Activating public life in space has been a concern in architecture and urban design, particularly within the liquid conditions of late modernity, where the separation between public and private are continously blurred. While theoretical discourse has shifted towards relational and dynamic understandings of publicness, design practice struggles to intentionally activate public life, especially within existing public interiors, revealing a gap between theoretical and spatial practice. This dissertation addresses this gap by exploring how design approaches can activate publicness in existing public interiors, adopting design-driven research (DDR) as a methodological framework, positioning design as an independent mode of enquiry. Through a series of situated spatial experiments, the research investigates how publicness can be activated in specific contexts to extract knowledge through iterative cycles of design, implementation, observation, and critical reflexivity.

Cross-comparing and overlaying the design experiments, the findings conceptualise publicness as a dynamic threshold condition that emerges from the relations in an ecology of people, objects, nature, space, and institutions, that can be shaped through processes of spatial transformation. A key mechanism to articulate publicness in processes of spatial transformation proved to be
collective creation: a tool for forming publics around shared matters of care through collective problematisation. Finally, the research contributed to design research by showing the capacity of design-driven spatial experimentation to produce situated and transferable knowledge. It also contributes to public space theory and design by reframing publicness as a relational process shaped by relational, embedded and emobdied design approaches allowing designers to intentionally engage and activate it within existing public interiors. ... Read more

This article explores the challenge of designing public spaces in hyperdiverse cities and argues that including knowledge often considered ‘stupid’ is key towards inclusive design approaches. It discusses recent shifts towards co-creation, co-design and placemaking by highlighting the importance of engaging with collective stupidity beyond presumed disciplinary intelligence. The integration of stupid or unconventional ideas in collective creation processes could help better problematise design challenges in public spaces and better engage with diverse perspectives to address diversity effectively. First, we will sketch the main societal pushes and academic turns supporting the enhancement of stupidity through the collective creation of public space for contemporary inclusive and hyperdiverse cities. Then, drawing on a comparative literature study of key authors introducing paradigmatic shifts for today’s theoretical framing and understanding of collective creation, diversity and design ethics in public space, we propose a non-conclusive series of design capacities for public space designers. These designer capacities are situated in contextual and sociocultural awareness, sensitivity to socio-spatial relations and narrative inquiry, and designing with the tacit, hence with empathy and responsibility. Finally, we highlight the relation between stupidity and failure in urban design and present relevant success practices. However complimentary to traditional design capacities, we conclude that these ethico-aesthetic approaches might challenge traditional notions of intelligence, beauty or authorship in design in favour of diversity and inclusivity. ... Read more

The book is conceived as a handbook for helping public libraries in setting up and start a makerspace. It reports the findings of the MAKERLAB project, a living-lab two-years research project funded by PICA Stichting. The publication is organised into three major section: Impact; Program; Space; plus additional information about the context of the research and the employed tools. The MAKERLAB project has been conducted in close collaboration between National Library, TU Delft, Hogeschool Rotterdam. ... Read more

In the context of changing reference points that characterizes contemporary late modernity, public buildings are demanded to adapt to transforming cultural values. Buildings, static long-lasting structures, must satisfy changing purposes, programs, and users. One example of this shif tare libraries which are undergoing transformations both as an institution and as a built object. Since digital resources are broadly accessible through digital means, libraries are shifting from knowledge consumption to knowledge creation spaces. The concept of “making” appears as one upcoming approach to explore contemporary literacy in libraries. The project Makerlabs: Makerspaces in libraries shows how designing public buildings as unfinished publicity thresholds makes space for cultural values’ creation and transformation. In this study, theories on public buildings, liquidity, thresholds, and values ground the framework informing design propositions tested with spatial interventions. Design Driven Methodologies are used as a discursive communication medium between theory and practice, concepts, and approaches, as a generative and reflective tool. ... Read more

Maieutic is the Socratic method by which new knowledge is created by formulating a series of questions followed by thoughtful responses. It is a kind of birthing through a process. First, questioning will lead to the awareness of ignorance. Secondly – and consequently – the desire to repair this lack of knowledge will be awakened and; therefore, the individual is better braced for learning..... ... Read more

In current times, which are dominated by uncertainty and change, the limits of public and private realms are in a continuous definition. As a condensation of the public sphere, public buildings have turned into thresholds, into active public sphere agents that can motivate behaviour and, as a result, produce public values. Public buildings designed for values should be created as unfinished processes instead of objects, leaving room for socio-spatial change and value dynamics. This research will use design-driven methodologies to show how spatial interventions in existing public buildings can incite public values. Connecting buildings and theories will highlight knowledge gaps leading to working hypothesis tested in experimental spatial interventions. Consequently, and as a case study, the experimentation phase will explore the public role of makerspaces within libraries. A co-creation process, conceptual design and prototyping of spatial solutions will highlight findings on the effects of design decisions and interventions in the public sphere of the future spaces of literacy. ... Read more

Tourism in Spain played a crucial role in the great economic development during late Francoism (ca. 1960-75). This topic has generally been discussed from a political or environmental point of view without considering the role of the design process related to both approaches. In this paper, the question of power and tourism will be disentangled through the lens of planning and urban design and their relation to local and national power structures. It argues that the design of spaces for tourism characterised the economical and political system due to a close relation between legislation, private investments and local policy-making. As a consequence, tourism and its planning had to mutate towards a new paradigm along with the transformation of the regime towards a more competitive economy. The paper starts by analysing the state of Francoism and the role of tourism between the end of the civil war (1939) and the explosion of mass tourism (1960’s) by exploring its urban and architectural models and the ways in which they served as an introduction to its later massive boost. The Franco state used planning and politics as a powerful means of national development after the 1960’s, as several examples demonstrate. The transformation of tourism’s planning model along with social and political change are especially well reflected in the urban planning project ‘La Dehesa de El Saler’ by Julio Cano Lasso and its successive modifications. The core of the paper explores that particular example as it exposes the affiliation between the local power of Valencia, the national government and planning decisions. A study of different stages of the design in relation to the social and political situation shows how the critical attitude towards an authoritarian and environmentally destructive way of planning engaged within Valencian citizens as the country took the road towards democracy. Through an integrated analysis of socio-political development and planning, the conclusion explores the importance of opposition to planning injustices as a tool for enriching democratic behaviours. ... Read more