What is public? An approach to stage a debate in a village as a spatial practitioner

Abstract

There are two main strands in this research. The first is how participation urges each discipline, each form of expertise, to question authorship, roles and power relations. In the field of architecture participation is generally considered as a way to involve multiple stakeholders in pursuit of a spatial project. What if we consider participation as a way to go beyond this logic of projects and predefined planning procedures? Then how can we, as a practitioner, contribute by staging a debate, as an ongoing democratic challenge or culture, more than a momentary intervention? Secondly, we worked in the changing context of villages, trying to understand what is changing; starting from many different and autonomous actions. We consider the village as a set of public, private and common spaces, with its own rhythm and dynamic of local actors. How can we support villagers and other actors, by staging a debate on what is spatially changing in their daily living environment?

Both strands where strengthened by the choice for action research. The idea that participation is more than an instrument, aligns with ideas on action research to not focus on the intervention, nor the method but on the situation and practice itself, and then learn from what this means. Secondly, starting from how to understand many, but specific changes in villages, we staged many distributed actions, with different actors in different ways. This coincides with the approach of action research to start from practice and connect different understandings to a broader frame of reference. Although the focus is not on the intervention, as a practitioner you will of course always intervene, making use of knowledge frameworks and methods you know. In this way, our practice was based on design methods, spatial knowledge and theoretical explorations.

We developed a conceptual track in parallel and in relation to a fieldwork track as an ongoing exploration of concepts via literature, testing, discussing, experimenting and intervening on site. In the conceptual track, ideas of ‘participation’ and ‘the public’ (with its political and spatial connotations) were further explored and defined towards other concepts and perspectives, as a language to make and discuss a spatial practice. In the fieldwork track we set up different case studies connecting different scales in space and time (local and regional, shorter and longer term). All case studies were set up to stage a debate and focused on three activities: (1) mapping and understanding how changes are perceived; (2) collectively reflecting on how we would prefer the situation to be, not only by discussing but also (3) through acting: testing and practicing, aiming to come to a perspective how one can contribute. These three activities are ongoing and interrelated, happening in all case studies on different moments, augmenting spatial agency from many actors. The idea of ‘spatial agency’ is introduced, as supporting people to engage in their spatial environment in ways previously unknown, opening new freedoms and potentials.

Both the conceptual and fieldwork track; wanting to stage a debate as well as come to an understanding of changing villages, were interrelated and strengthened each other. Questioning what is public offered theoretical concepts to open this debate towards a plurality of voices, to interrupt and stage a dissensus. Not to define over-arching labels of why things happen, but to come to perspectives to understand how things happen. This understanding induced a way of practicing. But at the same time it was in this practicing and by experience, by taking actions, that we moved to an understanding of the concrete situation. Questioning concrete spaces, supported us to create the opportunity for actors to connect, to assemble, share an understanding and make sense; making use of a more visual language and of spatial knowledge frameworks. Furthermore, questioning the publicness of particular spaces, proofed to be a valuable entry point to articulate different agendas and define future images, as well as to explore and investigate conceptual ideas on plurality, citizenship and public pedagogy.

Connecting different spatial scales, as connecting what happens in the village to a more regional dynamic, and vice versa, was a valid strategy to collectively learn about small-scale changes as well as more regional themes. Connecting different spatial practices, as sharing or multiplying can support practitioners to learn from each other; as augmenting our own agency as spatial practitioners. We need to further investigate ways to create a collective and moreover to create space for this learning, for these kind of practices. Within villages we learned how open spaces in transitions to the surrounding landscape came to the fore as valuable public places. We did not further explore the concept and role of landscape as such, neither did we work through on the idea of commons or theories and practices of commoning. However, both concepts have rich potentials to further nuance an understanding of what is public in a village.