No more waiting for Superman: teaching DIY urbanism and reflexive practice

Abstract

Self-made urbanity is not a new phenomenon. However, decades of economic restructuring and a neoliberalization of the city and state have made the public realm vulnerable to changes in the economic winds. Increasingly, such an environment poses limits to what can be done via formal planning and urban design processes while do-it-yourself (DIY) activities challenge basic assumptions of who and how spaces may be produced. We (the authors) have recognized this challenge and have worked to bring this awareness into our classroom. Through this paper, we illustrate how DIY approaches have been integrated into our interdisciplinary course, the Community Planning Workshop. We describe how the classroom environment can foster an appreciation for DIY approaches, how DIY practices bring the social and the physical into focus, and how grassroots’ strategies have transformational impacts upon students and their understanding of the roles of design and planning professions.

Keywords:

• DYI
• community planning
• urban design
• pedagogy

Notes

1. For a set of representative exhibitions, see “Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good”, exhibition held at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy, August 29–November 25, 2012; “The Right to the City: DIY Urbanism Reconsidered”, exhibition and symposium held at Tin Sheds Gallery, Faculty of Architecture Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia, April 7–30, 2011; “Fringe Benefits: Cosmopolitan Dynamics of a Multicultural City, exhibition held at the Design Exchange, Toronto, Canada (July 9 – September 23, 2008). For a set of representative internet resources, see: http://www.planetizen.com/node/30,577; http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/diy-urbanism; http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit/24,308/; http://patterncities.com/archives/284.

2. We are using the original publication dates of these texts, which represent the discursive lineage of underpinning guerilla, do-it-yourself, and grassroots urbanism within academic architectural circles; additionally, the texts cited within the body of this essay and those included in the references section represent the kinds of reading materials we ask our students to engage with over the course of a term.

3. The Boyer Report was commissioned by the following collateral architecture organizations: American Institute of Architects (AIA), American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), National Architectural Accreditation Board, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), and American Construction Specifications Institute (ACSI).

4. This approach addresses the call of the American Planning Association’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to represent the under-represented and marginalized.