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Actionscape

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Abstract and Figures

Actionscape" is defined as a movement that seeks to actively connect the viewer, or citizen, with the stage, whether it is an urban or natural environment. Places where to develop diverse actions. The landscape, the environment in which we move, thus becomes a flexible element that can be altered by the citizen himself. Actor and owner of his actions, the citizen has the capacity to transform his reality, individually or collectively. By small scale actions, defined as scale one, intermediate size called scale two, or finally as large scale actions, scale three. The role of the architect or the urban planner in these actions is fundamental to guide and organize the ideas and desires of the citizens. Its function is not only to propose an idea, but to listen and observe what happens in its environment, to propose, from the discipline of architecture, strategies and tools that allow the "actionscape" proposed by the citizen to be done in a much more intense way. The design of the cities must incorporate the demands of its users, the citizens, in such a way that when they are implemented, they are themselves who can actively participate in many of them.
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UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress
1
P- 0075
Actionscape
Mosquera González, Javier*1
1 Architect, COAM/UPM ETSAM, Madrid, Spain
Abstract
"Actionscape" is defined as a movement that seeks to actively connect the viewer, or citizen, with the stage,
whether it is an urban or natural environment. Places where to develop diverse actions. The landscape, the
environment in which we move, thus becomes a flexible element that can be altered by the citizen himself.
Actor and owner of his actions, the citizen has the capacity to transform his reality, individually or collectively.
By small scale actions, defined as scale one, intermediate size called scale two, or finally as large scale
actions, scale three.
The role of the architect or the urban planner in these actions is fundamental to guide and organize the ideas
and desires of the citizens. Its function is not only to propose an idea, but to listen and observe what
happens in its environment, to propose, from the discipline of architecture, strategies and tools that allow the
"actionscape" proposed by the citizen to be done in a much more intense way. The design of the cities must
incorporate the demands of its users, the citizens, in such a way that when they are implemented, they are
themselves who can actively participate in many of them.
Keywords: Actionscape, citizen, environment, design, flexibility
*Contact Author: Javier Mosquera González, Architect,
COAM/UPM ETSAM, C/Laurel 11 2H Madrid Spain
Tel: 0034 667 21 21 93
e-mail: mosquera.gonzalez@gmail.com
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1. Introduction
"... a well-posed problem finds its solution." LE CORBUSIER. (1923)1
Understanding the landscape that surrounds us as an area in which to develop diverse actions,
"actionscape" is defined as a movement that seeks to actively connect the spectator, or citizen, with the
scenario, whether it be an urban or natural environment.
It therefore raises the need for participation in order to be able to modify its initial starting conditions, either
through a planned action with studied consequences, or through the freedom that allows spontaneous action,
without a predetermined end. As a "performance", the "actionscape" makes the landscape a flexible element
that can be altered in order to create changing situations that can be enjoyed by other users. These become
actors and modifiers of their environment, either permanently or temporarily.
The "actionscape" can be understood as a new urban reality in which it and the citizen feed each other,
changing both in the day to day. Therefore, there will no longer be a hierarchical relationship, of
subordination, between the city and the user, the latter being subject to the rules of the game proposed by
technicians outside the reality. Through their participation, the initial parameters on which the city is created,
are adapted to everyday situations. The city can then be understood as a changing, fluctuating, adaptable
element. Knowing the starting conditions, the environment is modified according to the interests of each of
the participants.
Accepting this definition as valid, it is questionable to what extent an individual or collective action can or
should modify the environment in which it is carried out, and even more its permanent nature until another
similar action takes place. Perhaps the answer is to change the mentality of the changes that a city suffers,
and to understand that the deadlines for these changes to change over time, must become a more diffuse
and less precise action. Structural modifications of territory and cities are measured in years, in decades,
rather than weeks or months. However, to suggest that small changes in time and in the urban layout can, by
addition, become actions that significantly modify the environment in which we inhabit, will turn these
"performances" into useful tools for future development Of urban, natural and landscape environments.
The challenge is to adequately define the basic parameters that can create attractive and appropriate
situations for the environments in which they are proposed. Knowledge of the different social, cultural and
economic realities of the places where these actions arise will be fundamental for the actors, the citizens, to
feel involved and useful in the creation of their cities and their surroundings. In this way they will be
responsible for their actions and fundamental part in the future urban design, thus always understanding
their freedoms but also the consequences of their decisions.
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2. Scale one
"The conquest of the quality of an environment depends on a generalized awareness, so much that an
absence of it generates a progressive degradation" SIZA, Alvaro. (2009)2
Fig. 2. Untitled, 2012, Richard Long
Individual actions, discrete and simple, are the protagonists of scale one. It is understood by discrete, that
way of proceeding silently, without apparent effort, that manages to modify small aspects of daily life to
improve it. The role that the architect must play on this scale is fundamentally that of the mere observer.
Someone who must open their eyes to understand how common actions can be improved to achieve,
through small adjustments, to satisfy and facilitate the day to day of those who live in a city, live in a home,
or even have coffee watching a landscape. Scale one is therefore a scale intended for the small object. The
architect and the urban planners must recognize these nuances in order to be able to propose alternative
proposals. It will be the user, the common citizen, who will try to set his own rules of the game and find the
way to use the solutions proposed by professionals.
Imagine a street in which an anonymous citizen decides to leave a book on a bench. A copy of a novel he
has enjoyed and knows that there are more people who should enjoy it in the same way he did. Another
anonymous citizen finds it and ventures to pick up the book, since it understands that if it is in the street, it
happens to be an object of all. As a sign of gratitude, the next day it is he who decides to give one of the
copies of his library to another bank of that hypothetical street that serves an anonymous citizen new
gateway to that imaginary world he enjoys.
Faced with this growing phenomenon, the architect, the urban planner, or any specialist who is able to
understand the phenomenon that occurs there, must respond immediately to what is spontaneously
occurring in the city. What happened? How can this situation be improved, enhanced or even modified? The
traditional project mechanisms of the city, obviate these personal nuances that only the citizen is able to
contribute to the complex urban layout.
Perhaps a simple gesture with a paint bucket, marking in the bank the area where users leave the book
normally, multiplied by all the banks that make up the street, is enough to change the perception of a
spontaneous citizen action supported by a criterion Specified by an architect. The street with benches,
happens to be a space of reading and exchange of books in the open air. A reading room available to the
citizen. The bank becomes a tool to encourage reading, marked with a specific painting. And if it is the citizen
who manages the action of painting? Will it feel like part of the process of constant modification of the city?
Participating in the city means that a part of it is somehow, personal and own of who lives in it.
The "actionscape" of the scale one is simple, it is not necessary to apply great protocols that involve high
expenses. They can be actions raised by architects but directed by the citizens themselves. Belonging to the
small scale universe, its success depends on the analytical capacity of the one who poses them.
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3.Scale two
"The grid is, above all, a conceptual speculation." KOOLHAAS, Rem. (2004)3
Fig. 2. A line of 682 stones, 1976, Richard Long
The city can be understood as a structure formed by small substructures linked to each other in form,
sometimes in a natural way and others, most of them, forced. The network that makes up this series of
substructures dedicated to the citizen must be enhanced so that its operation is optimal. Walking through the
city is a challenge that every day users face if they try to coexist with private transportation and part of public
transport. The "actionscape" of the scale two does not pretend to study or modify the routes dedicated to
these movements. The structure of the city is too large and expensive to alter it permanently, to propose a
modification in these terms.
However, the schedule of uses can be rethought by the citizen, and therefore managed by architects and
urban planners. How many times have we walked through a city where the main avenues are deserted by
vehicles, a few hours in which traffic is focused in another part of the city? Can the pedestrian find a place of
his own, only on a temporary basis? What flexible elements can boost these gaps generated in the urban
trace?
The effect that occurs in a city that allows the pedestrian to occupy the space destined to the vehicle when it
does not circulate is surprising and at the same time exciting. Think of an avenue of our city in which the
vehicle does not circulate because the traffic is redirected in a controlled way to another place. A mobile
basketball court? A library inside a public bus? Do chairs and tables come out of bars and restaurants to the
center of the street? Selling places in a lane for a car? All these scenarios and many more are possible if the
citizens organize themselves and are the ones who promote them, with the supervision of a technician and
the authorization of the appropriate local institutions. The connection between these spaces, urban
substructures, generates temporary, ephemeral routes throughout the day, transforming the city and
showing different possibilities without the need for large and expensive modifications.
Temporary modifications on an urban plot must be controlled so as not to cause chaos in the overall
structure and functioning of a city. The management of these elements must necessarily contemplate the
incorporation of the digital world to enhance its impact among citizens. The architects and the urban planner,
as managers of their natural working environment that is the city, should be surrounded by technicians able
to create digital applications that help the citizen to identify and enjoy the areas where these actions occur
and notify when they will occur. The mobile phone is a tool whose diffusion and accessibility makes it the
ideal platform for this to happen. If we receive messages of a special promotion for a fast food product, why
can not we receive a notice from our city telling us that at a certain time it will change to temporarily become
a public space?
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The "actionscape" of the scale two needs the citizen and the city, joined together by general structures and
systems raised by urban architects and planners. The process of change also requires a period of education
for citizens to understand that the traditional model of life can, and should, adapt to the changes proposed. It
will be possible then, to achieve that regulated performances will become part of the everyday imaginary of
the city.
4. Scale three
"Architecture must be an answer. Not an imposition" MURCUTT, Glenn. (2008)4
Fig. 3. A line made by walking, 1967, Richard Long
Decisions affecting the organizational structure of a city may not be within the reach of citizen management,
not because of its lack of criteria, but because they involve a series of medium- and long-term economic
factors that must be developed by technicians and specialists in various fields. This does not prevent
questions being raised from citizens in a way that helps to focus the strategy to follow. In a bidirectional way
that allows to move towards the final solution at the same time that all the parties are involved in the process.
The structural modifications of the territory, in particular that of the city, involve changes that take place over
large periods of time. Citizens need to know that these changes are positive. For them, as has been exposed
throughout the text, they must be involved in the process.
A concrete case study of the "actionscape" of scale three would be the construction of a new urban park on
the outskirts of a city. Many of these projects are considered as places where an architect or urban planner
proposes a mandatiry route and places on it a series of elements, natural or artificial, that limit the use and
the way in which the citizen must use the park. What is conceived as an open-air place where there are no
rules and where the user must be free, become many times in places regulated by agents who do not
participate in the project or the realities of those who use it.
But what would happen if the urban park in question were a canvas in which only soft surfaces and trees
distributed alternately on a topography accessible to the citizen? No roads, no uses, no traces, no
boundaries, no limits that mark areas of regulated activities. The first of the users, like Robinson Crusoe
arriving on a deserted island would have to venture into it and start exploring. The second would be a similar
case, and probably the third too, and so on until well past the opening months of this new green space in the
city.
However, the natural patterns by which people repeat what others do, would generate a series of traces in
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the park, according to the will of the citizens themselves. It is then that the architect or urban planner should
rescue what has been learned in scale one, in which the close observation of the environment allows him to
recognize them in order to work on them. Scale two will serve to identify areas where people recognize
appropriate places for joint activities. The union of the three scales serves as a basis for creating new urban
realities.
The "actionscape" of scale three poses an spontaneous but regulated citizen action, enhanced by the figure
of the architect and his team, in which time is prolonged, compared with previous cases, until it becomes
completed.
5. Conclusion
The three proposed scales of action need the citizen as the main actor to occur. However, the role of the
urban architect or planner should regulate what occurs in them. Not in a way that conditions or alter what the
citizen proposes, but finding the potential that lies hidden in them to multiply the subsequent impact on the
urban layout and structure.
Scale one responds to the immediate environment and individual action. Scale two looks at the city as a
board in which the citizen discovers places to act on, which could even be overlaps of one's own actions.
Finally, scale three belongs to citizen actions that are carried out in larger environments and that also imply a
development in time superior to the previous cases.
The "actionscape" is therefore a mechanism capable of transforming a natural or urban environment,
temporarily or permanently, in which the citizen is the main protagonist of the action to be performed for this
modification to occur. He is no longer an spectator to become an actor, being the city the scene in which
these actions have to be developed.
References
1) LE CORBUSIER, (1998) Hacia una arquitectura. 2nd Ed. Barcelona: Ed. Ediciones Apóstrofe SL.
2) SIZA, Alvaro, (2009) 01 textos por Álvaro Siza. Porto. Ed. Civilização Editora por Carlos Campos Morais
3) KOOLHAAS, Rem, (2004) Delirious New York. 2nd Ed. Barcelona: Ed. Gustavo Gili SL.
4) MURCUTT, Glenn, (2008) Murcutt: Thinking Drawing / Working Drawing. Tokyo: Ed. Toto Shuppan
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
01 textos por Álvaro
  • Alvaro Siza
SIZA, Alvaro, (2009) 01 textos por Álvaro Siza. Porto. Ed. Civilização Editora por Carlos Campos Morais