; Gellereau and Broise 2004), stemming from a long-standing process of occupation of vacant spaces by artists, dating back to the 1980s (Andres and Grésillon 2013). The members of SNCF Immobilier were influenced by emblematic projects to reconvert industrial spaces through cultural activities, such as La Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille. The images of cultural brownfields and alternative places in Berlin were markers informing its reflection on the development of these uses from the outset. In fact, as a widely known and valued practice in the field of urban planning, the brownfield and culture duo is seen as ‘good practice’ by SNCF Immobilier, through the circulation of an urban development model considered to be excellent and reproducible (Arab 2008). The reflexion of SNCF Immobilier for the development of these temporary cultural uses was also influenced by several visits to key operations and meetings with stakeholders (owners, developers, local authorities) facing similar problems. For example, in 2016, several members of SNCF Immobilier visited the Ile de Nantes project, which allowed the regeneration of industrial spaces into a cluster dedicated to cultural and creative industries. In addition to these exchanges, the wish to experiment with temporary cultural uses emerged within SNCF Immobilier, from the rediscovery of past experiences conducted within its own buildings. A prime example is Tour

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Paris 13, a project to temporarily transform a building–owned by the SNCF’s social landlord—into a street artwork before its demolition. This highly publicised project demonstrated the possibilities offered by ephemeral artistic use in the enhancement of an urban project (Kullmann 2017). Finally, the choice to promote temporary cultural uses within SNCF buildings is explained by the professional career path of some members of SNCF Immobilier’s executive committee. For example, the former CEO of the company, in charge of its prefiguration since 2014, had previously worked on the development of cultural projects in station spaces, through the hosting of artistic events and exhibitions, and the creation of partnerships with major cultural institutions. The development a ‘cultural real estate’ strategy when SNCF Immobilier was created is thus based on a long history of using culture and events to enhance spaces managed by the SNCF. Therefore, SNCF Immobilier’s ambitions in terms of cultural and temporary uses were built between external influences (experiments carried out by others, exchanges of good practices) and internal influences (past internal experiences, professional trajectories of certain members). These various influences, sources of strategic and technical knowledge, were to allow the launch of the first temporary occupations as soon as SNCF Immobilier was created in 2015.

10.3 Launch of the Experiment: From the First Pilot Projects to the ‘Temporary Artistic Sites’ Approach SNCF Immobilier’s first experiment was Ground Control, a temporary occupation for recreational and festive purposes, opened in the summer of 2015 in Paris. In this pilot project for SNCF Immobilier, the owner provided an event operator with the outdoor spaces of a former locomotive depot that was earmarked for transformation into a new city district. The project, in the form of an ephemeral open-air bar along the same lines as the German biergarten, received over 200,000 visitors in the space of a few months. The operation was renewed in the summer of 2016, with the same temporary occupant, but under a different name: Grand Train (Fig. 10.1). Carried out in partnership with the SNCF, this more ambitious project allowed for the transformation of new areas of the site into an ephemeral museum dedicated to the world of trains. The site’s railway past was staged as old locomotives were brought in and model trains and objects of curiosity were exhibited. The operation was a major media success and was very well attended, this time with 400,000 visitors in just a few months. Several criticisms were however published in the press as to the middleand upper-class population attracted by the project, in contrast to the working-class context of the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris. Within SNCF Immobilier and the SNCF group as a whole, the operation was nevertheless seen as a success and a source of pride for the company. This is explained by the enthusiasm among the general public, and by the enhancement of the site’s heritage and railway memory made possible by temporary use–to the extent that SNCF Immobilier finally decided

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Fig. 10.1 Grand Train in Paris in 2016: opening a former industrial shed by creating a place dedicated to the world of trains. Source SNCF

to keep some of the buildings in the future urban project. This success underpinned the company’s determination to multiply these temporary uses on a national scale. In 2015, SNCF Immobilier launched a call for projects for ‘Temporary Artistic Sites’. For the first time and on an experimental basis, it offered to make 15 of its sites in France available for a six-month occupancy period. The call for projects concerned several types of property, from former stations in rural areas to industrial premises in metropolitan areas. SNCF Immobilier justified this call for projects by the wish to revive these now unused places and to open to the public formerly closed heritage buildings. The temporary uses were selected by a jury, mostly composed of individuals from the world of culture. Finally, 14 projects were awarded at six sites, including ephemeral artistic projects lasting from a few hours to six months. The main winning project to be launched was La Station Gare des Mines (Fig. 10.2), in a former coal station, located in a district in the northeast of Paris undergoing extensive inter-municipal urban change. Opened in 2016 by the MU Fig. 10.2 La Station Gare des Mines in Paris in 2017: the transformation of an old coal station intro an artistic place. Source Juliette Pinard

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collective, an association of art professionals, La Station Gare des Mines is a place for musical production and distribution, hosting concerts and artists’ residencies. With over 100 press appearances and 30,000 visitors in less than six months, La Station became known for the quality of its musical programming. Within SNCF Immobilier, the project has once again been considered as a success for the quality of the artistic content and the partnership relationship that has developed with the temporary occupant. The temporary occupancy agreement was renewed several times by SNCF Immobilier, up to the end of 2022. The actors involved in the future urban project consider that La Station Gare des Mines has demonstrated its capacity to generate a new dynamic within previously unattractive industrial spaces, through the creation of a new cultural destination and of new jobs. So much so, the City of Paris, in charge of the acquisition of the site for its future transformation, is thinking now of the sustainability of the cultural place in the neighbourhood. Aside from La Station Gare des Mines, the success of this first call for projects for Temporary Artistic Sites must, however, be qualified as regards SNCF Immobilier: several of the projects did not materialise and the sites outside the Greater Paris region found no tenants. This was due to external factors, such as the political context of a state of emergency making it impossible to use a site, for security reasons, or the requisitioning of land by the City of Paris to open a humanitarian reception centre. Internal factors also led to the abandonment of certain sites, for example because of a lack of knowledge of soil pollution problems. Additionally, the call for projects triggered bad buzz in the press the day after its launch, driven by several artists’ unions criticising the instrumentalisation of artists by the SNCF and the precariousness induced by this call for projects. This ‘bad buzz’ was followed by the drafting of new technical guidelines, specifying the audience targeted by this call for projects and the fact that it was not an artistic commission, but rather the provision of a building intended to lead to the emergence of projects with their own economic model. According to SNCF Immobilier, this adverse media coverage is the result of a form of awkwardness related to the experimental nature of the approach and explained by the novelty of this form of temporary occupation. The launch of this call for projects was therefore an opportunity for initial feedback. As the owner had instigated more projects, it realised the need to propose longer occupancy periods or to carry out more detailed studies of the sites before they were made available. The tensions generated by the criticisms aired in the press reflected the need for adaptation of the tools and of the owner’s posture with regard to these uses. These first experiments were a period of learning for SNCF Immobilier, as they involved a new situation for the company compared to its traditional professional practices: working with a new category of actors, bringing industrial and railway sites up to standard and making them safe for the public, developing contractual tools, etc. The implementation of these first experiments was based on a form of improvisation and organisational bricolage. The members of SNCF Immobilier learnt through their ability to overcome many technical difficulties and through the gradual discovery of the advantages and risks associated with these temporary uses. This learning led the company to consider them not just as temporary uses, but as temporary projects.

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10.4 The Development of ‘Transient Urbanism’: Temporary Occupation to Support the Long-Term Urban Project As the first phase of acculturation, the experimentation with Temporary Artistic Sites entailed the gradual transformation of SNCF Immobilier’s approach. The evidence provided by previous experiments allowed for the development of longer temporary occupations, over several years. Some occupancy contracts were thus renewed, and several partnerships were developed outside Greater Paris. SNCF Immobilier has chosen to move away from a purely cultural and artistic theme, and to open up to more mixed uses. This has given rise to the emergence of increasingly ambitious temporary projects. One such is La Cité Fertile in Pantin (Fig. 10.3), a project opened in 2018 and scheduled to run until 2022, with an emphasis on ecology and sustainable development. Located within a former SNCF freight station, this one-hectare mixed occupation site includes catering areas, cultural events, a business incubator, a microbrewery and a school specialising in the development of these new temporary places. The site is managed by an operator who has specialised for several years in the creation

Fig. 10.3 La Cité Fertile in Pantin in 2018: a temporary project of one hectare to prefigure the arrival of an eco-district. Source Juliette Pinard

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of cultural and festive places, financed by catering activities. This temporary occupation prefigures the arrival of an eco-district project, which will be driven by the local authorities after the acquisition of SNCF-owned land. To date, this is the project that has involved the biggest investment in terms of preparation and financial input for SNCF Immobilier. It is taking place over a long period of five years and has led to a very significant physical transformation of the site. The implementation of the project depends on a technical steering committee that brings together a multiplicity of SNCF group actors involved in the management and enhancement of this particular site. In addition, the project is being carried out in collaboration with the local authorities way upstream, and new reflection on the integration of temporary occupation into the neighbourhood is emerging. During the inauguration of La Cité Fertile in 2018, this project is referred to by the CEO of SNCF Immobilier as a form of ‘accomplishment’ of their approach, as its implementation is influenced by a series of lessons learned from previous experiments. This learning process and the positive spin-off of these uses have led to the development of a more strategic view of temporary occupation. In fact, an increasingly precise view of the positive effects related to these temporary projects is gradually emerging within SNCF Immobilier. They are seen as important levers of communication and visibility for the new operator, with the general public, but especially with local authorities and real estate professionals. These transitional development projects afford a new way of perceiving these spaces under transformation with these future business partners, in a more positive light. From a closed and unoccupied space to an attractive and highly publicised place, these temporary occupations accompany the symbolic and physical transformation of these sites. These new types of projects also support the change management for SNCF Immobilier, by allowing the development of more horizontal and transversal modes of action within the group. The implementation of these projects leads to the creation of new working relationships and the transformation of working methods. Finally, these temporary occupations also back up the missions entrusted to SNCF Immobilier: staging the future urban project, getting ahead of it by carrying out studies upstream, creating positive mediation with local stakeholders, and so on. For SNCF Immobilier, temporary occupation is now considered as a new spacetime of project, before the arrival of the long-term urban project. The evolution of this reflection is manifest in a change in the way the approach is named, through the introduction of the term ‘transient urbanism’ in 2017. This choice followed a long period of reflection by the company on the term to use to describe these projects: ephemeral, temporary, intermediate urbanism, etc. The term transient urbanism was chosen because it introduced the idea of a shift, of support and of prefiguration of the transformation of the site before the arrival of an urban project. This semantic evolution can be analysed as the switch for SNCF Immobilier from temporary occupation to a more strategic urban and real estate project logic. Therefore, the action of SNCF in favour of temporary occupation since 2015 has contributed to the overall emergence of the concept of transient urbanism in France, while itself being strongly influenced by the context of growing interest for this practice by local authorities, urban planners and developers. This terminology has

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been taken up since 2017 by many other actors in urban production, for example by the Ile-de-France Region, followed by the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area. The development of transient urbanism has been supported by several urban planning institutions, through the production of reports dedicated to this new practice. A new public and private order is emerging thanks to the launch of several calls for projects and financial support. Transient urbanism is increasingly included in the responses of real estate operators to the major calls for innovative urban projects launched in France (Reinventing Paris, Inventing the Greater Paris Metropolis, etc.) and the development of new reflection on the urban issues associated with these uses. The development of transient urbanism is accompanied by a very strong desire to evaluate the impact generated by these transitional projects on neighbourhoods and on long-term urban projects. This search for evidence through evaluation is developing both among the new professionals of transient urbanism, and among institutions and owners, thus reflecting the current reflexion on the urban challenges raised by transient urbanism.

10.5 From Transient Urbanism to a Reflection on the Transformation of the City Over Time The development of SNCF Immobilier’s transient urbanism approach is based on the elaboration of its own internal expertise, combined with the external influence of a community of actors involved in the development of transient urbanism. SNCF Immobilier’s expertise in transitional urban development has developed as the experiments have been carried out. This expertise is spreading within the organisation through the professionalisation of more and more property managers and project leaders. The expertise also extends outwardly, and SNCF Immobilier is frequently called to share its experience and to show its temporary projects to delegations of local authorities, developers and so on. Several members of the company, including the CEO, are invited to participate in the increasing numbers of professional and public events dedicated to temporary or transient urbanism that have been organised in France since 2015, and to sit on juries evaluating temporary projects. The dissemination of SNCF Immobilier’s expertise is accompanied by moments of exchange with a plurality of stakeholders, which feed reflection within the company. In fact, the past five years have been marked by the formation of a new epistemic community around transient urbanism, composed of members who have expertise and recognised skills in this field (Meyer and Molyneux-Hodgson 2011). This community, of which SNCF Immobilier is part, is made up of architects, local authorities, non-profit associations, new transient urbanism professionals, researchers, town planners and a few developers, all of whom are advocates for the development of these uses. The crystallisation of this epistemic community took place notably on the occasion of the Venice International Biennale of Architecture in 2018, of which the SNCF was a major partner. The theme of the French pavilion was based on the concept

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of Infinite Places, promoting the reuse of buildings and the experimentation of new collaborative processes for the production of open and unfinished spaces.1 This was a key moment, bringing together in Venice stakeholders involved in the development of transient urbanism in France. It constituted a major moment of interaction contributing to the emergence and constitution of a common doctrine. The development of this joint reflection is continuing for SNCF Immobilier with the organisation of a conference in March 2019 dedicated to transient urbanism in Europe, in partnership with Plateau Urbain, a cooperative created in 2013, specialising in intermediation between property owners and temporary occupants. This conference was held during the MIPIM, an international exhibition for real estate professionals, where major urban and real estate projects are presented every year, from new shopping centres in Dubai to European skyscrapers. This conference crystallised the diffusion and promotion of transient urbanism in the field of real estate players, while demonstrating the importance that SNCF Immobilier grants to these projects. Thereafter, SNCF Immobilier is committed to develop a think tank in 2019, called ‘New Urbanities’, that materialises the community recently formed around transient urbanism. This group is engaged in a lobbying action in favour of temporary occupation and aims to change the legislative framework and practices in urban planning. In this context, transient urbanism has become a way for SNCF Immobilier to broaden its reflection on the transformation of cities of tomorrow. Transient urbanism is put forward as a means of responding to contemporary crises in cities, be they economic, humanitarian, ecological, social or other. Through these temporary projects, SNCF Immobilier intends, for example, to develop new discourse on the importance of the frugal city, the reuse of existing buildings, the circular economy, and so on. Temporary occupation is no longer seen as an end in itself, but as an opportunity to experiment and reflect on alternative ways of making the city. In this respect, new types of temporary projects have been emerging since 2018, for example through the creation of an underground urban farm in a vacant parking lot of the SNCF’s social landlord in Paris, or through SNCF Immobilier’s commitment to an experimental protocol focusing on temporary housing in partnership with a public financial institution, local authorities, transient urbanism professionals and emergency accommodation stakeholders. Within the company, this period also corresponds to the increasing structuring of the transient urbanism process within the company. We thus witness the development of new internal methodologies, the clarification of management processes and the creation of tools, in order to facilitate and promote the implementation of these transitional projects. The organisation of these processes follows a period of reflection on the future of the transient urbanism activity within SNCF Immobilier, based on studies in-house or commissioned from external consultants. The validation of a

1 Infinite

Places, French Pavilion—16th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, 2018.

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multi-year development plan for transient urbanism by the management committee demonstrates the recognition of the strategic issues raised by these projects, in the support of SNCF Immobilier’s urban and real estate activities.

10.6 Conclusion In this chapter, we have examined the development and organisation of SNCF Immobilier’s transient urbanism approach, which has revealed several processes at work. First, the SNCF case illustrates how a very large real estate owner and developer can use temporary occupation as a new tool for action within its strategy for managing and developing its assets. The development of temporary occupancy projects goes beyond the pragmatic issues of vacancy management and cost reduction, to become the support for broader strategic issues. In this case, transient urbanism has developed in step with the company’s evolution, from its creation, as a tool for visibility and differentiation, for supporting organisational change and the long-term transformation of its properties. The structuring of this approach illustrates the shift from temporary occupation in urban planning and real estate project practices, involving multiple strategic issues and informing new reflection by owners on the transformation of their property. Indeed, temporary projects are no longer just ‘a fashionable cultural trend’ (Madanipour 2017, p. 10) that benefit the owner, but become a way to expand the reflection of urban operators on new urban stakes and about the evolution of their own practices. For SNCF Immobilier, transient urbanism is the medium for a more long-term vision and supports the development of its new strategic positioning as a key player in urban transformation. Secondly, the example of SNCF Immobilier shows how these new types of projects transform the organisation of the company itself. SNCF Immobilier’s transient urbanism approach has been structured in an experimental and incremental way. Starting from improvisation, without clearly defined objectives or processes, the experimentation under several projects and the feedback from them has allowed the approach to evolve. This evolution is reflected in the transformation not only of the projects themselves (duration, activities, actors, objectives, etc.), but also in the way they are implemented. Within the company, there is a gradual organisation of methodologies, management processes and tools. These are contributing to the development of SNCF Immobilier’s new expertise on transient urbanism, as the technical, economic and organisational difficulties posed by these projects are overcome. However, the dissemination of this new expertise within the company has not been free of clashes and tensions. The development of transitional projects implies not only an acculturation of the company’s members, through an adaptation of their professional practices, but also the overcoming of negative representations associated with these temporary uses. Therefore, temporary occupation tends to become a new skill for some real estate and urban planning stakeholders, illustrating more broadly the current transformation of practices in these fields.

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More widely, the example of SNCF Immobilier’s transient urbanism approach illustrates the growing appropriation of temporary occupation in the professional practices of real estate and urban planning players in Greater Paris. This enthusiasm of public and private actors contributes to the dissemination of transient urbanism as reproducible good practice, supported by a recently formed epistemic community of actors. From temporary urbanism to transient urbanism, the emergence of this new notion illustrates an operational and semantic shift: temporary occupation tends to be considered as a strategic project, integrated into the process of long-term urban transformation. The temporary occupation becomes an urban project in itself, in support of the perennial project. The stakes of these projects are less about their temporary nature than about their transitory nature, allowing them to adapt to the constantly changing dimension of cities (Henneberry 2017). The spreading of transient urbanism within the real estate and urban planning sphere raises questions about the evolution of the professions and practices of urban production actors, from the property manager to the developer, including the planner. How does transitional planning allow for a renewal of urban planning and real estate methods? What changes do these reflect in the ways urban projects are designed?

References Adisson F (2017) From state restructuring to urban restructuring: the intermediation of public landownership in urban development projects in France. Eur Urban Reg Stud 25(4):373–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776417717308 Andres L, Grésillon B (2013) Cultural brownfields in European cities: a new mainstream object for cultural and urban policies. Int J Cult Policy 19(1):40–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632. 2011.625416 Andres L (2010) Reconquête culturo-économique des territoires délaissés: de l’importance du temps de veille et de ses acteurs transitoires. Méditerranée. J Mediterr Geogr 114(September):51–62. https://doi.org/10.4000/mediterranee.4342 Arab N (2008) À quoi sert l’expérience des autres? Bonnes pratiques et innovation dans l’aménagement urbain. Espaces et sociétés 131(February):33–47. https://doi.org/10.3917/esp. 131.0033 Colomb C (2012) Pushing the urban frontier: temporary uses of space, city marketing, and the creative city discourse in 2000 s Berlin. J Urban Aff 34(2):131–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j. 1467-9906.2012.00607.x Diguet C, Zeiger P, Cocquière A (2017) Temporary urbanism : Planning differently. 2017. Note rapide n°10, by the Paris Region Development And Urban Planning Institute. Accessed 1 June 2020. https://en.institutparisregion.fr/fileadmin/NewEtudes/Etude_1409/NR__10_web.pdf Gellereau M, Pdl Broise (2004) De l’atelier à l’atelier: La Friche Industrielle Comme Lieu de Médiation Artistique. Culture and Musées 4(1):19–35 Gravari-Barbas M, Jacquot S (2007) L’événement, outil de légitimation de projets urbains : l’instrumentalisation des espaces et des temporalités événementiels à Lille et Gênes. Géocarrefour 82(3). https://doi.org/10.4000/geocarrefour.2217 Henneberry J (ed) (2017) Transience and permanence in urban development. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ Kamvasinou K (2017) Temporary intervention and long-term legacy: lessons from London case studies. J Urban Des 22(2):187–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2015.1071654

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Kullmann C (2017) Street art events and their impact on urban redevelopment. Case study of Paris 13 Tower exhibition in the Paris Rive Gauche mixed development zone. In: The impact of artists on contemporary urban development in Europe, edited by Monika Murzyn-Kupisz and Jarosław Działek, 225–40. GeoJournal Library. Springer International Publishing, Cham https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-319-53217-2_10 Madanipour A (2017) Temporary use of space: urban processes between flexibility, opportunity and precarity. Urban Stud 55(5):1093–1110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017705546 Meyer M, Molyneux-Hodgson S (2011) Communautés épistémiques: une notion utile pour théoriser les collectifs en sciences? Terrains Travaux 18(1):141–154 Pinard J, Morteau H (2020) Professionnels de l’occupation temporaire, nouveaux acteurs de la fabrique de la ville? Du renouvellement des méthodes en urbanisme à l’émergence de nouveaux métiers. Revue Internationale d’Urbanisme 8 Acteurs professionnels de l’urbanisme, ici et là-bas, quoi de neuf? Pradel B (2010) Rendez-vous en ville! Urbanisme temporaire et urbanité évènementielle: les nouveaux rythmes collectifs. Phd thesis, Université Paris-Est. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel00546513/document Raffin F (1998) La mise en culture des friches industrielles: Poitiers, Genève, Berlin. Ministère de de l’Equipement, des Transports et du Logement Direction Générale de l’Urbanisme, de l’Habitat et de la Construction Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture Vivant E (2009) How underground culture is changing Paris. Urban Res Pract 2(2):36–52. https:// doi.org/10.1080/17535060902727041

Chapter 11

Activated Alleyways: Mobilising Clean and Safe Dwelling in Business Improvement Areas Debra Mackinnon

Abstract This chapter explores the role of Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) in the production and promotion of placemaking and activation. Since the 1970s, placemaking—a term generally used by architects and developers to describe design practices that bring personality to urban landscapes—has gained traction amongst governments, planners, and businesses as a tool for economic and social revitalization. BIAs, focused on the creation and management of value, have incorporated elements of broken windows policing into their mandates of “clean and safe”, beautification and place-making. In seeking to add value to their areas, BIAs have turned their attention to the “forgotten”, “inefficient” and “underutilized” spaces in cities. Alleyways, in particular, have become critical sites of intervention portrayed in need of “reclamation”, “revitalization” and “recovery”. However, for whom or what are these spaces being reclaimed? This chapter analyzes the mobility of activation scripts, as well as their granular application through the case of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association’s alleyway activation project “More Awesome Now”. Predicated on alleyways as multiple objects, these business-led reclamation and claims making projects attempt to stabilize use and design-out crime and disorder. By securing clean and safe dwelling in these areas, the activation of alleyways through the installation of hostile architecture extends the BIA brandscape, capturing public spaces for corporate use. Keywords Alleyway · Business improvement area · Placemaking · Mobile urbanism · Gentrification · Hostile architecture

11.1 Introduction Alleyways and micro-spaces are inherently urban “infrastructure”. [These] “insterstitial” spaces [serve as] the connective tissues that lies between private developments and developed public spaces with the urban built environment. Interstitial spaces are often there but D. Mackinnon (B) Department of Geography, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_11

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underutilized for lack of purpose or function. The perception of how we can use space is changing as cities strived to reclaim these in-between areas […] Urban Place Management Organizations [UPMO] can implement physical interventions that revitalize and activate what would otherwise be forgotten space. Reclaiming these valuable spaces creates a pedestrian friendly environment in urban cores and tackles numerous important urban planning objectives (International Downtown Association 2017, p. 7).

Business Improvement Areas (BIAs),1 a legislated form of public–private partnerships (PPP), have become a standard model for city building. An innovation of blending the expertise of new public management (NPM) with business acumen, BIAs were touted as a way to “provide a new functional answer to the dysfunctional features associated with […] downtown districts, such as poor transportation planning, unkempt streets, and ineffective downtown marketing initiatives” (Mitchell 2001, p. 203). Usually established in areas with a high density of existing commercial space, BIAs can be understood as privately governed, publicly sanctioned and specially funded geographic areas in which private tax practices (e.g. district levies) are implemented to extend municipal services (Brooks 2008; Hoyt and Gopal-Agge 2007; McCann and Ward 2012). While the extension of services varies by jurisdiction and area, BIAs’ broad mandates incorporate clean and safe and beautification programmes in order to create and maintain value in their areas (Mackinnon 2019). Effectively rebranding broken windows policing and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) as placemaking, BIAs engage in a range of crime control programmes (e.g. street cleaning, façade regeneration, graffiti removal, loss prevention, ambassadors and private security, etc.) and beautification projects (e.g. banners, flowers, light displays, art installations and activations, etc.). However, beyond the extension of services and being partially responsible for the liminal spaces between the public and private sphere, BIAs have turned to these “interstitial” spaces—alleyways and micro-spaces—as new sites for placemaking and value extraction. Inspired by the wave of “tactical urbanism, guerrilla urbanism, temporary urbanism, pop-up urbanism, insurgent urbanism” and other analogous terms (Finn 2014, p. 381), BIAs supplement and extend city services and city building through these micro-spatial practices (Iveson 2013). Already employing and enacting austerity logics of on-demand and in the meanwhile, (Ferreri 2015) found in the DIY urban movement, the corporatisation of these temporary practices by BIAs strengthens sense of place, promotes economic growth and reinforces their role in urban governance. For Ferreri (2015), the temporary magic of these temporary marketing and branding initiatives “keep up the pretense of constant urban growth” (p. 184).

1 Throughout

this chapter, the term BIA is used interchangeably with Urban Place Management Organisation (UPMO). Outside of the Canadian context, other UPMOs include Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Business Improvement Zones (BIZs) and Business Revitalisation Zones (BRZs).

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For example, while recognising the infrastructural purposes of alleyways as spaces for dumpsters, delivery and drainage, as well as associations with dirt, disorder and crime, BIAs have taken to changing the perceptions of these spaces. By extending the logics of clean and safe passage (Lippert 2007, 2012), alleyway activations are presented as a means of designing-out particular uses of the space and promoting clean and safe dwelling, and moreover consumption, albeit temporarily. For example, according to the International Downtown Association (IDA), “alley activations have the potential to address core UPMO issues, pedestrian experience or placemaking, prioritizing economic development, and improving safety for users and repairing ecological performance of existing infrastructure” (IDA 2017, p. 6). Alleyways, as described in the above quotes, are simultaneously multiple, but also “underutilised”, “unactivated”, “inefficient” and forgotten. In other words, BIAs promote a retailed treatment of alleyways as blank slates that conceptualise these interstitial spaces as being in need of “reimagining”, “reclaiming”, “revitalising” and “recovering”. But for whom, for how long and to what end? In order to analyse the logics and discourses of temporary urbanism and activation, this chapter draws on qualitative data collected from a larger project on BIA governance and placemaking.2 I contend that alleyways are cast as the latest urban frontier where value can be extracted. This activation is predicated on an understanding of alleyways as unstable multiple objects. As such, their (re)activation is a practice of ontological politics, which attempts to stabilise and legitimise multiple uses (e.g. a site for delivery and refuse collection while also a site for play, retail, etc.). However, it is also a limited multiple use, one that brands spaces as sites for consumption and consumers before other uses and users. This chapter begins with a historical discussion of alleyways and places theories of activation, in conversation with BIA and brandscape literature. From there I detail the multiple forms of mobility at play by unpacking alleyway activations as ideas made to move and made to make things move. These scripts of activation are contextualised using an empirical case study of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association’s (DVBIA) More Awesome Now alleyway activations. Specifically, I examine the rationalities of activation and articulation of its achieved status. I conclude that these corporate forms of placemaking and activation, by scripting uses and users of the space, may also amount to the (ongoing) activation of anti-homeless politics, which are far from temporary.

2 Specifically,

data collection and analysis for this chapter included document analysis of BIA focused placemaking and alleyway activation documents including reports and toolkits (some of which were purchased by the author), PowerPoint documents, news media dated between 2011 and 2019 (n: 58), attendance at annual BIA conferences and specific workshops/webinars concerning activation and placemaking (n: 6), participant observation in Vancouver, as well as interviews with BIA staff (n: 4).

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11.2 Alleyways as Places in the Making From the French word allée meaning small street, in the nineteenth-century North American context, alleyways were incorporated into urban planning with the widening of main streets for walking, transit and traffic (Ford 2001). Juxtaposed against impressive downtown facades, alleyways created a front and back dichotomy (Ford 2001). These backdoors of the city, obscuring spillover, mess and clutter, were used for refuse, wiring and other everyday infrastructure (Ford 2001; Martin 2001). Partially designed-out of the suburban context, in the twentieth century, the remaining urban alleyways became sites of concern (Ford 2001). For some, they represented the irrational and inefficient use of space and poor waste management (Hage 2008), and for others, they were seen as criminogenic spaces associated with crime and disorder (Borchert 1980; Brantingham and Brantingham 1993; Poyner 1983). Specifically, in the 1970s and 1980s, police and media portrayed alleyways as spaces of law evasion, stolen car disassembly, sex work, drug dealing and use and rough sleeping (Brantingham and Brantingham 1993; Ford 2001). These perceptions and associations with fear of crime continue to hail interventions. Despite the application of broken windows policing and CPTED (e.g. revitalisation and beautification, blocking points of access and entry, additional lighting and surveillance technologies, etc.), alleyways continue to be sites of target hardening. Specifically, alleyways are presented as in need of securing (Loukaitou-Sideris 1999), or in other cases, sites to be demolished or replaced (Franks et al. 2015). However, the betweenness (Entriken 1990), liminality (Jones and MorenoCarranco 2007) and interstitially (Ford 2011) of alleyways challenge their ability to be secured and placed (Lynch 1960)—both in a physical as well as in an ontological sense. As Imai (2013, 2017) argues, alleyways are often nameless, jurisdictionally unclear, public and private, dependent on the existence of other places, relationally understood, situated between the past and present and inherently multi-use. This instability, on the one hand, enables them to be sites of prefiguration and channels for various intellectual, artistic, cultural and economic and political discourses (Imai 2013). In a sense, alleyways act as an ordinary landscape and backdrop for everyday life, as well as understandings of it (Carmona et al. 2003, cited in Imai 2013). On the other hand, their transformation contains multiple narratives of change and negotiation, and the securing of this narrative is ontological and political. BIAs as urban entrepreneurial actors—concerned with creating and maintaining value—engage in revitalisation and placemaking by using a variety of programming and projects to bring personality to their areas (Ward 2007). In addition to meeting baselines of cleanliness and safety, this branding and knowledge production about their areas serves to strengthen their accounts of areas (Lippert 2012). For example, while ambassador programmes primarily promote hospitality and physical security, Lippert and Sleiman (2012) suggest that these BIA ventures also (re)produce understandings of the area and the city. These understandings not only justify downtown consumption, and larger NPM governance structures, but they also serve to legitimise their continued role or importance (Lippert and Sleiman

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2012). A mundane and unlikely urban assemblage, BIAs and their revitalisation activities require constant shaping and alignment (Lippert 2010; Mackinnon 2019). Although these programmes and forms of knowledge production may not always directly promote consumption, Lippert and Sleiman (2012) argue that they promote and thereby couple the governance and stewardship of public space with BIA efficiency. Theorising similar shaping and governing practices, Bookman and Woolford (2013) contend that BIZ beautification and security projects, as well as environmental design, are used to maintain a stable and safe image. This is similar to Murakami Wood and Ball’s (2013) discussion of brandscapes of control or securityscapes, where the brand itself becomes a source of policing. By ordering space and evoking a regulatory ideal, the BIA brand subsumes local cultural, spatial, social, economic and political practices in order to shape and co-produce urban renewal (Bookman and Woolford 2013). And by extension, these practices further urban gentrification, dispossession and supress others’ right to the city (Masuda and Bookman 2018).

11.3 Mobilising Alleyways: Multiple and Made to Move Reinvented alleys ways can become a “place” unto themselves rather than just a short cut. (IDA 2017, p. 12)

More than just a short cut or passage, through this reimagining process, alleyways become places to visit and dwell. Movement in and through the space is highly scripted, stabilising what the alleyway is, what it is for, and moreover, which uses of the spaces are allowed to remain. Beyond this straightforward sense of movement, alleyway activation functions as a vehicular idea (McLennan 2004; Peck 2012). The extension and expansion of these malls without walls (Graham and Marvin 2001) move the logics of BIAs in a local and global sense. Despite being spatially delineated through legislation, BIAs and their practices are not so straightforwardly placed, instead they are assembled and circulated through trans-urban policy pipelines (Cook and Ward 2012; Ward 2011). Rather than rigid templates, these policies and practices are made to travel well across a variety of contexts and often formulated with enough ambiguity to easily circulate between locations (McLennan 2004). In the process of circulation, this mutability of policies enables interpretation and reinterpretation between various actors and contexts (Cochrane and Ward 2012). Compelling stories, expert testimony and cases from around the world offer seemingly tested solutions. For Robinson (2013), “urban policy mobilities constitute cities and their futures – it is in the context of circulating policies that city managers, citizens and other actors frame their imagination about where cities are going and make city futures” (p. 2). A hot topic in these policy pipelines, alleyway activations have been the subject of many placemaking conference sessions, presentations, workshops, reports, toolkits, news reports and field excursions (see Anzilotti 2016; Fialko and Hampton 2014; Greco 2012; IDA 2017, 2019). Often drawing on community and practitioner work, temporary DIY urbanism is presented as a means of overcoming austerity urbanism

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(Ferreri 2015; Tonkiss 2013). Far from (once) grassroots guerrilla and community initiatives, the professionalisation of these practices (as exemplified by these travelling texts) offers the private sector a profitable solution to the increasingly splintered streetscape, which BIAs have had a clear hand in (re)producing (Graham and Marvin 2001). Throughout these texts, cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo, Melbourne and Chicago are frequently presented as paragons of successful alleyways or activations. Strikingly similar, almost interchangeable, testimonies are found in every guide: Many cities in the world have discovered this capability of alleys to stimulate public life, interpersonal commerce, and enhanced ecological function: Melbourne’s lanes dissect oversized blocks to create network for people places: Christchurch’s and Auckland’s lanes are loci of vibrant shopping, after work gathering and nightlife, Tokyo’s narrow shopping and market lanes are filled with 24 hours commerce; and Chicago’s residential alleys bring neighbours together while infiltrating storm water, keeping it out of overloaded sewers. (Rottle cited in Fialko and Hampton 2014, p. 2)

While explaining the granular and grounded contexts or characteristics of the spaces, these texts cast alleyways as both mutable immobiles (Guggenheim 2010) as well as immutable mobiles (Latour 1987). In other words, alleyways act as im/mutable im/mobiles (Guggenheim 2016)—fixed sites in themselves potentially amenable to change, as well as standards and templates able to keep their shape through a process of circulation. From the strong identities and bright colours of San Francisco’s alleyways, to the retail hubs enabled by Melbourne’s disruptive laneways, to the green alley initiatives of Chicago and Seattle, these downtown innovations serve as case studies and best practices. Predominantly, North American projects of (re)claiming urban commercial alleyways, these placemaking texts and toolkits—taking inspiration from old European cities, Japan’s urban roji (alleys) or other aforementioned places—conjure and claim romanticised, exoticised and imagined geographies. Dislocated and appropriated from their diverse histories, communities and cultures, the corporate commodification of alleyways distils their discernible, innovated and valued features for export. In other words, they are cast as flat architypes or almost non-places (Augé 1995), which when assembled in BIAs create a hybrid, third space (Oldenburg 1989) or personality (Ward 2007). Despite making reference to atmospheres, immutable and immobile qualities of these exemplary alleyways, their mobile features are presented as scripts or recipes—add and/or remove x, y, z ingredient(s) in order to activate the space. Alleys are places of drama-enticing in their narrow linearity, exciting in their perceived risk, and scaled as stage sets, where the human body figures large against a constrained backdrop and directed lighting. Alleys are also quintessentially about movement, whether by individuals perambulating and pedaling, vehicles accessing business backdoors, or water flowing from rooftop drains. With this excitement, potential for human encounter, and utility in moving people, merchandise and water through the urban fabric, alleys possess compelling potential to produce a vibrant secondary public realm that might also help to repair the ecological performance of our cities. (Rottle cited in Fialko and Hampton 2014, p. 2)

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From physical improvements to marketing initiatives, a reoccurring list of elements is recommended for successful activations. Usually referencing the permanence, budget and type of alleyway project, these recommendations predominately offer a range of improvements. These improvements focus on value creation and capitalise on the liminal and multiple-use nature of the space, especially in terms of everyday and critical infrastructure. For instance, it is recommended that new pavement should be both strong enough to withstand delivery trucks, while also being potentially reflective and porous to reduce heat island and runoff effects. In alignment with existing BIA initiatives and CPTED practices, lighting is frequently cited as the most visible and effective improvement for alleyways, as it can discourage crime, promote security and further clean and safe passage. With images and illustrations of lanterns and large installations found throughout these texts, other features such as canopies, are recommended as a physical means of creating atmosphere and personality. Similar to the justifications behind lighting, practitioners also recommend (re)opening up back facades of buildings to increase lines of sight, surveillance and transparency. By drawing on examples from outside of North America, these “alterative entrances” script movement through the alleyway into places of business. More than creating movement through these spaces to businesses, many of these physical features are meant to promote particular forms of gentrified dwelling in alleyways, which is used as a measure of engagement and the “reclamation of public space”. For example, while explicitly not promoting the dwelling of “unwanted populations”, the addition of street furniture is usually described as moveable and temporary (e.g. pop-up cafes or parklets). Often these are forms of hostile architecture, such as short divided benches that are locked-up or taken down at night. Both infrastructural, aesthetic and environmental, green initiatives are presented as means of urban reclamation. Plants and gardens not only offer shelter (similar to canopies) but also improve air quality, drainage and urban ecosystems. In combination with marketing and branding, such as naming the alleyway or creating specific programming (e.g. yoga, sports, markets, etc.), these features claim the space, thus furthering the BIA brandscape. These BIA-led initiatives of “reclamation” and “revitalisation” while invoking publicness and environmental sustainability are nevertheless economic ventures. Responsible to their member businesses, alleyway activation promotes consumption in the BIA and raises their prominence. To restate Robinson’s above question “where are cities going?”, in light of these im/mutable im/mobiles, heuristically what does Melbourne, Tokyo or Seattle look like in Vancouver?

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11.4 DVBIA’s Alley Oop Activation: Painted Pavements and Malls Without Walls After a public engagement process3 in 2015, the DVBIA in partnership with HCMA (an architecture and design group), the City of Vancouver and member businesses, concluded that people wanted more activated alleyways4 and launched More Awesome Now. This ongoing project consists of three alleyways in Downtown Vancouver—Alley Oop, Ackery’s Alley and Alberni Alleyway. With over 240 publicly owned laneways, the DVBIA presented laneways explicitly as a means of reclaiming land that is at once “valuable and scarce”, while also “off limits to development” (see DVBIA 2017a). The DVBIA called attention to Vancouver’s “distinctive grid” and its unintended inefficiencies and suggested that the reclamation of alleys would increase pedestrian traffic and transform underutilised space (DVBIA 2017a). As explained by the DVBIA President and CEO: Laneways serve an important business function, but for a big part of the day they are underused and full of potential. So we asked, if we make our lanes more appealing, could they become public spaces? More Awesome Now is an experiment in turning laneways into places of discovery – friendly, accessible, and lively parts of the urban streetscape. (HCMA 2016a)

As depicted in the initial designs (see HCMA 2016a), to the DVBIA, alleyways were reimagined as spaces for play, adventure and dwelling. Reimagining and reconfiguring these utilitarian corridors as vibrant recreational, commercial, and performance spaces injects a new type of fine-grain activity into the urban commons, increasing the public pedestrian area of the city by as much as 30 per cent! Over time, this could develop into a robust network of interconnected lanes, each with its own sense of place and continually evolving identity. (DVBIA 2018, p. 8) 3 Downtown Vancouver Reimagined was led by the DVBIA in partnership with Simon Fraser University Public Square and included 1129 respondents providing input into future planning in downtown Vancouver for 2040. Respondents included DVBIA members and stakeholders—based on listed partners—I assumed stakeholders were predominately residential and commercial property development groups. The report outlines (1) the online survey method, (2) the convenience sample and (3) stresses the lack of statistical significance. However, given the private access to the survey and membership/stakeholder criteria, this sampling is arguably purposive. Furthermore, throughout surrounding documents, this data often carries connotations of representativeness. And even more concerning, in multiple conference presentations and media releases the sample is often inflated to 11,000 respondents (which also boast further claims of significance). For example, in their IDA award press release they claim, “More than 11,000 Vancouverites surveyed said they wanted downtown Vancouver to be home to a connected series of activated alleyways – welcoming spaces with hidden gems to discover, including galleries, restaurants, and art walls where graffiti and visual storytelling are welcomed” (DVBIA 2017b). While perhaps a typo, or confusion between number of respondents and number of responses to the total number of questions, this repeated presentation of non-representative data is misleading. 4 Specifically, this finding was based on 686 responses to a closed-ended question “Q11. What kinds of fun and entertainment would you like to have in downtown Vancouver in 2040? Please select up to three things you’d like to see most in the future?” In response to this question 62% ranked “Activated back alleys with cafes, tiny shops, and galleries” as one of potentially three selections (DVBIA 2015, p. 52).

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Fig. 11.1 Alley Oop activation

Like the other projects, they drew inspiration from Tokyo, Melbourne, Chicago, Seattle and Montreal. The DVBIA frequently used images from each city, which displayed large crowds, bright art installations, graffiti, elaborate lighting, furniture, plants and open permeable pavements with a diversity of programming, brands and advertising. At once representing distinct and now iconic places, the interchangeability of these images, especially when presented repeatedly at conferences, exemplifies their commodification as vehicular ideas and im/mutable mobiles. Conceived of as an aspirational project that will inspire others, More Awesome Now was positioned as a cohesive strategy and another case study on par with iconic alleyways. The guiding principles of this project included transforming perceptions and experiences of public spaces, maintaining permanent and semi-permanent installations, creating a clean and safe environment which retains elements of grist and risk, and is also beneficial and inclusive (DVBIA 2018, p. 17). In order to further justify their project, onboard stakeholders and demonstrate return on investment, the DVBIA engaged in further data collection to craft a compelling account (Simakova and Neyland 2008) for their first activation Alley Oop, —located behind 688 West Hastings between Seymour and Granville (see Fig. 11.1). Impressions such as smells (e.g. garbage, urine, cigarettes, coffee, pastry and curry) vehicle traffic (e.g. number, type and purpose), pedestrians (e.g. assumed gender) and sounds (e.g. loud trucks, buskers) were recorded throughout the day.5 Specifically, traffic and the gender of lane users became key indicators of, or proxies for, inefficiencies and perceptions. Noting a 3:1 ratio of men to women, they concluded “less women = less safe or the perception of less safe” (DVBIA 2017a, p. 50; DVBIA 2018, p. 15). These assumptions were based on a generalised 5 See

page 15 in DVBIA (2018) for more measures and indicators.

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Fig. 11.2 Elements of Alley Oop activation

perception of fear projected onto an alleyway in the central business district, which crafted a compelling case for this improvement project. An 18-month project, the “activated space” exhibits many of the aforementioned “successful” elements—with distinctive, painted (pink, yellow and purple) walls and pavement, a lighting installation, programming (e.g. basketball court, photo opportunities), pop-up cafes and a clear cohesive brandscape (see Fig. 11.2).6 The DVBIA considered the activation successful due to the noteworthy aesthetic elements, increased pedestrian traffic, scripted dwelling time in the space, positive perceptions and multiple uses of the space. For example, post-activation more women entered the space, shifting the ratio to roughly 2:3 (women to men) from the baseline ratio of 1:3 (DVBIA 2017a, 2018). Furthermore, post-activation data collection found that people spent 15–30 min in the space, engaging in travel, photography, smoking and basketball (DVBIA 2017a). Predicated on a recognition of alleyways as multiple objects, this activation attempts to secure the corporate and value-creating features of the space and in doing so eclipses other uses and users.

11.5 What is Being Activated? Placemaking and these design features serve as inscription devices (Akrich 1992) or spatial scripts (Mackinnon and Richardson 2017). Attempts to stabilise what alleyways are and what they are used for align with frontier and revanchist politics (Smith 6 See #moreawesomenow on Instagram and Twitter, as well as HCMA (2016b) for additional images.

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1996). Consistently using discourses of reclamation, in tandem with the quantification and assessment of the public laneways in their areas, the DVBIA expanded their territory—albeit inwardly. Under the guise of promoting public space, businesses and corporatising interests captured and further colonised these remaining spaces as sites for value creation and extraction. With patios wrapping around into the alleyway, activation in these spaces serves to extend the consumption of goods, services and the BIA brandscape. Alleyways, when activated, homogenise the space under their brandscape. The focus on pedestrian traffic and use of the space, presented as a measure of public use and engagement, also scripts activity around consumption in the alleyway and surrounding area. More than granting clean and safe passage through alleyways, their activation promotes the clean and safe dwelling of business and consumers, re(enforcing) the use of the space. In other words, like BIA clean and safe programmes, these beautification and branding exercises secure and claim the space. In essence, painting the pavement physically demonstrates the scope of these malls without walls and their colonising logics. Furthermore, by attempting to create a permanent installation, this alleyway activation stakes a claim to city property and places it under the purview and care of the BIA. From painting the pavement to offering programming in the space, the DVBIA established its longstanding involvement with activation, and its maintenance of the alleyway has become an ongoing project. For instance, between the wear and tear of users, service vehicles and graffiti, the alley requires repeated repainting and at times private security. Presented as a form of temporary urbanism, the logics, moreover the intentions behind the activation, are far from temporary. Similar to other discourses of reclamation, the DVBIA characterised the alleyway as “underused”, yet simultaneously considered “is there already a community of users that would be displaced?” (DVBIA 2018, p. 11). However, the invocation of “community” (as measured by counting cars and pedestrians) furthered these blank slate logics, as users not accounted for with this metric were made not to count. By stabilising what is considered use, this ontology also legitimated displacement. The BIA branding of the space as a place for play wedged between two office buildings distanced its use from the usual BIA slogan of “live, work, play”. And while a successful activation of the space was focused on activity or staying (dwelling) in the place, understandings of this were also reimagined in terms of value. More than ensuring clean and safe passage, this desire to have consumers dwell (temporarily) was intended to discourage and displace other users and uses of the space. Despite a human-interest article written by a member of the project team—telling the story of Rob, a man experiencing homelessness who appreciated the activation and saw it as a space where he was included (see Busse 2017)—inclusivity was not the intention in many cases. As explained by a DVBIA staff member, at times this displacement was purposeful: We’re big proponents of place maintenance. For example, our alley activations – it was one of our bad alleys where we had a lot of activities and drugs. So, “what can we add, what other components can we put in the mix?” These reimagined spaces bring something else to the city, but they also have clear results. Something as simple as lights help crub public urination and promote hygienic spaces.

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While wanting to maintain some of the grit and sense of risk—by romanticising danger—in practice, these were sanitising activities. In reference to another placemaking initiative in their area, one DVBIA staff member described activation as a means of scripting behaviours and designing-out undesirable ones: It activates the space. It’s a huge issue, people sleeping in front of the doors and causing nuisance behaviour. That’s our way of bringing more to the area. [For instance] there is a derelict building, it has been there for a long time. We used a placemaking approach and put our tables and chairs. Making it a place for people to sit, maybe eat their lunch. Changing how people use the space.

Unlike more controversial move-along policing, which was the subject of a 2008– 2012 Human Rights tribunal case launched against the DVBIA (see Burgmann 2015), the activation of alleyways and other liminal spaces offers much softer forms of policing by brand (Bookman and Woolford 2013). For instance, the bright pink wall, distant from other forms of hostile architecture, nonetheless sanitises and orders the space. Rather than a temporary activation, the logics and narrowing ontology of the space are perniciously permanent. Activation and DIY urbanism may have interesting roots in community development, and once commodified these vehicular ideas and im/mutable im/mobiles extend the BIA brandscape and logics through the splintered streetscape and transurban policy pipelines. Rather than a new urban politics, these corporate-lead projects reinforce entrepreneurial and neoliberal logics. Circulating on a global scale, and dislocated from context, communities and histories, texts and tools provide instruction to organisations—organisations which to many city dwellers remain unknown or mundane. However, in the name of “saving” and “reclaiming” public space, these consumption-centred projects combine new and old forms of colonisation and gentrification, as well as strengthening BIAs’ claims to alleyway and by extension the city. Presented as temporary, corporate-led activations reinforce longstanding (ontological) politics. While requiring ongoing maintenance, these forms of claims making, policing and stewardships may pave the way for further corporate governance and city building. Like the connection between broken windows policing and placemaking, activation, rather than being temporary, serves to stabilise similar exclusionary practices.

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Chapter 12

Debating Temporary Uses and Post-crisis Rationales in Barcelona and Budapest Luca Sára Bródy

Abstract As a corollary of the global financial crisis of 2008, vacancy has become, once again, a visible and politically significant issue, playing a key role in determining how cities respond to both local and wider global challenges. Temporary use practices have been the focus of attention from scholars who have analysed them as both sites of resistance, but also as practices that enable neoliberal modes of governance. In the following chapter, I argue for a different focus on temporary use practices. The aim of this chapter is to explore post-crisis demands and unfold if and how these are attached to values of social justice and equity. The empirical fieldwork has been carried out in two European cities: Barcelona and Budapest. Methodologically, this study emerged from a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews and non-participatory observation of city council policies introduced after the crisis offering a public competition for the temporary use of vacant municipal sites. The two cities provide different contexts for analysis, Barcelona being a post-austerity Mediterranean city, and Budapest a post-socialist Eastern European city, offering examples outside of the mainstream Anglo-American literature and metanarratives of neoliberalising cities. Keywords Temporary use · Public space · Urban regeneration · Citizen participation

12.1 Introduction Vacant land has always been a by-product of urban planning practices, bounded by more powerful spaces with a stronger identity and institutional basis. However, rather than being a passive component of the city, vacant sites can be seen as a means to fulfil aesthetic and political demands (Brighenti 2016) through various reuses. Vacancy has become, once again, a visible and politically significant issue in many cities due to the effects of the financial crisis of 2008. As financial and real estate L. S. Bródy (B) Institute for Regional Studies, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Békéscsaba, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_12

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speculation has brought the economy to a meltdown, stalled spaces and unfinished sites have become the centre of attention of policymakers and politicians as well as a range of other actors, such as cultural and grassroots organisations, political activists and urban scholars. For that reason, vacant spaces provide a lens to analyse how various social agents translate urban problems and wider global challenges into everyday practices. Special attention has been given to the rise of temporary use practices, where public space management is appropriated by, or handed over to, civil society organisations and communities for a limited amount of time, fostering low-cost revitalisation solutions. The focus of this chapter covers post-crisis city council programmes that initiated a public competition for the reuse of publicly owned vacant sites and opened possibilities for citizens to participate in urban regeneration on a temporary basis. Empirical fieldwork was carried out for three different reasons in two European cities: Barcelona and Budapest. First, to understand how the inclusion of civil society is enacted through temporary use policies in different contexts. Second, although institutionalised practices on temporary uses in Europe have been collected before on more elaborate policies—mainly in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands and Germany (cf. Haydn and Temel 2006; Bishop and Williams 2012; Oswalt et al. 2013)—there is a lack of exploration of more “peripheral” cities in terms of the European debate. Third, the two cities provide different contexts for analysis, both being a young democracy, Barcelona as a post-austerity Mediterranean city and Budapest as a post-socialist Eastern European city, which greatly differ from the mainstream Anglo-American literatures and metanarratives of neoliberalising cities. Methodologically, this chapter emerged from a qualitative study based on 40 interviews conducted with city officials, experts and civic initiatives involved in the temporary use of municipal vacant spaces. Additionally, an overview of the programmes was established through desk research: city department websites were consulted, followed by the specific blogs and websites of the implemented projects.

12.2 Temporary Use of Vacant Spaces: Beyond Contestation and Co-optation New modes of governance (Swyngedouw 2005) opened up possibilities for a heterogeneous group of actors to target urban social problems of poverty, inequality, exclusion and urban decay, and a variety of problems have attracted different levels of decentralisation and experimentation in all European cities, welcoming greater participation from citizens. The emphasis on citizen participation and the salience of community as a major concept (cf. Rose 1999) in urban policy strategies mark the new era of combining bottom-up initiatives with top-down policies (Eizaguirre et al. 2012), introducing new institutional practices. Initiatives are taking place on a local scale, with citizens more and more engaged in reshaping urban spaces through regeneration strategies.

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The temporary uses of vacant and underused urban space can be seen, first, as an opportunity, first and foremost, aiming to offer alternative social practices, with the vacant urban space functioning as community spaces, inviting the wider neighbourhood or population. Amidst the increased commodification of urban space, these sites may provide laboratories for urban dwellers to assemble and articulate their desires for alternative arrangements of political and social relations (Groth and Corijn 2005; Pickerill and Chatterton 2006; Novy and Colomb 2013), “contesting the very order of the city” (Iveson 2013, p. 955). Second, temporary uses have the potential to create new common areas, giving new meaning to urban spaces by fostering change in ownership arrangements, augmenting municipal infrastructure in public space, additionally responding to the unmet needs of citizens (Iveson 2013; Finn 2014; Tardiveau and Mallo 2014). These collective spaces not only provide a platform for shared interests, but also an “ongoing common production, a wealth of everyday, non-monetary exchange and circulation” (Bresnihan and Byrne 2015, p. 10), departing from the traditional understanding of what is private and public. Third, vacant land provides experimentation for proposing more flexible policies and legal frameworks through temporary uses. Andres (2013) stressed how important it is for the state to change its perspective from a regulatory role to a more active one, where bottom-up users act more freely, in order to let emerging approaches explore the potential of temporary uses. The power shift that temporary uses may bring about is thought to represent an opportunity for citizens to participate better in decision-making processes (Blumner 2006; Németh and Langhorst 2014). On the other hand, Brenner and Theodore (2002), debating temporary use of vacant space on a national and international level account, state that neoliberalisation unfolds through various mechanisms, which include the increasing competitiveness of cities, and the promotion of entrepreneurial discourses in urban revitalisation. The re-regulation of urban civil society affects entitlement to basic social services, and new policies are introduced to combat social exclusion. Furthermore, the reconfiguration of the institutional infrastructure of local governments delegates former governmental tasks to voluntary community groups and new, networked forms of local governance are rolled out. In relation to temporary uses, critical scholars (Peck 2005; Andres 2013; Tonkiss 2013) emphasised the re-representations of the city in which a mobilisation of entrepreneurial discourses with a focus on revitalisation are advocated. In times of crises, abandoned lands and halted construction sites carry no value for planners, politicians and city officials, as investment and profit-making opportunities are scarce (Colomb 2012). Subsequently, temporary uses provide a way to amend city marketing strategies, especially by the creation of “creative spaces”, encouraging bottom-up solutions to revitalise areas in decay. Ghose (2005) pointed out the ambiguity of new forms of collaborative governance: public–private partnerships can be perceived both as more inclusive planning and a “means of disciplining citizens through manageable forms of citizen participation, whereby urban spaces as sites of resistance are eroded and power relations remain unchallenged” (2005, p. 64). As community-based voluntary organisations are often

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included in a consensus-seeking process, local governments use them to gain acceptance of urban development goals in the neighbourhood. Movements help authorities to solve “fiscal as well as legitimation problems, and the movements shifted their strategies ‘from protest to program’ in order to put their alternative practice onto a more stable footing” (Mayer 2009, p. 364). Last but not least, scholars pointed out that urban regeneration policies through temporary uses are often written for the rules of competition, focusing on leisure and consumption or the redevelopment of neighbourhoods for the middle class, and foreign investment (Mayer 2013; Tonkiss 2013). The policy discourse on social cohesion allows local governments to mobilise communities in order to empower them, while “concepts such as equality or social justice are replaced by an emphasis on belonging, inclusion, participation, recognition, legitimacy, governance, absence of conflict or co-responsibility” (Eizaguirre et al. 2012, p. 2007). The role of local citizens in urban transformations thus can be understood as a result of the tendency that “the civil society concept has come to represent less rights-oriented democratic politics than merely an anti-statist appendage for the ‘compassionate’ side of market society” (Somers 2005, p. 17), adjusting to entrepreneurial discourses and rules of the market, delegating the governmental task of urban development onto voluntary groups and organisations. Often, temporary users, such as squatters, are not the ones benefitting from the projects in the end (Holm and Kuhn 2011). Instead of representing temporary uses as opportunities for contestation, or merely a tool for neoliberal governance, the following analysis of post-crisis rationales highlights the varying contextual characteristics and pathways of development that permeate the narratives of temporary uses of vacant and underused municipal sites. I focus on certain differences between the two cities under study, Barcelona and Budapest; these are exhibited in the role of citizen participation in urban governance, the strength of social movements and the political climate. These characteristics greatly influence the capability to form and implement post-crisis rationales, and whether temporary uses can serve as a basis for more transformative practices.

12.3 Barcelona and Budapest in Context The current post-crisis rationales of capitalist development in Barcelona and Budapest have been shaped by three different factors: the role of citizen participation in urban governance, the strength of social movements and the political climate after the crisis. The emblematic “Barcelona model” has emerged from a context where two challenges were concurrent: after an authoritarian regime ruling until 1975, the transition to democracy first had to deal with the strengthening of local governments, and second, find the means to deliver social welfare and key public services. The politicaleconomic leadership at the time realised that complex challenges can be faced only through co-governance with civil society (Blakeley 2005). Consequently, participation of citizens concentrated on the co-creation of public spaces and improving

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urban environments. However, scholars argued it often failed to involve the most vulnerable groups (Parés et al. 2017) and that developments did not focus on the benefit of local citizens, triggering gentrification (Balibrea 2001). The emerging new discourses on urban planning included the importance of the historic city, the reclaiming of public spaces, integrating urban planning with architecture, and the idea of tackling urban problems through regeneration and community facilities (Monclús 2003). The emphasis on the development of public spaces aimed to bring about the “promotion of social cohesion, and to answer civic groups’ demands that spaces should be created for civic and political participation” (Degen and García 2012, p. 1025). Budapest, following a different urban governance path, has experienced transformation from a state socialist to liberal democratic arrangement in 1990, which created new power relations and the remake of the role of local authorities in addressing challenges and defining new urban policies. The welcoming of market principles in a postsocialist city where central distribution dominated resulted in an accelerated privatisation, involving collective goods such as public spaces (Bodnár 2001). Furthermore, the reconfiguration of the local municipal system added to growing inequalities that privatisation gave rise to, rendering local government capacity weak and in dire need of financial resources (Vigvári 2011). As a consequence, mass privatisation served as a solution to the lack of resources for urban regeneration, relying mainly on physical renewal. Besides the abandonment of urban policy issues by local governments, the inclusion of citizens in democratic arrangements remained less institutionalised, since the market occupied a prominent role. Nevertheless, after the European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004, policymakers in Budapest increasingly integrated social and cultural aspects into urban regeneration programmes. Policies targeted the “integration of deprived neighbourhoods through diverse social, economic and cultural programmes” (Keresztély and Scott 2012, p. 1123), as part of the incoming EU funds. Yet, the efforts to regain public involvement received strong criticism of being either too weak or corrupt (Tosics 2006). As the development of decision-making processes remained rather closed (Földi 2006), the capacity for having effective interaction between local governments and citizens was quite limited. Whereas urban governance in Barcelona focused on the provision of welfare services with a strong collaborative public-civic involvement, Budapest solved its transitional crisis with mass privatisation, and a civil society highly dependent on political volatility. Civil society in Barcelona consists of community groups and social movements with a historically long presence, including three main groups: the neighbourhood associations of the 1960s–1970s, the civic sector containing a strong network of social organisations based on volunteerism and urban social movements criticising the “Barcelona model” and the neoliberalisation of the city (Parés et al. 2017). These groups have kept a strong relationship with local governments, exemplifying at times a more cooperative approach, while other times a more conflictive nature. Grassroots concerns in Budapest, on the other hand, are typically steered through professional and civil society organisations. The new democratic elite sustained an informal, but close relationship with local civil society initiatives that formed after the system change, and institutional experiences were traditionally

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scarce. The transition to liberal democracy led to rhapsodic and unpredictable relationships between partnerships, and also certain competitiveness where civil society organisations have been included in the political exercise of power (Szalai et al. 2017). Consequently, despite the presence of dynamic civil society activism in Budapest, the inclusion of citizens in urban policymaking is highly vulnerable to political change. In the outbreak of the 2008 financial global crisis, the formal arrangements for citizen participation in Barcelona were weakened. However, the crisis and the 15M (anti-austerity) movement from 2011 onwards have strengthened participative dynamics and started to counter the implemented austerity measures in the city. The dynamic of these movements is indicated by the fact that the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) co-founder, Ada Colau and her supporting platform, Barcelona in Common (BeC—Barcelona en Comú) have been successful in winning the local municipal elections in 2015. BeC stands for a new form of democratic governance, where citizens are at the centre of focus, offering a leftist answer to social justice ideals while despising corrupt political classes, promoting high levels of transparency (Charnock and Ribera-Fumaz 2017). Being part of the global network of “rebel cities”, Ada Colau is considered to show a strong commitment to resist rightpopulist agendas (the city council was led by conservatives between 2011 and 2015) and holds a strong mandate for participatory democracy. Meanwhile, in Budapest, the crisis has been followed by the failure of the leftistliberal coalition and from 2010 brought to power the right-wing Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz—Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége), pushing through a conservative reconceptualisation of public policy. In 2014, the parliamentary election gave another two-thirds majority to Fidesz, and prime minister Viktor Orbán promised to turn away from Western European ideals such as liberalism, while strengthening conservative morals and favouring the upper and middle class in urban policymaking (Akçalı and Korkut 2015; Pósfai and Jelinek 2019). Furthermore, civil society suffered from a growing distrust by the population, as Fidesz pinpointed foreign-funded nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and activist groups and their domestic alliance impersonated by the leftist-liberal political-economic elite as a threat to the country’s sovereignty (Majtényi et al. 2018), increasing the political divide among civil society groups.

12.4 Emerging Discourses on Temporary Use The reuse of vacant and underused sites itself is not a new phenomenon, but receives greater attention when the economy goes down, and constructions come to a halt. Therefore, it is a useful lens to look at how discourses and practices change or get emphasised in urban regeneration. Although different traditions in vacant space reuse existed in both cities before the crisis, the institutionalisation and introduction of temporary use policies were characteristic of post-crisis rationales, with different approaches to the reuse of vacant municipal stock.

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In the case of Barcelona, the growing number of empty spaces and increasing evictions were a consequence of the bursting construction bubble. Foreclosures were widespread all over the city, affecting working-class as well as middle-class citizens, due to loose credit requirements in the pre-crisis years, aggravated by post-crisis unemployment (Blanco et al. 2016). The crisis raised several bottom-up initiatives where neighbourhood and local civic initiatives were occupying unused and vacant lots, many of which were left to deteriorate. At the time, self-organised local communities and autonomous forms of organisation became more visible on the urban level. Although the reappropriation of empty urban spaces has its own historical trajectory in Barcelona, the crisis acted as a catalyst to revive these practices and spread them across the city. One of the prominent institutionalised practices in Barcelona so far has been the Pla BUITS project (BUITS is the acronym for Vacant Urban Spaces with Territorial and Social Involvement), which offers temporary social and community use of currently underused municipal land. The aim of the programme was to avoid unwanted uses and social exclusion, providing an opportunity to invite different stakeholders in the regeneration and revitalisation of marginalised spaces through empowerment and active participation of citizens. Pla BUITS can be considered an institutional reaction to the demands of new urban movements that took off after the crisis, reclaiming unused spaces of the city. The idea of the programme was to offer a public tender for private and public non-profit actors to make use of 20 predesignated areas in the ten districts, to carry out social or cultural activities. The call expected citizens to propose various temporary uses (lasting up to three years) and offer activities for these sites. The scheme took into consideration aspects of sharing and responsibility, and also the provision of social and community value to the neighbourhood. The first call was announced in 2012 under the conservative government (CiU—Convergencia i Unió), and the winning proposals started setting up the sites in 2013. Figure 12.1 provides examples of the realised projects. In Budapest, vacant municipal stock first became the target of privatisation waves during the 1990s and early 2000s. As part of the early 2000s wave, several empty inner-city buildings went under a process of commercialisation and were gradually turned into bars and clubs as part of the growing nightlife tourism (Lugosi et al. 2010). Subsequently, the participation of citizens in the management of public land and buildings was not typical in the city. Budapest first embraced the emerging discourse of citizen inclusion in vacant municipal space reuse when a progressive chief architect became head of the Urban Planning Department of the city from 2012 onwards and initiated programmes that were based on the input of civil groups and NGOs. By progressive, I here refer to a political tendency leaning towards the “Europeanisation” of policies, which in the Hungarian professional environment is considered as a positive concept for remaking urban regeneration policies based on principles of innovation and sustainability. Although the central government called for a turn away from Western European ideals, policies based on Western examples have been adopted to the Hungarian context even afterwards. However, policy experiments did not overwrite public policy goals, but rather functioned as an additional element to them.

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Fig. 12.1 Pla BUITS 2012 project examples (Barcelona, 2016): social centre with soup kitchen and vegetable garden (top left), communal/cultural space with various events (top right), community gardening project (bottom left), guarded bike park and repair service (bottom right). Source Author

The temporary use initiative of the Municipality of Budapest was called “Rögtön jövök!” (Coming soon!), launched in 2013. This project targeted the temporary use of vacant municipal retail spaces in the inner city (see Fig. 12.2). Here, throughout

Fig. 12.2 Rögtön Jövök! campaign posters at a vacant retail shop (Budapest, 2013). Source rogtonjovok.hu

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a month, applicants could either plan an awareness-raising logo for the empty shops or use it for art installations and to sell their own products, with the aim of bringing potential users and owners closer together. The call was born out of the collaboration of the Municipality of Budapest with KÉK (Contemporary Architecture Centre), an architect organisation dealing with urban issues since 2006. KÉK already managed a project concerning vacant urban spaces in the city, entitled Lakatlan (meaning unoccupied), advocating temporary use practices for vacant and underused sites. Lakatlan aimed to promote small-scale community and non-profit projects that could make use of the spaces to address local need, and to be able to achieve an affordable rent for their projects. The initiatives usually targeted social cohesion, quality of life and local economic development (Polyák and Oravecz 2015; Oravecz et al. 2016). In addition, KÉK organised a yearly festival of open shops between 2014 and 2016, a pop-up event during which the temporary use of vacant shops could be rented for a month by different local initiatives. The involvement of KÉK aimed to serve the goal of mediating between bottom-up initiatives and top-down planning practices.

12.5 Post-crisis Rationales: Seeking Urban Commons and Promoting Placemaking In the Catalan capital, the new “municipalist” movement aimed to encourage grassroots and activist groups to take action themselves, instead of inquiring about their demands. Parallel to the growing austerity measures that have been implemented since 2010, there has been a re-emergence of community solidarity with the support of civil society and religious NGOs, mostly at the neighbourhood level (Eizaguirre et al. 2017), reinforcing traditional patterns of family and neighbourhood networks (García 2010). At the time, various organisations opted for a more democratic urban regeneration, fostering participative processes. The governance of BeC from 2015 onwards resembled these dynamics, although citizen mobilisation to reuse abandoned spaces was not uncommon to the citizens of Barcelona even before this time. Collaborations most often covered case-by-case contracts between cultural institutions, social centres and the local municipalities. In terms of vacant space reuse, the municipalist movement stands for the enhancement of the relationship between the public sector and communities, embracing a discourse on the commons, which in the context of Barcelona is defined as the community management of public resources,1 fostering a reinstitutionalisation of collaborative practices between local governments and citizens. Pla BUITS has become part of a broader framework that is currently under development, although initially it was managed as a temporary project started by CiU. 1 This

is contrary to other international experiences, where urban commons rather refer to autonomous citizen practices, without the involvement of the public sector. Autonomous management is more typical in Madrid or Mexico City, while Italian cities also serve as such examples.

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Since there has been a growing demand from citizens to manage public spaces more autonomously, in order to secure cooperation with the municipalities, the various practices have been incorporated into new forms of institutional arrangements. The Heritage Programme (Patrimoni ciutadá) (Barcelona City Council 2017) stands for an umbrella term designating and including various practices based on the collaboration between the public sector and citizens. The goal of the framework is to build institutions from below, by providing funding on the basis of fulfilled social services. The Heritage Programme has been developed since 2016, promoting community use and new interactions between the public administration and citizens. As a policy adviser interpreted the development of the framework, it was not a clear vision in the beginning, but rather a gathering of ideas: There was a certain moment where we even considered creating a legal category of urban common itself in Barcelona, similar to the way we have public sector ownership, and we thought there could be a third, called ‘common goods’, as a way to recognise the uniqueness of what is going on in a place like Can Batlló2 … It is publicly owned but self-managed; it is open, and represents the general interest. (Interview 20, Barcelona)

Urban common land is understood as a way to promote practices that are neither provided by the state or the market, where citizens cooperate and come together for a common goal, with the aim to go beyond the traditional vision of what is private and what is public, guided by the concept of solidarity and the importance of social ties. Above all, the Heritage Programme wishes to offer a legal framework for the recognition of already existing ways of cooperation, promoting and strengthening selfmanagement through public policies, building prototypes of community management, through the design and implementation of the form of “common ownership” (Barcelona City Council 2017). The programme has been developed in collaboration with the Solidarity Economy Network of Barcelona (Xarxa d’Economia Solidària), promoting initiatives in the social economy. In the case of Budapest, the frameworks targeted urban development rather than the inclusion of citizens. The Municipality of Budapest first of all interpreted the adverse effects of the crisis from a different angle, where the main problem was considered to be the decrease of land value and low economic productivity. The inclusion of citizens was a governance innovation to avoid dereliction (as the intention was with Pla BUITS in the beginning in Barcelona) and to overcome economic stagnation. The reuse of vacant spaces served as a framework for a more entrepreneurial perspective, where arts and creativity can provide a solution to the revitalisation of public spaces to balance out the limitation of a scarce local governmental budget. As an employee of the Urban Planning Department commented, the quality of urban life can be best enhanced through the development of public spaces, as it is “the business 2 Can

Batlló is an old factory area located in the La Bordeta neighbourhood in the Sants-Montjuïc district. The residents together with the Sants Social Centre started a campaign to pressure the remodelling of the area. This platform for Can Batlló consisted of local social actors, housing cooperatives, architect collectives, movements and neighbourhood associations. The deadline of the campaign coincided with the start of CiU’s mandate on 1 June 2011. Just a few days before, the council offered a 1500 m2 space, (the so-called Block 11) of Can Batlló to the neighbourhood to perform social and cultural activities.

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card of the city, the place for innovation” (Interview 1, Budapest). The inclusion of citizens in urban policies aimed to improve innovative public space management. A district employee explained “for the winning proposals, we wanted to have start-ups and enterprises, it was a very trendy thing back then” (Interview 4, Budapest). In the interpretation of local government employees, opening up to these new actors was a way to overcome the crisis: In 2010 we had a peak [in the number of vacant spaces] due to the crisis, you could not fill these spaces from the market, but people had the willingness to do something, and the creatives have an eye on how to do it. So, we wanted to do something, any option appeared to be a better choice than leaving the current situation as it is. It seemed our problems would be solved if Budapest becomes a cool place. (Interview 4, Budapest)

In Budapest, the need for a new perspective was not articulated and scaled upwards from the grassroots level—nevertheless the programme relied on bottom-up practices—but it first gained ground among professional circles. The momentum came for small-scale interventions when a new chief architect arrived at the city hall (being in office between 2012 and 2016), who pushed through the implementation and testing of new practices. As a colleague of his recollects: He told us many times that we need to think more youthfully, by referring to examples from abroad. He pointed out what we felt too but could not articulate: that we were working in a very static and regulatory atmosphere. (Interview 1, Budapest)

The situation with the temporary project “Rögtön Jövök!” resembled the concerns expressed in the quote, as it tried to create a more flexible environment through the inclusion of citizen initiatives. Despite the efforts, local governments were not willing to participate in the tender and include their empty properties in the call. Furthermore, the call faced legal limitations: the Act of State Assets was restricted in 2011 (Act CXCVI), which made it impossible to rent out properties for a lower price, as the regulations would not approve this specific practice (Interview 4, Budapest). The programme had two rounds. First, district governments were asked to nominate vacant properties, while in the second call, the properties of the Municipality of Budapest were included in the tender. The second round included much lower numbers, but could overcome the district mayors’ unwillingness to cooperate in the programme. Eventually, “Rögtön Jövök!” bifurcated into two projects. One was a bottom-up version, which KÉK continued for a couple of years, but without the collaboration of the municipalities. On the other hand, the collection of vacant land and its marketing has been continued by the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Currently, they manage a website that gathers information on enterprises and connects businesses with available vacant retail shops, dedicating a search engine for the purpose. However, the original social and cultural aspects of temporary uses have not been continued at all (Interviews 4, 17, Budapest).

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12.6 Conclusion The brief overview of post-crisis rationales opens up several more dimensions of the history of urban regeneration than a binary debate on temporary uses suggests. Traditions in citizen participation, the strength of social movements and the political climate all play a path-shaping moment as well as represent context specificity in Barcelona and Budapest. So instead of looking into what these temporary uses might offer or negate, I believe it is more fruitful to turn our attention towards how they enrich the understanding of historical embeddedness of pathways of urban policies. First, this chapter dealt with the different trajectories of citizen participation, following traditional institutional processes. In the case of Barcelona, the strengthening of neighbourhood and family networks during the economic downturn (cf. García 2010) helped to implement new temporary use practices based on the longstanding collaboration between local governments and citizens on a more permanent basis. Therefore, the outsourcing of government duties to voluntary groups (Mayer 2009) is a characteristic of the development of citizen participation, rather than merely a form of neoliberal governance. The Budapest case, on the other hand, showed that temporary uses proved to be more ephemeral in a policy context where the inclusion of citizens in urban regeneration does not date back to such traditions. Even more so, neoliberalism can occur with the retreat of the local state but without the nurturing of local self-help communities, showing more complexity in the analysis of neoliberal subjectivities of “makeshift urbanism” (Tonkiss 2013). Second, the argument aimed to show that even if counter-hegemonic social movements broke through to pinpoint the cause of the crisis in the urban growth model of Barcelona (González et al. 2017) and changed their focus on the needs of citizens—a Barcelona from below—a “citizenist” democracy might not be enough to challenge the hegemony of capitalist accumulation. Safeguarding the means of participation through democratic administration in Barcelona provides an improvement in bureaucratic processes by nurturing social cohesion and inclusiveness, but does not offer a solution to particular grievances such as housing and social reproduction of inequalities within the city (Eizaguirre et al. 2012). As for Budapest, the crisis induced innovative solutions in governance, but failed to scale up and institutionalise the collaboration of civil society and local governments, maintaining more informal and spontaneous relationships that characterise the role of civil society in urban policymaking. Furthermore, temporary uses rather served as a way to channel citizens’ demands towards a more disciplined but still hierarchic policy environment (Ghose 2005). Finally, the discourses on temporary uses so far offered a mix of artistic subjectivities of the creative class and certain social awareness that has been mobilised through unsatisfied social needs and an entrepreneurial spirit. Post-crisis rationales of temporary uses are deeply embedded in public policy goals, as the examples have shown. Depending on political will, the very same policy tool can serve to foster the creation of new urban commons (Iveson 2013; Finn 2014; Tardiveau and Mallo

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2014), as in the case of Barcelona, or rather enhance economic development and city marketing strategies (Colomb 2012), as the example of Budapest has shown. The real question is whether temporary use offers alternatives to traditional trajectories, and if it is able to create a type of emancipatory project where the realisation of solidarity and collective action is turned into transformative politics, posing a demand to more just redistribution and a more equal societal organisation. Acknowledgements The research was conducted at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, and the Institute for Regional Studies provided the opportunity to finish this chapter.

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Szalai J, Svensson S, Vince D (2017) Contested forms of solidarity: an overview of civil society organizations in Hungary and their impact on policy and the social economy. CEU, Center for Policy Studies, Budapest Tardiveau A, Mallo D (2014) Unpacking and challenging habitus: an approach to temporary urbanism as a socially engaged practice. J Urban Des 19:456–472 Tonkiss F (2013) Austerity urbanism and the makeshift city. City 17:312–324 Tosics I (2006) Spatial restructuring in post-socialist Budapest. In: Tsenkova S, Nedovi´c-Budi´c Z (eds) The urban mosaic of post-socialist Europe: space, institutions and policy. Physica-Verlag HD, Heidelberg, pp 131–150 Vigvári A (2011) Szubszidiaritás nélküli decentralizáció. Néhány adalék az önkormányzati rendszer magyar modelljének korszer˝usítéséhez (Decentralization without subsidiarity some additions to modernization of Hungarian model of local government system). Tér És Társad 22:141–167

Chapter 13

Address Urban Regeneration Challenge with Temporary Creative Uses: The Case of Beijing’s Dashilar Area Amy Y. Zhang

Abstract Temporary and pop-up uses of vacant urban spaces as artistic and cultural sites have been adopted by city governments for urban regeneration. Existing studies of temporary creative uses are predominantly based on Western cases, and so far, there is limited understanding of how they may be adopted and function in cities beyond the Northern ‘core’. Employing temporary/pop-up creative uses of vacant urban space for urban regeneration in Western cities is usually situated in specific political-economic contexts—austerity and financial crisis—and the effects of using culture and art for urban regeneration are shaped by socio-cultural dynamics; it is therefore necessary to contextualise the choice and use of such urban strategies when they are implemented in non-Western and/or Global South situations. This chapter examines temporary creative uses for urban regeneration in the Dashilar area of Beijing, China. It highlights how the local district government’s choice of engaging with temporary creative uses of vacant space for urban regeneration is shaped by and in response to changes introduced through urban conservation planning and policies that came into effect in the early 2000s in Beijing. Building on this case, this chapter ends with a reflection on the potential diversity of temporary urbanism practices. Keywords Temporary use · Urban regeneration · Creative use · Historical conservation · Beijing

13.1 Introduction In recent years, temporary and pop-up uses of vacant urban spaces as artistic or cultural sites, which were previously often regarded as “marginal”, have become more popular among city planners and policy makers. Such temporary urbanism practices have been increasingly enlisted in creative city strategies to create urban landscape that attracts “creative class” consumers to eventually achieve urban regeneration and revalorisation, particularly in the West (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; Ferreri A. Y. Zhang (B) Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_13

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2015; Harris 2015; O’Callaghan and Lawton 2015; Schaller and Guinand 2018). Existing studies identify that temporary and pop-up creative uses are valued by city governments in the West for two main reasons. Firstly, the prior illegitimate status of the uses grants them an edgy novelty appealing to the creative class consumers. Secondly, such uses have the ability to induce spatial-temporal imagination and alter perceptions of places by providing a materialised potential look and feel to vacant urban spaces at a relatively low cost and flexibility in an era of austerity after the financial crisis of 2008 (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; Harris 2015). It is argued that through temporary and pop-up uses, presently run-down, vacant, or “wasted” areas can be imagined “as playgrounds or workspaces for ‘creative’ entrepreneurs; as milieux that can attract other creative workers and consumers … or as tourist attractions” (Colomb 2012, p. 138) in the future and thus may gain the interests of investors and developers (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; Harris 2015; Schaller and Guinand 2018). There has, so far, been relatively limited research on the reasons for and application of temporary and pop-up creative uses in urban regeneration by city governments in non-Western and/or Global South contexts. Given that the choice of employing temporary/pop-up creative uses for urban regeneration in Western cities is usually situated in specific political-economic contexts—austerity and financial crisis—and that the effects of using culture and art for urban regeneration are shaped by sociocultural dynamics, it is necessary to contextualise the choice and use of such urban strategies when they are implemented in non-Western and/or Global South situations. In this chapter, I discuss a case of temporary creative uses being adopted for urban regeneration in Beijing, China to reflect on the potential diversity of temporary urbanism practices, even within those that are engaged by city governments for regeneration purposes. Data for this chapter is collected from interviews with staff members who are in charge of the execution and public relations of the regeneration project in the case study (Dashilar area in Beijing) and from relevant policy and planning documents and the official Website of Dashilar (https://dashilar.beijin g99.cn).

13.2 Dashilar Area and Its Regeneration Challenge The case examined here is an urban regeneration project in one of Beijing’s inner-city historical conservation areas: Dashilar. The Dashilar area is located in the centre of Beijing, south of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and near Qianmen, and jurisdictionally in the Xicheng District. This area is famous for its main commercial street, which was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and now serves as a major tourist attraction. Hutongs (small alleys) in the area are mostly in a mix of residential and commercial uses. Like many other older neighbourhoods in the inner city of Beijing, Dashilar is densely populated with most of its residents living in low-rise and historic courtyard houses. Many of these courtyard houses face the problems of

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overcrowding, poor maintenance, and unauthorised additions to the original buildings and need to be renovated and/or restored. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, urban regeneration in Beijing’s inner-city areas was carried out mostly through a property-led redevelopment mode (He and Wu 2005) and consisted of large-scale demolition of housing and displacement of local residents, few of whom could afford to move back to the areas after redevelopment and into the newly built commercial apartment buildings (Shin 2009). Unsurprisingly, this mode of urban regeneration caused a series of problems: forceful displacement led to strong social discontent and resistance while large-scale demolition and redevelopment completely “uprooted Old Beijing’s culture” (interview with regeneration project staff, S-1). This redevelopment mode slowed down after Beijing Municipal Government adopted planning policies for urban conservation. It issued the “Plan for Conservation and Control Scope for the Historic and Cultural Conservation Areas in Beijing Old City” in 1999, which designated 25 areas as historic and cultural conservation areas (BMG 1999), and “Conservation Planning for the 25 Historic and Cultural Conservation Areas in Beijing Old City” in 2002 (BMCPNR 2002a). The Dashilar area was named among the 25 conservation areas and was then subject to a series of requirements as well as constraints on its regeneration, as set out by Beijing Municipal Government’s planning policies for urban conservation. First, both of the plans issued in 1999 and 2002 emphasised the need for incremental renovation and improvement instead of large-scale demolition and reconstruction in designated conservation areas. The conservation planning issued in 2002 particularly named “micro-circulation” as the new mode of urban regeneration, meaning residents need to voluntarily apply to relocate and the courtyard has to be the basic unit for renovation and restoration with the overall structure of the courtyard maintained (BMCPNR 2002a, b).1 Secondly, regeneration and conservation in the conservation areas are required to ensure the “authenticity” of these areas, through either preserving or restoring the historical features of the built environment, where the size, form, and colour of renovated properties need to be in accordance with the overall aesthetic of the conservation areas. And any properties or decorations that do not fit this requirement need to be demolished or taken down (BMCPNR 2002a; BMG 1999). Thirdly, reducing population density, namely displacing existing residents, has been a key focus of the plans and policies for the conservation areas since the beginning. In the conservation planning issued in 2002, the target was set to reduce the total number of residents in the conservation areas from 167,000 to 118,000, displacing 41% of the total population (BMCPNR 2002a). The district government thus faces a series of challenges in carrying out regeneration in the Dashilar area. On the one hand, the requirement that regeneration in designated conservation areas needs to be incremental and based on residents’ 1 Shin

(2010) in his study of urban conservation and revalorisation in the case of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing provided a detailed account of how the “micro-circulation” mode is carried out: “This approach requires all registered residents in the courtyard to sign a collective application for courtyard restoration, and they would also have to agree on a relocation plan, which usually involves their permanent displacement upon receiving compensation … allows courtyard houses to be emptied and released for restoration by corporate and individual investors” (Shin 2010, S49–S50).

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voluntary relocation makes meeting the target of reducing population density difficult. And on the other hand, the cost of resorting and renovating housing and the overall built environment, combined with that of improving infrastructure in the area and compensating residents who are displaced, places a relatively high financial burden on the district government, which the municipal government has even recognised (BMCPNR 2011). While regeneration can potentially generate income for the district government, who can lease the land (and properties on it) at a higher price to investors, the restriction introduced by the “micro-circulation” approach on the scale and speed of urban regeneration in the Dashilar area makes it difficult for the district government to attract one main investor and thus use regeneration as an effective tool for generating income (interviews with regeneration project staff, S-1 and S-2).

13.3 Temporary Creative Uses as the Strategy To address the challenges posed by the restrictions on regeneration in the Dashilar area, temporary creative uses came into the picture. Temporary creative uses were introduced to the Dashilar area through its involvement in Beijing Design Week, which was initiated in 2011 to strengthen Beijing’s application to UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network as a “City of Design” (interview with regeneration project staff, S-3). Beijing was awarded the title of “City of Design” in 2012, and Beijing Design Week became a key component of this title and its flagship event. As the name suggests, Beijing Design Week is a week-long event and is usually scheduled at the end of September and the beginning of October, overlapping with the start of the “Golden Week” of the National Day holiday to maximise the number of audiences it can draw. It contains multiple components such as a design fair, exhibitions, public forums, workshops, fashion shows, an award ceremony, and a showcase of a guest city (London was the first guest city in 2011, and Helsinki is selected to be the guest city for 2020). These components are spread out and take place at multiple locations across the city, including the Dashilar area, where vacant courtyard houses are turned into spaces for design exhibitions and shops. The temporary nature of Beijing Design Week as a week-long event thus introduces temporary creative uses into the Dashilar area. Since 2011, artists, designers, and other individuals and enterprises in cultural and creative sectors would be invited to open up temporary exhibitions and shops in vacant courtyard houses in the Dashilar area during Beijing Design Week (Fig. 13.1). These were at first concentrated in one alley (Yangmeizhu xiejie) and gradually expanded to another two alleys. Since 2013, architects, planners, and academics are also invited to propose and conduct pilot projects in the area during Beijing Design Week. These involve beautifying the alleys, renovating courtyard houses (see Fig. 13.2 for an example), and turning vacant courtyard houses into alternative uses, such as hostels or Airbnbs, especially those not in optimum locations for commercial uses. And in 2016, the Dashilar Bazaar was introduced in the summer to expand the presence of temporary creative uses beyond

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Fig. 13.1 Casual Locations Studio’s art and food project in a temporary space during Beijing Design Week. Source Photo taken by the author

the period of Beijing Design Week, partly due to the notable differences in the area between Beijing Design Week and other times (see Fig. 13.3). The collaboration between Beijing Design Week and the Dashilar area is seen as a win-win relationship by staff who are in charge of the regeneration project. On the one hand, given the central location of Dashilar and its proximity to some of the major tourist attractions in Beijing (Tiananmen Square and Qianmen), staging part of Beijing Design Week in this area helps promote the event, attracting more audiences and visitors to the temporary exhibitions, forums, and shops, and strengthening the potential impact of the event. On the other hand, being involved in and hosting part of Beijing Design Week provides the Dashilar area with an opportunity to test and demonstrate how the design industry and creative and cultural uses in general may change the look and feel of the area, making the case for a creative/culture-led regeneration of the neighbourhood (interviews with regeneration project staff, S-1 and S-3). The name of the section of Beijing Design Week that is staged at Dashilar clearly reflects this second aspect of the collaboration: “Dashilar New Landscape” (Dashilar 2014). As the name “Dashilar New Landscape” indicates, the landscape created during and as a result of Beijing Design Week embodies the vision of the district government and regeneration project staff for the Dashilar area. Similar to those demonstrated in existing studies (Colomb 2012; Schaller and Guinand 2018), temporary creative

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Fig. 13.2 Courtyard House Plugin modular system created by People’s Architecture Office (For more information, see: https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/17/courtyard-house-plugin-peoples-arc hitecture-office-repurpose-beijing-residencies/). Source Photo taken by the author

uses in this case are drawn on to provide opportunities for potential new land and property users, tenants and investors to witness and experience an alternative version of the Dashilar neighbourhood (Zhang 2018). This experience is believed to be able to help change their perceptions of the area and stimulate their interests in realising this “new landscape” of Dashilar, not only temporarily during Beijing Design Week but also more permanently in the long term, namely regenerating the area through creative and cultural uses (interviews with regeneration project staff, S-1 and S-2). In addition, and in particular to the Chinese context, staging temporary creative uses in the Dashilar area as part of the Beijing Design Week signals the district government’s approval of, interest in, and support to adapt vacant courtyard houses in the area for creative and cultural uses, which offers the assurance that many individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors need before making their decisions about location choices (interviews with regeneration project staff S-1 and S-3). More importantly for the regeneration project in the Dashilar area, engaging with temporary creative uses works as a strategy to both carry out regeneration in the area and meet the requirements and restrictions imposed on regeneration by the relevant planning regulations. First, the image of the Dashilar area created through temporary creative uses during Beijing Design Week is a particular one. It shows not only that the neighbourhood can be suitable for the location of creative and

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Fig. 13.3 Vacant space after being used for temporary exhibition and shop during Beijing Design Week. Source Photo taken by the author

cultural industries and uses, but also that individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors can utilise vacant courtyard houses in the Dashilar area while existing side-by-side with residential uses that remain there. Making this image of coexistence attractive and desirable is particularly important for the regeneration project. Given the municipal government’s restrictions on the scale and speed of regeneration in conservation areas, pushing for regenerating and reusing already vacant courtyard houses on a small scale is one of the few options left for the district government to generate the necessary revenue to finance further regeneration. To be able to effectively carry out regeneration on a courtyard-by-courtyard or house-byhouse basis within an environment that is still mainly characterised as residential and relatively run-down is thus seen as crucial for the regeneration project in the Dashilar area. The buzz and atmosphere created through hosting temporary creative uses during Beijing Design Week paint an image of happy and exciting coexistence of creative uses and local residents in the Dashilar area (interview with regeneration project staff, S-4). This image helps increase the willingness of some individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors to choose vacant courtyard houses in the area as their locations while having local residents as their neighbours, which in turn facilitates small-scale regeneration in the area. Secondly, temporary creative uses are perceived as being able to attract new land and property users and tenants that are desired by the regeneration project of the

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Dashilar area, namely individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors. This group is viewed as the most suitable to be the new members of the area in view of the requirements on historical conservation and restoration there. As mentioned above, regeneration of conservation areas is required to preserve and restore the historical features and aesthetic of the built environment, which can add to the cost and thus financial burden that the district government has to shoulder. It is thought that individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors, due to their professions, would be interested in preserving and restoring the historical features and aesthetic of courtyard houses through careful renovation on their own (interviews with regeneration project staff, S-1 and S-2). Based on this understanding, the district government is able to demand that new users and tenants of courtyard houses should carry out renovations that meet the conservation requirements without fear of deterring too many potential new users and tenants. In this way, the district government are able to shift the execution of conservation and restoration that are parts of the regeneration of the Dashilar area and the associated costs to those who are interested in being part of a “new landscape” of the neighbourhood. And lastly, temporary creative uses, together with long-term cultural and creative uses attracted to the area, have assisted the regeneration project to get close to the target set on reducing population density in the Dashilar area. Although temporary creative uses in Dashilar take place in already vacant properties instead of directly displacing local residents, they arguably also work to pressure or “encourage” (interview with regeneration project staff, S-4) local residents to move out of the area by changing the uses of spaces and the visitors to the alleys (Luo 2015). Regeneration project staff interviewed for this study (S-1 and S-2) indicates that about 30–40% of the total population of Yangmeizhu xiejie, where the majority of temporary creative uses and long-term cultural and creative uses currently concentrate in the Dashilar area, had been displaced by 2019. This number is close to the overall 41% displacement target set for the 25 conservation areas as a whole, which demonstrates to some extent the effectiveness of the strategy of engaging with temporary creative uses for carrying out regeneration in the Dashilar area. However, regeneration project staff interviewed for this study was clearly not satisfied with this result, largely due to the underutilisation of the spaces that are emptied in the regeneration process: only about 20% of vacant spaces on Yangmeizhu xiejie had been turned into rent-paying uses by early 2019.

13.4 Discussion and Conclusion The outcome given at the end of the last section shows that while temporary creative uses and the resulting culture-led regeneration can play a role in pressuring local residents to move out of the area and open up more spaces for creative and cultural uses, they fail to demonstrate the expected effectiveness in drawing individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors to the Dashilar area. This outcome opens up two interesting avenues for further inquiries. On the one hand, the relatively

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small scale of new uses in the Dashilar area suggests that there is still a certain level of stability for local residents. This relative stability also opens up the possibility of exploring the coexistence of creative and cultural uses and local residents in the Dashilar area that is based on and characterised by sharing, caring for, and building the space and community together rather than one that aims at replacing one group (local residents) with the other (creative and cultural uses). On the other hand, the failure of this regeneration approach to meet the district government’s expectation of it to effectively attract the desired new land and property users and tenants to the Dashilar area indicates that more questions need to be asked in future research on the factors that can potentially affect the outcome of certain regeneration approaches. The case of the Dashilar area shows that presenting a potential alternative image of the area, even when coupled with signalled support from the district government, is not sufficient to induce strong interests in the area from individuals and businesses in the creative and cultural sectors. It is thus necessary to examine further the influences of other factors that are also at play. Following from the latter point in the previous paragraph and as indicated in the introduction, I would like to end this chapter with a brief discussion of the potential diversity of temporary urbanism practices, even within those that are engaged by city governments for regeneration purposes. In comparison with cases examined in existing literature (Colomb 2012; Schaller and Guinand 2018), the case of the Dashilar area is similar in that temporary creative uses are enlisted to construct an alternative, arguably more attractive, image of the area in order to induce interests of and bring in new land and property users and tenants, eventually achieving the regeneration purpose. However, within this similarity, there is also a difference between these cases and the case of the Dashilar area. For most cases examined in the existing literature, the construction of an alternative image of the space in question through temporary creative uses is less about attracting further creative uses per se but more about bringing new uses to vacant spaces in general. In contrast, the approach of engaging with temporary creative uses for regeneration in the Dashilar area is specifically intended to attract one particular group, whose members are seen as being able to help the district government both meet the requirements and restrictions on regeneration and achieve regeneration in the area. Moreover, while cases examined in some Western cities show that temporary creative uses are employed to address the problem of vacant land and property (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; O’Callaghan and Lawton 2015), the case of Dashilar demonstrates how temporary creative uses are drawn on to not only facilitate reuse of vacant properties but also actively produce vacancies. The focus of the regeneration project in the Dashilar area is two-fold: one is to change the use and look of the area (Zhang 2018), and the other is to meet the target set by the municipal government on reducing population density. As the current outcome of the regeneration project in the Dashilar area, shown in the previous section, indicates, temporary creative uses may be less effective in delivering the former aspect of the focus but are arguably powerful in helping the regeneration project achieve the latter aspect. This finding suggests that, even with the relatively small amount of new uses presented in the area, the environment created by and message conveyed by temporary creative uses can

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cause pressure on local residents and lead to their displacement. It is thus necessary to be alert to the various uses of temporary urbanism practices by city governments and investigate closely the intentions of such practices. In summary, the case of the Dashilar area shows how a local district government in Beijing employs temporary creative uses to carry out regeneration while also meeting the requirements and restrictions imposed on regeneration in the area by the relevant planning regulations. As discussed above, there are clear differences between this case and some cases examined in the existing literature in terms of the reasons for selecting the strategy of engaging with temporary creative uses, the purposes of introducing temporary creative uses to the area, and the effects of temporary creative uses. These differences highlight not only the potential diversity of temporary urbanism practices but also the importance to contextualise the choice and use of such practices in specific cases. Funding This research is funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SRG\170228).

References Andres L (2013) Differential spaces, power hierarchy and collaborative planning: a critique of the role of temporary uses in shaping and making places. Urban Stud 50(4):759–775 Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources (BMCPNR) (2002a) Conservation planning for the 25 historic and cultural conservation areas in Beijing Old City (Beijing jiucheng 25 pian lishi wenhua baohuqu baohu guihua). https://wwj.beijing.gov.cn/bjww/362690/ 362731/gh/622510/index.html. Accessed 16 Mar 2017 Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources (BMCPNR) (2002b) Conservation planning for the famous historic and cultural city of Beijing (Beijing lishi wenhua mingcheng baohu guihua). https://pkulaw.cn/CLI.14.39085. Accessed 22 Mar 2019 Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources (BMCPNR) (2011) Conservation and construction planning for the famous historic and cultural city during the “twelfth five-year” period in Beijing (Beijing shi “shi’er wu” shiqi lishi wenhua mingcheng baohu jianshe guihua). https://ghzrzyw.beijing.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/ghcg/zxgh/201912/t20191213_1165428. html. Accessed 21 Mar 2019 Beijing Municipal Government (BMG) (1999) Plan for conservation and control scope for the historic and cultural conservation areas in Beijing Old City (Beijing jiucheng lishi wenhua baohuqu baohu he kongzhi fanwei guihua). https://wwj.beijing.gov.cn/bjww/362690/362731/gh/ 622507/index.html. Accessed 16 Mar 2017 Colomb C (2012) Pushing the urban frontier: temporary uses of space, city marketing, and the creative city discourse in 2000s Berlin. J Urban Aff 34(2):131–152 Dashilar (2014) Dashilar new landscape (Dashilar xin jiejing). https://dashilar.beijing99.cn/index. htm#A!/A/A2_XJJ.html. Accessed 20 Apr 2020 Ferreri M (2015) The seduction of temporary urbanism. Ephemera 15(1):181–191 Harris E (2015) Navigating pop-up geographies: urban space-times of flexibility, interstitiality and immersion. Geogr Compass 9(11):592–603 He S, Wu F (2005) Property-led redevelopment in post-reform China: a case study of Xintiandi redevelopment project in Shanghai. J Urban Aff 27(1):1–23

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Luo T (2015) Dashilar, the awakening of Old Beijing (Dashilar, suxing zhong de Beijing lao chengqu). The New York Times (Chinese website). https://cn.nytimes.com/culture/20150603/ tc03dashilar/. Accessed 26 Mar 2019 O’Callaghan C, Lawton P (2015) Temporary solutions? Vacant space policy and strategies for re-use in Dublin. Ir Geogr 48(1):69–87 Schaller S, Guinand S (2018) Pop-up landscapes: a new trigger to push up land value? Urban Geogr 39(1):54–74 Shin HB (2009) Residential redevelopment and the entrepreneurial local state: the implications of Beijing’s shifting emphasis on urban redevelopment policies. Urban Stud 46(13):2815–2839 Shin HB (2010) Urban conservation and revalorisation of dilapidated historic quarters: the case of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing. Cities 27:S43–S54 Zhang AY (2018) Pop-up urbanism: selling Old Beijing to the creative class. In: Jayne M (ed) Chinese urbanism: critical perspectives. Routledge, London, pp 137–148

Chapter 14

Exploring Urban Regeneration Through Temporary Uses in Central São Paulo, Brazil Lucelia Rodrigues, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Renata Tubelo, Nicole Porter, Parham Mirzaei Ahranjani, Peter Kraftl, Lauren Andres, Ranny Loureiro Xavier Nascimento Michalski, Roberta Consentino Kronka Mülfarth, and Leonardo Monteiro Abstract In this chapter we examined three temporary urban interventions in Luz and Santa Ifigênia in São Paulo, Brazil, which were driven by local challenges. These neighbourhoods are centrally located with bustling commercial centres; however, they also experience endemic drug use and trafficking, trading of stolen goods, and widespread illegal occupation of buildings. A comparative qualitative analysis of the L. Rodrigues (B) · N. Porter · P. Mirzaei Ahranjani Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK e-mail: [email protected] N. Porter e-mail: [email protected] P. Mirzaei Ahranjani e-mail: [email protected] J. C. Soares Gonçalves Architectural Association School of Architecture, 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW, UK J. C. Soares Gonçalves · R. L. X. N. Michalski · R. C. K. Mülfarth · L. Monteiro Department of Technology of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo, Rua do Lago, 876, São Paulo, SP 05508-080, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] R. C. K. Mülfarth e-mail: [email protected] R. Tubelo Building, Energy and Environment Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK e-mail: [email protected] P. Kraftl School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 199 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_14

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interventions revealed that while all aimed to improve social cohesion and capital, they each used different approaches, resulting in diverse outcomes. The Mungunzá Container Theatre and the CALGO Project, incorporating more sensitive design and placement of structures, were more successful than the Atende Emergency Care Units, a top-down, more utilitarian project. The Mungunzá Container Theatre was especially noteworthy as it used theatre to engage a range of users, from homeless people through to local residents and other visitors who would not otherwise come to this part of the city, thus contributing to transforming the perception of the place. This analysis illustrated how positive changes can result from temporary urbanism initiatives, particularly when these are inclusive and respectful the complexity of their context. In addition, the outcomes also suggested that larger-scale changes may occur when people are brought together through such initiatives. Keywords Temporary urbanism · Temporary urban interventions · Urban reactivation · Urban regeneration · Temporary uses · Resilient cities

14.1 Introduction In the last decades, temporary urbanism has emerged as a place-shaping entrepreneurial approach and an instrument to change the current status of a place. It can be understood as a tool to promote economic and cultural development, through a collaborative process, influencing the process from place-shaping to place-making (Andres 2012). Temporary urbanism varies widely, from pop-up shops to street festivals, mobile buildings, temporary gardens, rent facilitation and temporary housing solutions (Madanipour 2017). Its appropriateness depends on the context of what are identified as ‘rundown’ areas, where there are economic and land use issues such as a rise in unemployment, population loss, deterioration of the environment and stigma. In particular, temporary urbanism works well as an alternative where the boundaries between legal/illegal and formal/informal are blurred, when power is redistributed for a short-time period (days, weeks, months or even years) to the occupants and new actors to shape the space (Andres 2012). In low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), most of the problems in central areas of large cities are related to their levels of deprivation: fewer green areas, lack of housing, building vacancy, illegal use of buildings and squatting, social segregation. Dealing with informality, poverty and precarious use of public spaces presents key challenges for city governance, although it must be recognised that such issues may not be understood as ‘problems’ by all city residents. Oversupply of housing in rundown central neighbourhoods in these cities is a problem, but so too is the illegal temporary use of the vacant and underused buildings (i.e. squatting). Although L. Andres Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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expressed in different ways in different geographical contexts—and although not always necessarily felt as ‘problems’—these challenges affect most cities. Thus, as one set of responses, temporary urban interventions may be ‘solutions’ that can be deployed in a similarly widespread manner although with a localised design to fit each place’s reality. Temporary urbanism cannot be seen as a ‘solution’ to resolve the complexity of these urban ‘problems’, but it can contribute to activating spaces and to make them livelier and habitable, by addressing specific urban deficiencies and promoting particular improvements in neighbourhoods. This chapter critically discusses the role of temporary urban interventions in the Luz and Santa Ifigênia neighbourhoods, in central São Paulo (Brazil), specifically the Mungunzá Container Theatre, the Centro Aberto Largo General Osório (CALGO) project and Atende Emergency Care Units. These case studies were developed within the wider context of a cross-disciplinary research project titled ‘Re-inhabiting the City’, conducted by the University of São Paulo, the University of Nottingham and the University of Birmingham, in 2018. Place-based observations in four locations were undertaken as well as 27 surveys conducted to gather the perception of users about the area, and two interviews were carried out with the Municipality of São Paulo. We argue that a temporary urbanism approach can contribute to the reactivation of particularly challenging, degraded areas that are near to central areas of a city, although it must be designed and managed in response to the needs of each place, respecting the complexities of each neighbourhood. Thus, the implications of this chapter extend beyond São Paulo to other megacities—especially in LMICs—experiencing similar inner-city challenges.

14.2 Urban Reactivation by Temporary Uses in Brazil In Brazil, the concept of temporary reactivation of urban spaces has always been part of the country’s culture, exemplified by traditional food or flea markets in key underused areas of districts. In the last decades, these events have focused on rethinking habits/uses and creating more liveable spaces (Pacheco 2018). Different initiatives such as the creation of parklets, the regeneration of squares and the introduction of temporary furniture promote temporary ‘reappropriations’ by users. These activities are more prevalent in large cities where urban services are deficient and do not meet user expectations (Pacheco 2018). The actors involved in the implementation of these temporary initiatives vary. Collaborations with public or private organisations and civil society organisations are common. In São Paulo, a range of different temporary initiatives can be observed. One of these initiatives is the Centro Aberto, a top-down project coordinated by the municipality in five key locations within the city with the aim of activating public spaces through a range of temporary installations including portable urban furniture and spaces for getting together and playing (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2019a). Another example is Largo da Batata, a square of 29,000 m2 in the district of Santana, where, in 2013, in response to a lack of facilities for social interaction, on a weekly basis

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for over a year, a series of bottom-up temporary initiatives were set up including the addition of nearly 60 new urban furniture pieces and the promotion of events for social interaction (A Batata Precisa de Você 2015, 2016). Parklets have also progressively gained importance over the last few years mostly in São Paulo but also in other large Brazilian cities. Parklets are temporary extensions of footpaths promoting the use of public spaces in alternative ways, such as the conversion of public parking spaces into spaces for permanent pedestrian use, and have been encouraged by the municipality since 2014 (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2016b, 2019c). Its implementation seeks to stimulate the participatory use of the city, making it more attractive, safe and inviting (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2016b). In 2019, there were a total of 131 parklets implemented in the city (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2019b, c). In Rio de Janeiro, the Arte de Portas Abertas project, in the district of Santa Teresa, is an annual cultural event that emerged since 1996 with the aim of promoting public art as an agent to trigger regeneration (Fontes 2012). The project has had multiple actors including artists, locals and private organisations over the decades. During the event, artists’ studios are opened to visitors, temporarily converting private spaces into public spaces. Also, urban installations and pathways are created connecting these art studios. The initiative has influenced the renovation of many buildings within the area since its implementation (Fontes 2012). In another Brazilian city, Fortaleza, a series of two-week pilot initiatives led by the municipality through the Cidade da Gente project have promoted the temporary reuse of spaces in different locations of the city with a focus on pedestrian safety. The various temporary initiatives included pavement paint for increasing pedestrian areas and limiting vehicle access, portable urban furniture and cultural and social activities (Fundação Edson Queiroz—Universidade de Fortaleza 2018; WRI Brasil 2017). Having noted the range of existing temporary uses in Brazil, many of which are led and/or supported by the local authorities, the next section introduces São Paulo and the cultural and social dynamics of Luz-Santa Ifigênia presenting a complex mix of challenges and opportunities for temporary urbanism.

14.3 São Paulo and Luz-Santa Ifigênia São Paulo, with an estimated population of over 11 million inhabitants in 2010, is among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas and one of the largest conurbations in the world (Minkel et al. 2019; IBGE 2017). São Paulo is known for its cultural facilities including more than 100 museums and 120 theatres. It has been a destination for international immigrants for centuries, and for migrants from the country’s rural regions since the beginning of the twentieth century, making the city a centre of cultural diversity (Governo do Estado de São Paulo 2019). São Paulo’s property prices are relatively high compared to the rest of the country and as a consequence so are the numbers of squatters and informal settlements. The

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2000 slums within the city accommodate 11% of the population, around 15% of dwellings are ‘inadequate’ and around 16,000 people are recognised as homeless (HABITASAMPA 2017; Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo 2015; IBGE 2010). Remarkably, however, more than 1.3 million housing units are vacant, and nearly 12% of the buildings in the city’s centre are empty (Gonçalves and Uzum 2017; Fundação João Pinheiro 2011). Unemployment and job informality rates are high, and this impacts not only on poor living conditions, but on the widespread use of public spaces by informal business and street markets. In the central neighbourhoods of Luz and Santa Ifigênia (Fig. 14.1), located in the districts of Bom Retiro and República, respectively, the above challenges are particularly acute. Despite a range of positive features (see below), the areas experience severe problems with vacant derelict buildings and illegal activities such as endemic drug use and trafficking. The area is known as ‘cracolândia’, ‘the land of crack cocaine’, due to the intense presence of crack users. It is also well-known for being the trading area of stolen goods. Luz-Santa Ifigênia is located within a historic and dense urban fabric of regular grid. Most of the plots have neither lateral nor front setbacks, and there are very few empty plots within the blocks—these remaining unbuilt spaces are likely to be temporary and many are being used as car parks (Fig. 14.2). The streets’ width in the core of the neighbourhood is narrower than the streets that form the perimeter of the area. The height of buildings is predominantly between one and three floors,

Fig. 14.1 Case study area of Luz-Santa Ifigênia

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Fig. 14.2 Initiatives of temporary uses in Luz-Santa Ifigênia

although there is a considerable number of buildings of around ten floors lining the wider streets. Luz and Santa Ifigênia are among the best served neighbourhoods within the city in terms of public transport. The neighbourhoods and their immediate surroundings are connected to the rest of the city and metropolitan area by all transport modes. They are surrounded by a variety of valuable cultural landmarks such as the famous Sala São Paulo (1938), the state’s art gallery known as Pinacoteca (1905) and a variety of historically significant buildings in different states of repair, as shown in Fig. 14.1. Despite this cultural heritage, lower-income local residents rarely benefit; rather, these resources remain the preserve of visitors of upper classes. Commerce is the most significant activity in the area, and it includes a vast number of street vendors working informally in the area. Commerce accounts for 13,000 formal jobs, which are almost matched by 10,000 informal jobs (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012b). Santa Ifigênia, in particular, is one of the most important commercial hubs for electronics in the city, attracting people from all over the country. Illicit commerce activities are in tandem with licit ones in the area, i.e. stolen goods are sold alongside the genuine ones in the legitimate shops. Population density varies between 200 and 400 people per block, although the potential density could be far higher. The commercial characteristic of the area and the insecurity associated with crime and drugs are the main reasons why the area is not more populated. The resident population is youthful, dominated by adults aged 20–39 years. Children and elderly people combined account for around 30%

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of residents (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2016a). More than 80% of the residents are low-middle class (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012b) as per the national classification (FGV/CPS 2011; Neri 2012). Poor living conditions are hence challenging issues in the area. About 2.4% of the city centre population (11,995 households) live in very poor conditions in tenement homes called cortiços (Prefeitura de Prefeitura de São Paulo 2010). Cortiços are unregulated collective tenement residential buildings of a private owner subdivided into overcrowded rooms of precarious living conditions, usually located in the central city districts, often contiguous with jobs and services (Fix et al. 2003; Prefeitura de Prefeitura de São Paulo 2010). There are approximately 1320 cortiços in central São Paulo, 118 cortiços in the district of República (9%) and 172 buildings in the district of Bom Retiro (13%) (Prefeitura de Prefeitura de São Paulo 2010). Within the area, there is also a significant number of degraded vacant and illegally occupied buildings. These buildings are commonly occupied by homeless people and chemical dependents and consist of a very dangerous form of temporary squatting. Data from a study by Silva (2007) suggests that São Paulo has 11.8% of its housing units vacant (in the districts of Bom Retiro and República, this corresponds to 16.9% and 22.7% of the housing units, respectively). Over 300 vacant buildings of different types and conditions are estimated to exist (Silva 2007). The number and location of vacant buildings (illegally occupied or not) are not officially reported by the municipality, who is concerned that publicly identifying these buildings could increase their illegal use.

14.4 Nova Luz Project: The Proposed Master Plan Reflecting on the assets but also key challenges faced by Luz-Santa Ifigênia, the neighbourhood is at the core of municipal regeneration plans. The ‘Nova Luz’ (‘New Luz’, in English) project started in 2010 as an attempt to regenerate a 50-ha area of central São Paulo, which consists of Luz and Santa Ifigênia neighbourhoods (see outline on Fig. 14.1), proposing a long-term 15-year implementation plan (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012a, b). Commissioned by the municipality, it focused on residential, commercial and cultural aspects and aimed to intensify the existing economic activities, develop cultural enterprises, attract new commercial businesses, increase density, greenery and public transportation and create new public spaces (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012a, b). Among the 2193 new housing units proposed, over 1800 units were planned to be social housing and nearly 400 affordable housing for the low-income population (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012b). Similarly, it was planned to intensify commerce and services with the goal of attracting 20,000 new jobs (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2012b). The Nova Luz project faced strong resistance mainly from shop owners and shoppers and, to a lesser extent, from local residents. By that time, an organisation, AMOALUZ (I Love Luz, in English), was created as a resistance group opposing the project. In response, many attempts were made by the municipality to engage the

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community with the proposed master plan. The main opposition was to a proposed radical intervention, including demolition of many existing buildings, including buildings in Santa Ifigênia Street, where almost all of the well-known electronics commerce is located. According to the shop owners and users, the interventions would change the character of the area, bringing gentrification that would force them to leave or be reallocated due to potential real estate speculation. The municipally counter argued that the project proposed a method to control prices and promote the liveability of the area, to encourage mixed-use developments and to include social and affordable housing. Some local residents felt that that the proposal did not provide areas of entertainment and culture aimed at locals and everyday citizen practice of a more modest scale than the museums and concert halls that exist already (Samora 2011). By the end of 2018—over halfway into the 15-year timeframe of the Nova Luz master plan and after two consecutive changes in municipality governance—very little of the proposed redevelopment has materialised. The project was put on hold because of socio-economic and political reasons. In parallel to this process, other less ambitious and feasible short-time strategies began to be considered. Demolitions and expropriations have occurred on very few blocks, and a cluster of tall buildings for social housing has been built in the area.

14.5 Temporary Place-Making for Social Reactivation in Luz-Santa Ifigênia In the years that followed the uncertainty about the implementation of the Nova Luz project, two temporary cultural initiatives emerged within the area—the Mungunzá Container Theatre and the Centro Alberto Largo General Osório (CALGO) project. Later, in 2017 and 2018, a temporary drug-control-focused initiative was implemented by the municipality—Atende Emergency Care Units (Fig. 14.2). The Mungunzá Container Theatre is a theatre company who established themselves for a three-year period on a vacant plot of municipal land. The theatre was built in 2016 using a temporary shipping container structure—a low-cost flexible option for creating indoor spaces that is being deployed in various commercial and non-commercial projects worldwide (Pop Brixton 2018; Haydn and Temel 2006). Through an agreement with the municipality, the land was handed over to the theatre company in exchange for the maintenance of the space provided (Companhia Mungunza de Teatro 2018). The theatre was intended to remain in place until 2019, but in late 2018, the municipality granted permanent use of the land to the theatre, securing its longer-term presence within the neighbourhood. The building is constructed of 11 overlapping containers assembled over two levels. The informal, improvised collage effect created by the different coloured containers distinguishes them from the surrounding historic buildings while also reflecting the lively assemblage of architectural forms and urban fabric of the area.

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Besides the theatre building itself, the site accommodates an external geodesic dome for outdoor performances, a playground, a sports court and a gardening installation, which is open to all members of the public during the day. The playground includes 100 recycled steel drums attached to each other, providing a creative installation for children to play on (Companhia Mungunza de Teatro 2018). The informal sitting and shaded areas within the open spaces around the main theatre building, enclosed by a visually permeable low-rise fence, successfully attract local users thanks to the combination of a low-key aesthetic and truly accessible character. The management of the theatre and its reception by a range of users reflects how a socially oriented and flexible approach to the arts can be a vehicle of positive change. The theatre company offers artistic and educational activities to both local residents and visitors, with residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods having free access to events. Special events are organised for the homeless people, as they normally do not mingle either with the residents or visitors. Site analyses showed that the reputation of the Mungunzá premises among the local homeless population is significant; the site is perceived as a safe and respected environment. At the same time, the theatre attracts people from different parts of São Paulo, placing ‘outsiders’ in close contact with drug addicts and homeless people. Data collected confirmed this diversity and complexity. While the surroundings are characterised by a significant number of homeless people sitting and sleeping on the pavement, the site has free access and is used indiscriminately by a different range of people: children playing in the site, homeless people using the sitting area or toilet facilities, cultural users (Fig. 14.3). While Luz itself may continue to be perceived as a no-go zone, Mungunzá has triggered a transformation of the image of the area for non-residents which would not have occurred otherwise. The Mungunzá Container Theatre is here filling a gap between the provision of leisure-cultural spaces and local users’ needs (especially on the daily basis of the children living in the surroundings), in contrast with the cultural landmarks of the surrounding area. The decision to allow this temporary urban intervention to remain on site is testament to its success on both counts. We are now turning to the CALGO project, a top-down initiative on a public square led by the municipality, cultural institutions of the state of São Paulo and

Fig. 14.3 Mungunzá Theatre used by a different range of people and its surroundings with homeless people sitting and sleeping on the pavement

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a local theatre company. The project consisted of a trial temporary reuse of the underused Largo General Osório in the neighbourhood of Luz in 2015. General Osório square is a triangular-shaped public open space, primarily green, with one 60 m long edge bounded by a very busy road, and the two shorter edges bounded by quieter roads lined with tall buildings of historic value and character. Its vegetation consists of very tall historical palm trees that date back from the nineteenth century. The objective of the project was to regenerate the square by adopting a set of social and cultural activities, aiming to promote safe use of the space in the longterm perception (Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo 2017). This is a part of a larger initiative promoted by the municipality for social reactivation of five different areas of São Paulo—Largo General Osório, Largo Paissandú, Largo São Bento, Largo São Francisco and Rua Galvão Bueno (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2019a). The CALGO project adopted a variety of temporary strategies to reactivate this square, consisting of the installation of benches, tables for picnics and table tennis, use of portable furniture during the operation times, placement of a wooden decking stage at the centre of the square for cultural activities, exercise and playground equipment, and a giant chess board. Due to the presence of drug users and dealers, the square and its new portable furniture are constantly monitored by the municipality, and furniture is put in/taken out during the day/night. A post-occupancy analysis conducted by the municipality (Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo 2017), and our observations showed the positive impact of the project for the local communities and the liveability of their environment. Observations suggested that the significant number of leisure and seating facilities implemented at the square as result of the set of temporary urbanism approaches allowed more flexibility on the use of the spaces, increasing both the number of users and activities occurring simultaneously at different times of the day. The playground area had its occupancy increased at all the times of the day when compared to its use before the implementation of the temporary initiatives. The average of time of people staying on the space increased by eight times and ten times on weekdays and weekends, respectively, while users spent more time seated on the facilities of the square than before the project implementation (Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo 2017). Finally, it is worth pointing to another different approach towards temporary projects adopted by the municipality through the Atende Emergency Care Units. The units are intended for the reception and care of drug addicts, where various facilities are made available: medical examination, showers, food, shelter, hairdressers, training workshops and social reintegration planning (i.e. help finding a job, applying for ID and/or other documents and contacting drug addicts’ families) (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2018a, b). The initiative was implemented by the municipality between 2017 and 2018 through the municipal Redenção project (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2018b). A total of five Atende units were created in different parts of the city of São Paulo, and since its creation until July 2018, the units had circa one million users (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2018a). Among the units, three of them are located in the Luz and Santa Ifigênia neighbourhoods or their immediate vicinity, reflecting the severity of drug consumption within Cracolândia. Each unit has at least a capacity to receive 300 users daily (Prefeitura de São Paulo 2018a).

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The units’ facilities comprise a number of reused Formula One race containers for shelter and bathrooms plus a large covered open space for meals and other socialoriented activities. The containers are assembled side-by-side in a very sterile rigid format, accentuated by their whiteness that contrasts with the colourful surrounding urban fabric. The architectural appearance and the spatial configuration of these units are deficient and differ from the containers deployed by Mungunzá, situated on the other side of the road. It lacks architectural identity and its disposition is a result of the functional programme it needs to accommodate and does not create an inviting place. The Atende project has attracted strong opposition from residents, who were against the idea as they claim that it would be more effective to remove the drug users from the neighbourhood (Gonçalves and Márcio Pinho 2017). Some drug addicts and drug dealers also opposed this initiative, thus confrontation with the police or attacks and vandalism to the Atende facilities have occurred, and this was widely broadcasted by the local media (Paulo 2017). Due to this, and the flexibility of the physical facilities themselves, an agreement has been reached between the residents and the municipality about the temporary nature of the initiative (Paulo 2017). Observation and surveys undertaken in the area and underpinned by the interviews revealed that the endemic drug use and trafficking related activities strongly dictate how people use and appropriate public spaces, affecting everyone from business owners to passers-by. Surveys undertaken indicated that local users are constantly affected by the high probability of being mugged in the area, revealing that over 80% of participants felt threatened. Interviews conducted within this study strongly indicated that illegal activity may jeopardise many of the initiatives proposed by the municipality, especially ones addressing drug consumption.

14.6 Discussion and Conclusion This research illustrates how site and culture-specific temporary urbanism operates in relation to more conventional agendas for planning and redevelopment in São Paulo, Brazil. Following the unsuccessful attempt to implement an ambitious topdown 15-year master plan for Luz and Santa Ifigênia neighbourhoods since 2010, several temporary use initiatives, promoted by different actors in partnership with the government, have emerged as an alternative form of urban transformation. The support received from the local municipality is crucial here and allows us to make a clear distinction between temporary interventions and uses and other forms of temporary occupations which would relate to squatting and illicit uses. These modest temporary urban interventions have had a positive impact on the community because they emerged in direct response to the complex social structure of the place, bringing discreet but noticeable improvements to social and cultural aspects of these neighbourhoods through reactivating public spaces and providing amenities and services in specific locations. Their relative levels of success have varied according to how well they respond to local context and the prevailing perceptions of users.

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The Mungunzá Container Theatre’s success relies on the fact that it attempts to connect more broadly with the complex community of Luz-Santa Ifigênia at all social levels in a way that signals multiple users are welcome to use the spaces. This bottom-up initiative resulted in users taking ownership of the spaces provided, therefore increasing and strengthening the theatre activity in the area, not only as a cultural, but also as an important social function. It offers a wide range of lessons learnt in terms of democratisation of art and community engagement in a socially deprived context. This example is especially noteworthy as it actively engages a range of users, from homeless locals through to local residents and other visitors who would not otherwise visit this part of the city—thus shifting the use and perception of the space. The CALGO project, as a temporary intervention led by the municipality, has upshifted substantially the use of the space. Prior to the implementation of this temporary initiative, the place was primarily an underused residual square, whereas now it has become a popular alternative for outdoor leisure within the community. This demonstrates how, with a modest investment in (top-down) public infrastructure, the longer-term perception and use of an area by existing residents can be achieved, even in an area with the reputation and challenges of Cracolândia. The top-down Atende units directly address drug dependency and welfare provision and face strong opposition from both service users, who object to police presence, and from residents who did not want concentrated drug-related activity near their homes. Consequently, Atende seems to be less socially successful than the other two initiatives, as it is not always fully occupied, despite high demand. It should be mentioned that the purpose of the Atende seems to be more challenging than the other initiatives because it deals with the drug and crime issues in a direct way, while the other two initiatives interface these challenges indirectly via more cultural and leisure activities through space reactivation. As well as their management structure (top-down/bottom-up) and programmatic function (cultural centre/public space/welfare station), the actual physical appearance and design of the temporary interventions is also a factor influencing their perception and reception by the users. A structure made of shipping containers can be a colourful and welcoming addition to the urban fabric, as it is the case of the Mungunzá Theatre, or a starkly contrasting insertion ‘dropped in’, as in the case of the Atende units. In short, integrating the intervention sympathetically with its surroundings is important. In the case of the CALGO project, the physical appearance of the public space was minimally improved, but it became more functional to the use of the residents and transient occupants of the open spaces. Findings indicate that the remarkable social-economic complexity of inner areas of large cities such as São Paulo can be addressed through initiatives that combine bottom-up and top-down actors and processes. Different kinds of temporary structures in Luz and Santa Ifigênia neighbourhoods have shown signs of generating positive social impact. Instead of radically changing the character and economic value of the area through a new master plan, which would potentially bring gentrification and push out existing locals, these interventions incrementally improve the character and image of the area for locals and begin to introduce non-locals to the area ‘on

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its own terms’ so to speak. These temporary urban interventions do not replace the overarching master plan; however, they catalyse shifts of perception that can lead to a transition to improved services and diversity, blurring boundaries between the extremes of rich and poor. They may set out the preconditions for a more comprehensive approach for a master plan—if that still seems appropriate—or a model for further, incremental changes that together may constitute larger changes that benefit residents and other local actors. They appear to work with local cultural tendencies to make use of space and resources, not replace them. These examples provide evidence that temporary urbanism can have an impact in even the most challenging contexts of large LMIC cities, as long as they are implemented within a multi-governance setting involving municipality support—but only when it recognises qualities and attributes of the place as well as incorporates a direct response to local complexities, making creative uses of the spaces available. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the University of Nottingham and the University of Birmingham for their financial support. We also would like to thank the undergraduate students Carolina Bley, Daniel Bilesky, Mariana Vitti, Maysa Maria Guimaraes and the technician Ranieri Higa for their contribution to the research. Thanks also to Prof. Miguel Bucallen from POLI-USP and the Municipality of São Paulo for all the information provided on the Nova Luz project, as well as to the Mungunzá Theatre Company for opening its spaces for fieldwork.

References A Batata Precisa de Você (2015) Ocupe Largo da Batata: Como fazer ocupações regulares no espaço público. São Paulo A Batata Precisa de Você (2016) Redes e ruas. A Batata Precisa de Você, São Paulo Andres L (2012) Differential spaces, power hierarchy and collaborative planning: a critique of the role of temporary uses in shaping and making places. Urban Stud 50(4):759–775 Companhia Mungunza de Teatro (2018) Teatro de Container Mungunza. https://www.ciamungunza. com.br/en/conteiners. Accessed 30 May 2018 FGV/CPS (2011) Qual a faixa de renda familiar das classes? Fundação Getulio Vargas, Centro de Políticas Socias (FGV/CPS). https://cps.fgv.br/node/3999. Accessed 27 Oct 2014 Fix M, Arantes P, Tanaka G (2003) The case of São Paulo, Brazil. Understanding slums: case studies for the global report 2003. UN-Habitat, London Fontes AS (2012) Intervenções temporárias e marcas permanentes na cidade contemporânea Arqutetura. Arqut Rev 8(1):31–48. https://doi.org/10.4013/arq.2012.81.05 Fundação Edson Queiroz—Universidade de Fortaleza (2018) Projeto Cidade da Gente revitaliza o entorno do Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura. https://www.unifor.br/web/osv/projeto-cid ade-da-gente-revitaliza-o-centro-dragao-do-mar-de-arte-e-cultura. Accessed 30 Apr 2018 Fundação João Pinheiro (2011) Déficit habitacional no Brasil 2008. Ministério das Cidades, Secretaria Nacional de Habitação & Fundação João Pinheiro, Brasília Gonçalves G, Márcio Pinho M (2017) Prefeitura instala contêineres da F1 para atendimento de usuários de drogas em estacionamento da GCM. G1. https://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/ prefeitura-instala-conteineres-para-atendimento-de-usuarios-de-drogas-em-estacionamento-dagcm.ghtml. Accessed 8 Jan 2019

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Prefeitura de São Paulo (2019c) Parklets. Prefeitura de São Paulo. https://gestaourbana.prefeitura. sp.gov.br/projetos-urbanos/parklets/. Accessed 30 Apr 2019 Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo (2015) Censo da população em situação de rua da cidade de São Paulo, 2015: Resultados Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas (FIPE) & Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo. https://www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/upload/assistencia_ social/observatorio_social/2015/censo/FIPE_smads_CENSO_2015_coletivafinal.pdf. Accessed 22 Apr 2017 Samora P (2011) Projeto final para a Nova Luz, no centro de São Paulo, tem como desafio evitar a expulsão de grupos pobres com a valorização imobiliária. Revista au. https://au17.pini.com.br/ arquitetura-urbanismo/210/o-valor-do-centro-235077-1.aspx. Accessed 10 Oct 2018 Silva HMB (2007) Oportunidades e limites para a produção de habitação social no centro de São Paulo. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, São Paulo WRI Brasil (2017) Com intervenções temporárias, São Paulo e Fortaleza provocam reflexão sobre espaços urbanos mais humanos. WRI Brasil. https://wribrasil.org.br/pt/blog/2018/10/com-interv encoes-temporarias-sao-paulo-e-fortaleza-provocam-reflexao-sobre-espacos. Accessed 30 Apr 2019

Chapter 15

Temporary Urbanism in a Public Park: The Case of Postman Square, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Linda McCarthy

Abstract Postman Square is a 1361 ft2 triangular-shaped park in downtown Milwaukee. It contains a statue that was dedicated in 1989 to commemorate the establishment of the National Association of Letter Carriers in 1889, founded in a meeting hall close to the park. This pocket park has generally gone unnoticed and unused because it is so small and dwarfed by the three streets that surround it. With permanent park improvements planned by the City of Milwaukee, NEWaukee, a social architecture organisation, was permitted to undertake a temporary urbanism experiment. NEWaukee’s website defines social architecture as conscious design of an environment to encourage desired social behaviours associated with how people work, live, and play, with the goal of better public spaces and cities. NEWaukee used volunteers and lighter, quicker, cheaper interventions to temporarily transform the park. The goal was to encourage community engagement in this space and gain insights into people’s use of the park before its upgrade. The bright blue furniture and a letterbox for people’s love letters to Milwaukee attracted attention, but community reactions were mixed. This case study investigates NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism in Postman Square, while problematising it within the context of the theoretical and empirical literature. Keywords Temporary urbanism · Public parks · Social architecture · Milwaukee · Wisconsin · Postman Square

15.1 Introduction Temporary urbanism involves many land uses and activities, usually on vacant sites; these include pop-up parks or art installations on lots where development has stalled; arts festivals, pop-up shops, or restaurants in empty buildings; and community vegetable gardens or orchards on foreclosed residential parcels. Significant attention has been paid in the literature to popular examples and what can be learned L. McCarthy (B) Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Bolton Hall 472, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_15

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from them. In contrast, because of their one-time, very short duration on a very small space, other temporary urbanism efforts have not always received attention in the literature. There also has been more limited analysis of attempts at temporary urbanism where community reactions have not been overwhelmingly positive. This case study of Postman Square examines a brief temporary urbanism effort on a very small space where community reactions were mixed. Postman Square is a small triangular-shaped pocket park in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This public park contains a statue that was dedicated in 1989 to commemorate the centennial of the establishment of a union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, across the street in a meeting hall in 1889. The 1361 ft2 park has generally gone unnoticed and unused due to its being so small and dwarfed by the three streets that surround and overshadow it. “Postman Square has existed for a long time, but ask the average Milwaukeean where or what it is and you’ll be met with a blank stare” (Jannene 2016). Park visitors are usually nearby downtown workers who sit on a bench to eat lunch or neighbouring residents who use the park for their dogs to walk and relieve themselves. With improvements to the park and adjacent streets planned by the City of Milwaukee, NEWaukee, a social architecture organisation, was permitted to undertake a temporary urbanism experiment. According to NEWaukee’s Website, social architecture involves conscious design of an environment to encourage desired social behaviours associated with how people work, live, and play, with the goal of better public spaces and cities. NEWaukee used volunteers and lighter, quicker, cheaper (LQC) interventions to temporarily transform the park (Fig. 15.1). The goal was to encourage community engagement in this public space and gain insights into people’s use of the park before its upgrade. The bright blue movable furniture and letterbox for people’s love letters to Milwaukee did attract attention to this largely overlooked space, but the reaction was mixed. This case study investigates NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort in Postman Square, while problematising it within the context of the theoretical and empirical literature on temporary urbanism. The next section of this chapter is a review of the literature on temporary urbanism that is of relevance to what NEWaukee attempted to do at Postman Square, followed by details of the Postman Square temporary urbanism effort, a discussion of the findings within the context of the reviewed literature and some brief concluding comments.

15.2 Temporary Urbanism and the Literature Relevant to Postman Square This section reviews the literature on temporary urbanism that is of relevance to NEWaukee’s attempted actions at Postman Square. It establishes the state of knowledge and the questions raised in the literature related to temporary urbanism efforts such as this.

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Fig. 15.1 Postman Square after the ribbon-cutting ceremony on 12 July 2016 with some attendees sitting on the blue furniture. Source Jannene (2016)

A great deal of the literature on temporary urbanism focuses on privately owned land that is viewed by the owners, developers, and local governments as temporarily vacant only until permanent redevelopment occurs (Haid 2014; Ho 2010; Schwarz and Rugare 2009). As such, temporary uses are viewed as the highest and best use for now (US Department of Housing and Urban Development 2014, p. 34), as a way to keep a site “warm” while the building cycle and development capital are cool (Tonkiss 2013, p. 318). Less attention has been paid to public land that is used for a temporary urbanism effort; some examples include Granby Park in Dublin, Ireland which was activated as a temporary park in August 2013 on land earmarked for a then stalled public housing development (Moore-Cherry 2017), Times Square in New York with part of Broadway closed to cars and red tables and chairs added (Tierney 2016), or the sand that is trucked into city-owned spaces from Paris to Detroit to make temporary beaches every summer (Kim 2015). Given the relatively recent nature of temporary urbanism, a question raised in the literature is whether it is a new approach representing an integral feature of professional planners’ thinking or just a passing fad (Bishop and Williams 2012; Nemeth and Langhorst 2014; Oswalt et al. 2013). Are temporary uses seen as quite different to the kinds of permanent land uses associated with conventional planning, or instead accepted as valuable and appropriate? If so, how do city planners and planning regulations need to adjust, and in particular, in conventional city planning, “can the unplanned be planned, the informal formalized?” (Oswalt et al. 2013, p. 8). This also relates to how people, as opposed to planners and architects, tend to design

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a space; instead of being concerned with planning and architecture questions of a formal nature related to what a space should look like, people tend to be more concerned with questions of a structural nature related to what people do in that space (Krasny 2006). On the one hand, a great deal of temporary urbanism has tended to be unsanctioned—so-called tactical or guerrilla or do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism—operating outside official city planning regulations. Goals can include identifying different options based on protesting, prototyping, or visually demonstrating the possibility of change to expose outdated government planning practices (Lydon and Garcia 2015). On the other hand, is the concern that when temporary urbanism is sanctioned by a city government, institutionalising it can hurt more than it helps (Haydn and Temel 2006). Colomb (2012), for example, found that only certain types of temporary uses—not too radical or politicised—were valued and then coopted by Berlin’s government. Given how much attention has been paid to the success stories, the question has been raised about what happens when temporary urbanism efforts fail and what can be learned in these cases (Green 2015). This question relates to the nature of temporary urbanism and how it involves experimentation. As Jacobs (1961, p. 6) recognised: “cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design”. Allowing experimentation may involve city planners being flexible enough to permit more spontaneous bottom-up initiated temporary land uses (Greco 2012; Groth and Corijn 2005; Zelinka and Johnson 2005). Pagano (2013, p. 389) suggested that city governments should not fixate on land use regulations and allow a little disorder so that residents can try small efforts that involve the kind of experimentation upon which healthy cities thrive. Instead of adhering firmly to a somewhat inflexible master plan, city governments could allow some trial and error (Nemeth and Langhorst 2014), and even make some land available for this (Bishop and Williams 2012). “The goal is a do-it-yourself attitude, rather than waiting for planners … which can contribute to a city’s development as ‘bottom-up’ planning instruments, as oppositional instruments to counter traditional urban planning from above” (Temel 2006, p. 58). And because experimentation usually involves a limited budget, people are more likely to risk failure, which may actually open up greater potential for successful possibilities (Haydn and Temel 2006). At the same time, concerns have been raised about the quality of temporary urbanism being compromised by limited budgets and short time frames in terms of what can and cannot be done. There is also the related issue for temporary urbanism of the tensions between authenticity versus staging; this is associated with people’s sense of place, right to the city, and feelings of ownership and belonging versus so-called bogus placemaking that is targeted towards visitors and is more exotic and escapist (Harvey 2008; MooreCherry 2017; Russell 2015; Stevens and Ambler 2010). These tensions were evident in Berlin with the local government’s creative city discourse and branding strategy to promote Berlin as a so-called creative city; the concern is that this city government’s cooptation of certain temporary urbanism efforts in Berlin could, at the same time, change and undermine the very conditions that sustained these efforts all along (Bader and Scharenberg 2010; Colomb 2012). As Temel (2006, p. 57) put it: “cities

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are increasingly wagering on cultural policies, rather than economic policies, to improve their chances in locational competition … which is intended to make it more interesting for tourism and a well-heeled clientele – the so-called creative class” instead of community residents involved in the temporary urbanism efforts in the first place. This also relates to concerns about how government expenditures may contribute to producing what looks like a public space but which primarily benefits surrounding business and property owners through the associated increases in property values, while also encouraging gentrification and its drawbacks in the immediate area (Harvey 2008; Ulam 2013). Who the temporary urbanism effort is primarily intended for is also relevant when LQC interventions are used, because they depend on the participation of large numbers of volunteers. There is disagreement in the literature about the nature of that participation. One group of scholars sees the potential positives and promise of residents becoming more active in the planning of their city through participating in temporary urbanism efforts, as long, of course, as these are not largely event-based for visitors, and actually offer residents real opportunities for active participation and ownership (Temel 2006). Another group of scholars has a more critical view of volunteer participation in temporary urbanism, viewing it within the context of notions of governance beyond the state (Swyngedouw 2005) in which the government is seen as outsourcing functions to civil society that were previously a public sector responsibility and cost. Viewed within the context of neoliberalism, the “new regime responds to growing demands for individual creative space by ‘offering’ individuals an opportunity to participate actively in solving problems hitherto regulated by state institutions” (Ronneberger 2006, p. 50). This is conceptualised as the “activating state” which proactively seeks to diminish state intervention through outsourcing some of its responsibilities to unpaid community members, in contrast to the “slender state” that merely reactively cuts government spending (Byrne and Bresnihan 2013). Colomb (2012) has identified three main reasons why local governments might support temporary urbanism efforts: first, the free maintenance and shifted responsibility for keeping public property safe; second, the contribution to economic development; and third, the achievement of social objectives through the creation of new publicly accessible open spaces at little to no public sector cost. Yet another group of scholars, however, can see the two sides of the argument in terms of both the residents and the local government getting something out of the temporary urbanism effort, including a more lively cityscape (Overmeyer 2007; Rosol 2012).

15.3 Temporary Urbanism at Postman Square: Findings This case study was based on an exhaustive search of the news media, public–private and private organisations’ Websites and blogs and public Websites and documents, as well as interviews at the City of Milwaukee and NEWaukee with individuals directly involved in the Postman Square temporary urbanism effort in the summer of 2016.

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NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism experiment at Postman Square (which was often referred to as Postman’s Plot) came about due to a number of factors that intersected at the park. First, NEWaukee for a while had been contemplating organising a project at a location that would physically connect its free Wednesday Night Market (with performers and vendors every month in the summer along three blocks of a central part of Milwaukee’s main street, Wisconsin Avenue) to the free weekly Wednesday River Rhythms summer concerts two blocks to the north (at Pere Marquette Park organised by the Westown Association (Business Improvement District (BID) for the neighbourhood)). Postman Square is located mid-way between the Night Market and Pere Marquette Park. Second, NEWaukee was approached by the organisers of the Main Street Now conference with the offer of a session on one of its projects at their May 2016 conference in Milwaukee. Main Street America involves a national non-profit network of communities committed to building stronger neighbourhoods and commercial districts through preservation-based economic development. Instead of a formal session at the conference venue, NEWaukee decided instead to organise a pop-up park event involving conference participants. Third, the City of Milwaukee’s planned improvements to Postman Square and the adjacent streets provided an opportunity for NEWaukee to attempt a temporary urbanism effort in the park in the meantime. NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism “experiment sought to answer the questions: ‘Is there a better way to build public parks? Can we test low-cost solutions and track how the community uses or does not use certain features of the park?’” (Fojut 2017). NEWaukee contacted the City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works (DPW) and found the City officials open to allowing the temporary urbanism effort. In addition to funds expended by NEWaukee, the limited budget of $6000 comprised of a $3000 grant from the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors and a City of Milwaukee Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation Community Improvement project grant of $3000. NEWaukee hosted more than 15 input sessions with neighbouring businesses and residents in 2016 between January and the conference in May. In addition, NEWaukee worked most closely with the Milwaukee Downtown BID and the Westown Association (BID), but also met with other stakeholders including the Downtown Neighbors Association of Milwaukee (DNA MKE), the local alderman, and the Milwaukee County Parks Department. The park concept and design were formulated by NEWaukee in collaboration with the Main Street America conference organisers and local designer, Ryan Tretow, who is credited with the design of the installations. According to NEWaukee, the historical connection of the site to the United States (US) Postal Service was the conceptual framework for the park’s aesthetic, connecting the installations through sharing information and ideas with park visitors in the same way as mail sent through the US Postal Service conveys information and ideas between senders and receivers. The use of blue for the park furniture paid homage to the blue of the US Postal Service.

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The installations were assembled and painted bright blue during the conference session in May by about 100 volunteers including conference attendees. The installations comprised of so-called social furniture, consisting of movable Adirondack chairs made from shipping pallets, allowing people to sit and congregate where they liked (unlike the fixed benches in many parks); a long dining table with movable stools offering opportunities for community get-togethers with food; a stage (with white screen for projections) for community members to use the space, in acknowledgement of the fact that historically this was a place of gathering and allowing people’s voices to be heard, including during protests against the Vietnam war; an historical marker for park visitors to look through the viewfinder at a recreation of the founding of the letter carriers union; and a letterbox for love letters capturing people’s Milwaukee experience, shared via Twitter using the hashtag #LetterstoMke. NEWaukee also installed a notice board describing its social experiment so that those visitors to the park who read it could understand the goals of this temporary urbanism effort. NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism project was officially launched in July with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and speeches by the City’s Mayor and the DPW Coordination Manager, the Wisconsin State Association of Letter Carriers president, and NEWaukee’s Chief Idea Officer. Brunch, a restaurant that had opened across the street a few weeks earlier, supplied free food to those in attendance (Jannene 2016). The park and installations were used during that summer and autumn by visitors to the city, nearby residents, and the downtown lunch crowd and included a pop-up beer garden. During that time, NEWaukee studied the behaviour of park visitors and documented which installations were used or not used, while continuing to gather input from surrounding residents and businesses about future park and street improvements. Contrary to some people’s expectations, none of the installations were stolen or vandalised, and visitors to the park used and moved the chairs and stools. The top request for improvements for the park was for a receptacle for dog waste. The letterbox was used, mostly by tourists who wrote hundreds of love letters to Milwaukee. The dining table and stools were used for some community dinners. The stage was not used, even once, indicating that perhaps this was not something that park users wanted or they preferred the music performances offered at nearby venues such as River Rhythms in Pere Marquette Park; at the same time, the absence of power for lighting, microphones, and a projector for movies may have discouraged use of the stage and screen. NEWaukee passed along its findings informally to City of Milwaukee officials. In terms of reactions to NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort at Postman Square, a downtown resident and professor of film at a local university wrote a quite negative opinion piece in January 2017 (Blau 2017) in Urban Milwaukee, a daily publication covering real estate, politics and arts and entertainment in the City of Milwaukee. The critical nature of the piece was captured by its title: “Downtown Park’s Art is a Huge Mistake”. The essence of the article’s criticism of NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort is captured in this quote: “I think we need to be very careful about adding such ‘public art’ to our present urban fabric. I think we need to be more discriminating, not less, when it comes to enthusiastic proposals for filling

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up the space around us, usually with stuff that doesn’t deserve to be there in the first place”. This opinion piece generated 14 similarly largely negative online comments. NEWaukee’s Chief Idea Officer responded with his own opinion piece the next day in the same publication (Fojut 2017). There was an almost equal number of largely positive comments. In addition, some of the love letters to Milwaukee expressed positive opinions about NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort. All of these opinions offer insights into the reactions to NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism experiment. People seemed to either love and appreciate or hate and decry what NEWaukee had tried to do at Postman Square. Yet whether people liked or loathed the blue furniture, they noticed it during the summer and autumn of 2016. One comment in response to the NEWaukee January 2017 article that came from Tim M. captures this: “I swear in 25 yrs I never noticed that space till the blue furniture arrived this summer. Nice job Newaukee!” Others expressed appreciation for NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort, for example, in a number of the love letters to Milwaukee. A letter from Angela Damiani on July 12 stated: “Postman’s Plot long sat dormant before the work of Newaukee” and another from B. B. Smith on August 1 said: “Just a note to let you all know what a welcome addition to the neighborhood your installation is”. Less effusively, and clearly in response to the negative reactions to the bright blue furniture, Thomas Bamberger left a comment after the NEWaukee opinion piece: “People … need chairs someone actually wants to sit in. Doesn’t matter what color they are”. Some of the positive comments were more nuanced, showing an understanding for what NEWaukee had attempted to do, for example, in response to the NEWaukee January 2017 article, Steve G commented: “Was the installation at Postman’s Plot perfect? Maybe not, but what is? The fact is that it was a cost-effective way to explore how people use a space that was largely unused and ignored (without needing to hire a nationally known architecture firm). I would call this experiment a resounding success. Hats off to Newaukee for working with the city to try something different”. Others were upset by issues related to the park that were not the responsibility of NEWaukee. Brian commented after the January 2017 NEWaukee opinion piece: “As a resident in a nearby building with a dog, it’s pathetic to see what other dog-owning neighbors have done to this plot … You can’t walk six feet in the grass without stepping in or having to navigate around dog waste, even after a waste receptacle and dog bags were provided … On top of that I tried to use one of the Adirondack chairs to rest after a jog and couldn’t because of the stench of urine. Who wants to hang out in a park taken over by irresponsible dog owners?” Some negative comments in response to the initial critical opinion piece in January 2017 also referred to issues with the park that were not under the control of NEWaukee. For example, mbradleyc said: “Before they tried to put art in that Postman’s Plot, they should have landscaped it. It’s shabby” and John: “We don’t need art that is just placed anywhere. Landscaping should have been a first priority”. But there were certainly also completely negative comments about what NEWaukee had tried to do, as captured by this comment after the first opinion piece in January 2017 from MidnightSon: “… ill-advised offense on a public space … Newaukee … might argue that this was not simply public art but an attempt at ‘place

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making’ on a shoestring budget. Whatever … if you can’t afford to do it right, don’t do it”. Similarly, DLR commented: “The artwork overwhelms the space and renders much of this tiny space useless and visually unattractive” and Brian S: “This is one lovely area that is mucked up by some ugly blue furniture”. While the negative opinion piece and a few of the associated comments referred to damaged furniture or peeling blue paint, during the summer and autumn, NEWaukee repaired installations that showed signs of wear and tear. In terms of the criticisms of the lack of landscaping, it is the Milwaukee County Parks Department that is responsible for the upkeep of parks in the city and county. For a tiny pocket park like Postman Square, however, maintenance becomes the responsibility of the City’s DPW Forestry Services. Forestry staff cut the grass and trimmed trees, but did not undertake any major landscaping in general or in preparation for NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort in particular. By the time the installations were removed in late autumn 2016 before winter set in, Postman Square was back to being an unnoticed pocket park mostly used by nearby residents for their dogs to walk and relieve themselves (see Fig. 15.2). The City’s park and street improvements have been behind schedule in general, and because of the desire to coordinate with the relocation of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) to a new venue a block south on Wisconsin Avenue, scheduled to open in autumn 2020, in particular. When finalised, the street connecting the new MSO venue and Postman Square will be more pedestrian-friendly with sidewalks at the same grade as the reduced space for traffic (to a single one-way street) allowing more opportunities for outdoor seating, for example, for restaurants, and Postman Square itself may be made slightly larger (Milwaukee Business Journal 2018).

Fig. 15.2 Someone walking a dog in Postman Square 9 February 2019 before the City of Milwaukee’s planned upgrade. Source Linda McCarthy

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15.4 Temporary Urbanism at Postman Square: Discussion This section discusses the findings related to NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort at Postman Square within the context of the literature on temporary urbanism that was reviewed earlier in this chapter. This case study of Postman Square addresses a need in the literature for more research on temporary urbanism efforts on public land, as opposed to private land which has so far received more attention by researchers. Postman Square may offer insights into the implications of a temporary urbanism experiment prior to redevelopment of a site that is publicly owned with no change to its highest and best use, a city park. While NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort at Postman Square was a form of keeping this overlooked space “warm” (Tonkiss 2013, p. 318) until the City’s upgrade to the park and adjacent streets, this temporary use was still the highest and best use for the park. The park itself was not a privately owned vacant site in transition to a new commercial land use and, as such, was not facing development pressures. So, this temporary urbanism experiment did not encounter the typical issues facing a temporary urbanism effort on a privately owned vacant site; for example, the “People’s Park paradox”, which is associated with the perceived risk for any private property owner who allows a temporary use and then later may face a local constituency who has enjoyed the temporary space and may oppose redevelopment plans (Ho 2010). As a result, the focus of this case study could be on the intricacies of the temporary urbanism effort itself and related community, and not private developer reactions. In contrast, some case studies of temporary urbanism efforts on privately owned land have tended to juxtapose the community and private developer as on opposing sides because the community is concerned with the use value of the site versus the developer’s concern for the site’s exchange value. An insight from this case study for conceptualising temporary urbanism is that important differences of opinion may exist within, as well as between, stakeholder groups and need to be incorporated into analyses. This issue also relates to a question raised in the literature about the nature of temporary urbanism and how people, as opposed to planners and architects, typically design a space. People tend not to be too concerned with planning and architecture questions of a formal nature related to what a space should look like and instead are often more concerned with questions of a structural nature related to what they actually do in that space (Krasny 2006). An insight from this case study for conceptualising temporary urbanism is the importance of incorporating variations among different people—tourists, residents who own dogs, office workers, and so on—in terms of how they actually experience and use a space. This case study also offers insights into the question raised in the literature about whether temporary urbanism is a new approach representing an integral feature of professional planners’ thinking or just a passing fad (Bishop and Williams 2012; Nemeth and Langhorst 2014; Oswalt et al. 2013); this case study points out the need for more nuanced conceptualisations, rather than an either/or viewpoint. In terms

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of whether temporary uses are seen as quite different to the kinds of permanent land uses associated with conventional planning, or instead accepted as valuable and appropriate, in Milwaukee, temporary uses are viewed by the City of Milwaukee as interim solutions on the way to permanent resolutions. This reflects a recent change in how Milwaukee city planners and planning regulations accept and approach temporary uses. So, in terms of the literature, variations among cities based on the extent to which conventional city planning allows the unplanned to be planned and the informal to be formalised (Oswalt et al. 2013) need to be included in conceptualisations of temporary urbanism. In this connection, while some city governments, especially in Europe, may be quite proactive in encouraging temporary urbanism and adjusting their regulations to incorporate temporary use as legitimate and valued, the City of Milwaukee, while open to temporary urbanism efforts, is not proactive in promoting temporary urbanism partly due to limitations of personnel and budget. This finding is helpful for conceptualising temporary urbanism because some of the literature tends to frame the position of planners and planning departments as either supportive or not. This case study indicates that budgetary restrictions should also be taken into account in terms of considering the extent to which a local government proactively engages in promoting temporary urbanism. In terms of public involvement, the question in the literature is about whether a city government’s sanction of a temporary urbanism effort hurts more than it helps. In the case of the City of Milwaukee, the formal process for sanctioning temporary urbanism efforts such as Postman Square takes the form of issuing a temporary use permit and requiring insurance. As the City of Milwaukee’s DPW Coordination Manager was quoted as saying on the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremony: “we were happy to partner with NEWaukee and step aside to let them do their thing” (Jannene 2016). NEWaukee did not receive any objections from the city government to their proposed installations, and its main interaction was with this same DPW official who attended some of the initial NEWaukee planning meeting to ensure that no permits in addition to the temporary use permit were required. So, there is no evidence that the City of Milwaukee’s permitting requirements caused NEWaukee to alter its installation plans or design. An insight from this case study for conceptualising temporary urbanism is that the individual context needs to be incorporated given that there may be variation in how a particular city’s sanction of a temporary urbanism effort plays out. In terms of the question raised in the literature about what happens when temporary urbanism efforts fail, NEWaukee’s Postman Square installations were not universally well received. On the one hand, the blue furniture drew people’s attention to a space that was generally unnoticed and unused (except by the occasional downtown worker at lunch or dog owners and their dogs). Had the wooden pallets not being painted bright blue as a nod to the postal service, they may not have attracted as much attention from passers-by. On the other hand, many people had a negative view of the blue furniture. Some people were unaware of the social experiment nature of NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort and thought that the blue furniture was supposed to be primarily an art installation and disapproved. NEWaukee maintains

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that the temporary urbanism at Postman Square was a social experiment, not art. Moreover, because NEWaukee’s social furniture installations were temporary, City officials themselves did not categorise them as art, given that permanent art installations must go through a much more formal and time-consuming application process involving the City-staffed Milwaukee Arts Board. Aware of the mixed reaction, one City of Milwaukee official said that NEWaukee’s experimentation at Postman Square was temporary and low cost, and so low risk if the reaction was not all positive. While the local alderman and nearby residents were consulted ahead of time, this same official also said that if another temporary urbanism effort such as this were permitted in the future, more time would be taken by the City to let even more people know that the installations would not be permanent, so that they might not react so negatively next time. Some believed the LQC approach, with a limited budget and temporary time frame, compromised the quality of the installation (Blau 2017); NEWaukee disagreed and pointed out that it repaired and repainted the installations as needed. An insight from this case study for conceptualising temporary urbanism is that failure or mixed reactions should not necessarily be viewed negatively. As Jacobs (1961) and others have pointed out, experimentation, with the potential for failure, is an important component of what any city experiences over time. Studying less than completely successful cases offers insights and lessons learned that the many success stories in the literature may not. Other tensions identified in the literature related to authenticity and staging associated with the right to the city (Harvey 2008) were not as relevant to Postman Square given that it was already a public park and the temporary urbanism effort was sanctioned by the City of Milwaukee. What NEWaukee attempted to do at Postman Square was not associated with promoting an increase in adjacent business and resident property values or gentrification pressures during its short time span. At the same time, it will be interesting to see after the City of Milwaukee’s planned upgrade to the park and adjacent streets in conjunction with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s nearby relocation, whether these public investments benefit adjacent property owners more than the community as a whole. An insight from this case study for conceptualising temporary urbanism is that the scale and time frame of temporary efforts need to be considered. On the one hand, in terms of the argument in the literature about city governments targeting the so-called creative class and cultural policies that tend to focus on wealthy visitors and tourists, many of those who visited the park during the NEWaukee temporary urbanism effort were visitors to the city. On the other hand, in terms of people’s sense of place and feelings of ownership and belonging, one City official said that NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism effort, which included NEWaukee seeking community input about the future of the park, did bring attention to the park and resulted in nearby residents voicing their opinions about the current and future use of the park for the first time. With the park having been overlooked for decades, nearby businesses and residents took more ownership by speaking out about what they wanted: that Postman Square be kept a landscaped space and a place for people to sit, that the immediate area be made more pedestrian-friendly, and that its current

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use for walking residents’ dogs be maintained as part of the City’s upgrade plans. In terms of ownership also, someone, not NEWaukee, added a receptacle for dog waste in the park. As such, this case study indicates that a more nuanced conceptualisation that does not focus only on one group of park users may be helpful in thinking about how temporary urbanism efforts play out. In terms of whether the participation by NEWaukee and volunteers in this temporary urbanism effort fits with the divergent views in the literature as either positive, or more negatively as outsourcing of public sector responsibility, in the case of Postman Square it may be both. NEWaukee and the conference attendees at that session had a good experience using LQC interventions, and the people who subsequently used and enjoyed the park and its installations that year benefited from this more lively cityscape. The City of Milwaukee saw greater use of the park and economic development benefits associated with some of the activities in the park and increased business for neighbouring establishments, and it received feedback from NEWaukee on the use of the installations and resident preferences related to its planned upgrade. At the same time, the City did not shift the responsibility and cost for maintaining the park to NEWaukee. An insight for the literature from this case study is that the reality of community participation and park use can be quite varied even for a particular case, with both positives and negatives needing to be incorporated into conceptualisations of temporary urbanism.

15.5 Concluding Comments NEWaukee’s temporary urbanism at Postman Square was a brief effort at a very small and largely unnoticed public space that did attract attention even if not all of it was positive. By all accounts, many visitors to the city who used the park had an enjoyable experience; and the temporary urbanism effort resulted in nearby residents and businesses speaking out for the first time about what they wanted for the park. In terms of the negative reactions, allowing more time to publicise the duration and goals of temporary urbanism efforts such as this would be useful in helping inform more people’s understanding and expectations. Having a person or department in the City of Milwaukee assigned to temporary urbanism in the city—as, in fact, was suggested by both NEWaukee and a City of Milwaukee official—would greatly facilitate these efforts. NEWaukee’s idea of testing something cheaply on a temporary basis before putting in something expensive permanently makes sense. And although community reactions were mixed, the insights and lessons learned from this temporary urbanism effort will have permanent effects as they inform future temporary initiatives involving NEWaukee and the City of Milwaukee going forward. And what of the blue furniture? After the temporary urbanism effort, NEWaukee donated it to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Someone purchased the blue furniture, and it has achieved some level of permanency as reported by a member of NEWaukee who saw it recently from the back patio of a local restaurant in the adjacent premises.

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Chapter 16

Conclusion: Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanisms Amy Y. Zhang and Lauren Andres

Abstract This conclusion chapter summarises and highlights the key contributions and conceptual themes of this edited collection. The main contributions of the chapters included in this book are outlined in three aspects. First, this book argues for and puts forward a research agenda for temporary urbanism. It especially highlights the need for identifying temporary urbanism as an overarching concept to further understanding of the relationship between time and the (re)production of urban space. Second, this edited collection demonstrates the diversity of temporary urbanisms through both covering a wide range of geographical areas and probing into various forms and functions that temporary urbanism assumes. Third, the chapters in this book collectively emphasise the complexity of temporary urbanisms as a result of their boundary-traversing and context-based nature. This chapter also identifies two main conceptual themes that connect all the chapters: on the one hand, the examinations of temporary urbanisms in this book provide more in-depth and nuanced understanding of time and temporality in cities; and on the other hand, the various conceptualisations of time, temporality and temporariness presented in the chapters allow us to examine further the meaning and function of temporary urbanisms for urban planning, governance, and politics. Keywords Temporary urbanisms · Diversity · Complexity · Temporality · Urban transformation

A. Y. Zhang (B) Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK e-mail: [email protected] L. Andres Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Andres and A. Y. Zhang (eds.), Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism, The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_16

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16.1 Purposes and Contributions The purposes of this edited collection are threefold. First, this book argues for and puts forward a research agenda for temporary urbanism. As highlighted in the introductory chapter, despite the increasing popularity of ideas and practices that can be understood as and grouped under ‘temporary urbanism’, the development of this concept has lagged behind. The conceptualisation in this emerging research area has, so far, been characterised by various scattered and disjointed terms that categorise particular practices as temporary (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; Ferreri 2015; Madanipour 2018; Tonkiss 2013), guerrilla (Hou 2010), tactical (Lydon and Garcia 2015; Mould 2014), pop-up (Harris 2015; Schaller and Guinand 2018), DIY (Finn 2014; Iveson 2013), informal (Groth and Corijn 2005; Jayne and Hall 2019; Moatasim 2019) and so on, while the conceptual linkages among them are still relatively underdeveloped. As a result, there is a lack of reflection on the collective implication of these various forms of impermanence, whether by choice or by designation, for understanding the relationship between time and the (re)production of urban space. This book thus foregrounds the concept of temporary urbanism as an overarching framework that encompasses a variety of activities, practices and uses in cities that may be designed or designated as ‘temporary’ or ‘impermanent’, which in turn helps develop more in-depth understandings of the dynamics among time, urban space and urban politics. Following from the first purpose of identifying temporary urbanism as an overarching concept and moving towards further shaping its research agenda, the second purpose of this edited collection is to recognise and demonstrate the diversity of temporary urbanisms—noting here the use of plural. On the one hand, by taking a comparative international overview approach towards this topic, this book significantly expands the geographical coverage in existing literature on temporary urbanism. As it is pointed out in the introductory chapter and by several contributors, the majority of the existing research on temporary urbanism focuses on North American, Western European and Australian cases (Andres 2013; Colomb 2012; Iveson 2013; Mould 2014; Schaller and Guinand 2018; Tonkiss 2013). Collectively, the chapters in this book present cases in both regions that are typically defined as the Northern ‘core’ (e.g. USA, Canada, France, Spain and Switzerland) and those that tend to be seen as the ‘peripheries’ (e.g. sub-Saharan Africa, Lebanon, Brazil and Chile), making a much-needed contribution to diversifying the geographical focus in the research area of temporary urbanism. It also looks at more unique cases in China, in the Republic of Macedonia and in Hungary. On the other hand, this edited collection widens the research area of temporary urbanism, by not only enriching but also going beyond the strong focuses presented in existing literature on creative and artistic temporary uses and on the issues of engaging with temporary uses for urban regeneration. Given these perspectives, earlier studies on temporary urbanism often consider such practices as either subversive (grassroots, unauthorised, urban interventions) or complicit (sanctioned, sanitised, staging of alternative images of particular urban areas) in neoliberal urban development agenda (Colomb 2012; Ferreri 2015; Harris 2015; Schaller and Guinand 2018).

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These thematic focuses, although helpful for the initial recognition and development of this research area, can limit the understanding and usefulness of the concept of temporary urbanism if taken for granted. The contributions to this book thus make important interventions in the literature by problematising the established binary and demonstrating considerable diversity in temporary urbanisms that fall both within and beyond the thematic focuses identified above. Through these chapters, we see the diversity of temporary urbanism manifests in the form it takes, the function it assumes, the rationale behind it, the alignment of actors and the assemblage of timespace it creates, the effects it delivers, its relationship with the planning system and development model and so on. The thematic diversity of temporary urbanisms highlighted in this edited collection is also connected with the broadened geographical scope represented by the chapters. Studies of cases located outside of the Northern ‘core’ noticeably help enrich understanding of the concept of temporary urbanism. They call attention to issues of uses that are designated as temporary but are de facto much more ‘permanent’ in the case of informal housing structures (Bakare et al., Chap. 5) and refugee camps (Moawad, Chap. 6), and to the functions of temporary urbanism for deactivating urban space and symbols (Topuzovski and Andres, Chap. 7) and for urban learning (García, Chap. 9). The widened and diversified uses and interpretations of the concept of temporary urbanism shown in this book further strengthen the necessity of viewing and building temporary urbanism as an overarching concept, which, by encompassing a variety of practices and uses in cities and bringing them into conversations, would help deepen our understandings of the interactions between time and the (re)production of urban space. The diversity in temporary urbanisms, as represented by the contributions to this edited collection, further needs to be emphasised as a result of and thus reflecting the complexity of temporary urbanisms. This book’s third purpose is thus to prob into the complexity of temporary urbanisms and reflect upon its implications for methodological considerations. As several chapters included in this book point out, temporary urbanisms can be complex constellations of actors, processes, conditions and materials that may normally function in drastically different institutional and professional spaces (e.g. Stevens, Chap. 2; Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; Maeder, Chap. 4; Crump, Chap. 8; Pinard, Chap. 10). This boundary-traversing nature of temporary urbanism brings out its complexity in two main ways. First, the existing status and characters of the institutional and professional spaces that each specific case of temporary urbanism traverses inevitably shape its look, form, use and effect, where certain fields may play a more dominant role than others (e.g. García, Chap. 9; Mackinnon, Chap. 11; Bródy, Chap. 12). As a result, a multitude of aspects and relationships need to be taken into consideration when examining temporary urbanisms, while the borders of such examination need to be recognised as fuzzy, flexible and dynamic. Second, it can be challenging for all the factors that are drawn from different institutional and professional spaces and are needed to realise certain temporary urbanisms to be compatible or align properly for the intended purposes or functions of temporary urbanisms (e.g. Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; Maeder, Chap. 4). Frictions and glitches are thus more common than exceptional in cases of temporary urbanism, which highlights

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the need for research on temporary urbanisms to closely attend to their complexity and, consequently, unpredictability. The complexity of temporary urbanisms also comes from the variety of people who may be involved in producing, defining, maintaining, consuming and utilising temporary urbanisms. For one thing, and related to the aspects explored in the previous paragraph, the relationships and power dynamics between these different groups of people, which may be pre-existing or created through temporary urbanisms, add to the variables that may shape temporary urbanisms while such variables may also be reshaped through temporary urbanisms in the process (e.g. Bakare et al., Chap. 5; Crump, Chap. 8; Pinard, Chap. 10; Bródy, Chap. 12). For another thing, temporary urbanisms, whether by design or by designation, create and demand their own audience, recipients and users (who sometimes may overlap with producers). The interpretations of responses to and sometimes appropriations of temporary urbanisms from those who may be considered as being at the receiving end of these projects and practices, however, cannot be fully controlled or predicted (e.g. Topuzovski and Andres, Chap. 7; McCarthy, Chap. 15). The possible variations of reactions induced by temporary urbanisms and sometimes the lack thereof further highlight the complexity of temporary urbanisms (e.g. Moawad, Chap. 6; Zhang, Chap. 13; Rodrigues, et al., Chap. 14). Taken the aspects explored here together, this book therefore emphasises that, to attend to the complexity of temporary urbanisms, research needs to pay close attention to the multi-layered contexts that specific case of temporary urbanism is situated in. To conclude and synthesise the ideas and arguments from the contributors of this edited collection, we identify two main conceptual themes that connect all the chapters: one on time, temporality and temporariness and the other on urban planning, governance and politics. The rest of this chapter thus discusses how the contributions to this book engage with these themes and ends with a concluding reflection on the future directions of the research area of temporary urbanism.

16.2 Time, Temporality and Temporariness While one of the most prominent features of temporary urbanism may be its temporariness as opposed to being permanent, the contributions included in this edited collection highlight temporal dimensions of temporary urbanisms that go beyond a simple dichotomy between ‘the temporary’ and ‘the permanent’ and that are more productive for elucidating these phenomena. To being with, as Stevens reminds us in Chap. 2, the relationship between temporariness and permanence is dialectical. Both ‘the temporary’ and ‘the permanent’ need to be understood and defined relationally. Arguably, all urban built environments and uses of urban space are to some extent impermanent. As assemblages of materials, actors and capital, they are constantly shaped by multiple relationships that stretch across spaces and are at different scales. Permanence, thus, is more a reflection of perceived relative stability, based upon slowness of or difficulty in changes.

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Hence, the ‘temporary’ in temporary urbanism is better understood as a duration that is defined for the activities and uses in question in relation to perceived stability. Temporary, in this sense, is less about defining for how long the activities and uses in question will last but more about indicating that they will not or should not last, whether there is a designated duration for them or not. And as Stevens (Chap. 2), Bakare et al. (Chap. 5) and Moawad (Chap. 6) highlight in this book, temporary urbanisms are as much about such activities, practices and uses in and of urban spaces as about the relationships that different urban actors construct with time and the temporality of urban spaces in such circumstances. Especially, temporary urbanisms are about the relationships urban actors construct with and between the present and the future. The present in temporary urbanisms is often deemed as undesirable by some, while ‘the temporary’ is deployed to mediate its relationship with the future. In some cases, such as the case of informal building structures discussed by Bakare et al. (Chap. 5) and that of the Dbayeh camp demonstrated by Moawad (Chap. 6), the present, due to its undesirability as perceived by the state, is defined as a temporary status. In such situations, those who live their day-to-day in these environments inhabit ‘the temporary’ while awaiting a future that is supposed to be a shift from the present but in an unclear and uncertain sense. Time and temporality to them are thus experienced and conceptualised as the constant rather than a movement. In some other cases, ‘the temporary’ is seen as a way to move away from the present and/or to accelerate the arrival of a certain future. As Maeder (Chap. 4), Pinard (Chap. 10), Mackinnon (Chap. 11), Zhang (Chap. 13), Rodrigues et al. (Chap. 14) and McCarthy (Chap. 15) show in their respective case studies, ‘the temporary’ is mobilised by local authorities, planners or real estate developers to stage alternatives to the present: for stimulating imaginations of possible futures, inducing desires for change or gaining legitimacy for or support of particular visions. Through ‘the temporary’, a version of the future is accentuated to be experienced in a condensed and intensified way in the present and a spiral movement of time is inserted into the otherwise linear temporality of urban spaces. Relatedly, as García argues in Chap. 9, ‘the temporary’ can also be a way to slowly and incrementally move away from the present and towards a future that has yet to be defined. It is through multiple iterations of ‘the temporary’ that a trajectory may be charted. As shown above and as highlighted by several chapters in this book (e.g. Stevens, Chap. 2; Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; Maeder, Chap. 4; Topuzovski and Andres, Chap. 7; Crump, Chap. 8; García, Chap. 9; Bródy, Chap. 12), a key temporal dimension of temporary urbanisms is thus the temporalities and rhythms they create and cultivate, which tend to be ignored when they are only examined through a ‘temporary versus permanent’ lens. As Mc Ardle points out in Chap. 3, the rhythms of temporary urbanisms often deviate from and add to existing, well-established and institutionalised rhythms of urban spaces. Temporary urbanisms therefore may create ruptures in such rhythms, for example, deactivating urban symbols as discussed by Topuzovski and Andres in Chap. 7. And they may be accommodated by a rupture appearing in existing rhythms, such as urban vacancies resulting from the 2008 financial crisis. They may also be characterised by both, as shown in the case of the Dublin Biennial

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discussed by Mc Ardle in Chap. 3, where the event was accommodated by a rupture of the neoliberal urban rhythms (vacancies) while creating ruptures in another set of rhythms (commuters). Contributions to this book also emphasise pace as an important aspect of the temporality of temporary urbanism and for analysing temporary urbanisms. For one thing, the rhythms of temporary urbanisms may be derived from their paces, such as when they become recurring elements in urban spaces (e.g. Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; Maeder, Chap. 4; Zhang, Chap. 13). In such case, temporary urbanisms need to establish and maintain particular rhythms to meet the frequency, potentially becoming one of the more institutionalised rhythms of urban spaces. For another thing, while temporary urbanisms are often lauded for providing quick (and thus relatively easy and cheap) solutions to particular urban issues (e.g. Crump, Chap. 8; García, Chap. 9; McCarthy, Chap. 15), they may simultaneously be characterised by a certain level of slowness given their incremental nature in inducing changes (e.g. García, Chap. 9; Zhang, Chap. 13). And finally, paying attention to temporalities and rhythms helps probe into how temporary urbanisms may be conditioned and shaped by existing and institutionalised rhythms. For example, in the cases discussed by Bakare et al. (Chap. 5) and Moawad (Chap. 6), the institutionalised rhythms of the state condition these temporary urbanisms and define their rhythms as the constant. Relatedly, Bródy’s comparative analysis of Barcelona and Budapest in Chap. 12 shows that the existing rhythms of citizen participation and social movement are important for understanding the respective rhythms that temporary urbanisms align with in these two cities. In addition, García (Chap. 9), Pinard (Chap. 10), Zhang (Chap. 13) and Rodrigues et al. (Chap. 14) demonstrate that the broader and institutionalised rhythms may define a certain kind of temporality that is met by the rhythms of temporary urbanisms. However, as Mc Ardle (Chap. 3) and Maeder (Chap. 4) indicate, the rhythms of temporary urbanisms may also deviate greatly from the institutionalised rhythms that they interact with or are situated in, such as those of urban planning or the art world, which may create frictions and restrict the effects of temporary urbanisms. Overall, temporary urbanisms tend to intersect the rhythms of multiple spheres and bring them into conversation (e.g. Stevens, Chap. 2; Crump, Chap. 8); how these rhythms interact with each other and with the rhythms, pace and duration of temporary urbanisms play important roles in shaping the outcomes of temporary urbanisms.

16.3 Urban Planning, Governance and Politics Building upon the multifaceted and nuanced understandings of the temporal dimensions of temporary urbanisms contributed by the authors, as discussed in the previous section, this section focuses on how they mobilise these understandings to unpack the meanings and functions of temporary urbanisms for urban planning, governance and politics.

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First, a closer attention to the meaning of ‘the temporary’ presented by the contributions to this book helps shed light on the implications of assigning temporariness to certain activities, practices and uses in and of urban spaces. On the one hand, temporary urbanisms, especially those that aim at intervening in existing rhythms of urban spaces and inducing changes, may benefit from being defined as temporary for it makes it easier for them to be tolerated or unchallenged (e.g. Stevens, Chap. 2; Mc Arlde, Chap. 3; García, Chap. 9). The ruptures created in existing rhythms of urban spaces are seen as experiments that can be relatively easily reversed or removed, which reduces the hurdles for implementing temporary urbanisms and encourages innovation through temporary urbanisms (e.g. Crump, Chap. 8). On the other hand, temporariness may also be deployed, especially by the state, to justify the ignorance of and/or to demand acceptance of conditions that may be deemed as undesirable or unsuitable, as Bakare et al. (Chap. 5) and Moawad (Chap. 6) point out. And second, examining the temporalities and rhythms of temporary urbanisms highlights both the transformative potentials and the limitations of temporary urbanisms. While temporary urbanisms may create ruptures in and disrupt existing, institutionalised and dominant rhythms of urban spaces, the potential long-term effects or legacies of temporary urbanisms depend on how such ruptures and disruptions interact with existing rhythms and whether and to what extent they are absorbed by existing rhythms (e.g. Topuzovski and Andres, Chap. 7; Bródy, Chap. 12; McCarthy, Chap. 15). The relationships that temporary urbanisms construct with and between the present and the future, although may to some extent challenge existing dominant rhythms (e.g. Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; García, Chap. 9), can potentially fit into or help further legitimise them (e.g. Pinard, Chap. 10; Mackinnon, Chap. 11; Zhang, Chap. 13). The distinction between the rhythms of temporary urbanisms and the dominant and institutionalised ones becomes further blurred when temporary urbanisms are turned into recurring events and features of urban spaces. Furthermore, one key aspect of the transformative potentials of temporary urbanisms stems from the ability of temporary urbanisms in intersecting and bridging multiple rhythms that are less likely to interact otherwise, as argued by Stevens (Chap. 2) and Crump (Chap. 8). Nevertheless, clashes and frictions between these rhythms may also be common and can diminish the transformative potentials of temporary urbanisms (e.g. Mc Ardle, Chap. 3; Maeder, Chap. 4). The contributions to this edited collection thus demonstrate that careful attention must be paid to the temporal dimensions of temporary urbanism to sufficiently grasp the meaning and function of a particular case of temporary urbanism for urban planning, governance and politics. These include, and are not limited to, the use of and rationale behind temporariness and the temporality and rhythm of temporary urbanism in relation to the temporalities and rhythms that it intersects and interacts with.

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16.4 Conclusion Temporary urbanism is still a relatively new and emerging research area. Thus, this book intends to act as a timely overview and synthesis of the development of such a field of enquiry and as an effort to push the research area to the next stage. As highlighted here and through the contributions to this book, temporary urbanism needs to be viewed and engaged with as an overarching concept. It needs to be understood as being characterised by a relational understanding of temporariness and by the relationships with and between the present and the future that it enables urban actors to construct. In this way, temporary urbanism, as a concept, is able to account for a diverse range of activities, practices and uses of urban spaces. Conceptualised in this way, temporary urbanism also helps build more in-depth understandings of the dynamics between time and the (re)production of urban spaces. In addition, this edited collection highlights how temporary urbanisms function as complex constellations of actors, processes, conditions and materials that intersect and attempt to bridge multiple rhythms while constructing rhythms of their own. The complexity of temporary urbanisms emphasises the need for researchers to be attentive to the multi-layered contexts that temporary urbanisms are situated in and in particular the temporalities and rhythms of these contexts. Temporary urbanisms can carry transformative potentials, especially when they create ruptures in dominant institutionalised rhythms of urban spaces or when they can address existing ruptures of certain rhythms without having to fit into such rhythms. Such transformative potentials are especially valued at the moment while we finish the manuscript of this book in mid-2020. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, cities around the world draw on temporary solutions to help mitigate the pandemic’s impacts on people’s daily lives, such as implementing temporary cycle lanes to accommodate the increasing number of cyclists as a result of people’s attempts to avoid public transport (Martin et al. 2020). In addition to accommodating a rupture caused by the pandemic, the temporary reduction of automobile transport and expansion of space for cycling is a rupture of the urban landscape in ‘normal times’ and creates a possible future that many urban residents feel excited about. While it remains to be seen whether this temporary urbanism will transform transport planning in certain cities, it once again reminds us of the value and potential of temporary urbanisms and hence the importance of adaptability and flexibility in the production of spaces that are both liveable and resilient.

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