Want to know to use open space creatively in a legally correct way? Laura Bruns, Konrad Braun, Sabeth Tödtli, Iver Ohm and Michael Ziehl mapped out the existing regulations around creative use of open spaces in Germany and put together guidelines to make using public space a bit easier. An…
Look at this! the Knight Foundation, which supports informed and engaged communities, recently granted funding to a project promoting can-do attitude in public spaces through the application of a more positive language on municipal signs. The project, “CAN DO SIGNS”, is a collaboration between a local municipality worker, Sarah Hazel,…
In the Guardian, Bradley L Garrett describes the shifting freedoms and restrictions on nightlife in cities: Throughout history, the night has been, in the words of geographer Tim Edensor, time for “transgression, fantasy and experimentation”, when the public comes out to play. However rights to the night have long been…
One of the users groups facing public space regulations and restrictions on a daily basis are naturally street performers. These laws, bylaws and regulations shift constantly and the performers need to follow and understand these changes. In 2003, when the city of Amsterdam ceased to issue licenses to non-European street…
In Silicon Valley, the region’s homeless use a 24-hour bus line as a shelter at night. Produced by: Elizabeth Lo This is part of a series of videos produced by Independent filmmakers, who are supported in part by the nonprofit Sundance Institute. Read the story here: http://nyti.ms/1y6cK6M
Image © Copyright La Jetée. Friction Atlas is an ongoing critical archive, where laws regulating behaviours and gatherings in public spaces, sampled from different contexts, are represented and collected. Always implicitly present in any public space, law tends to be algorithmic, quantitative and invisible. Local and national regulations discretise human behaviour;…
Image © Copyright Rebar Group, Inc. ReBar group in San Francisco, initators of “Park Day”, among other urban fantasies, havecame up with an experimental project to map, explore and evaluate San Francisco’s privately owned public open spaces. This project was so successful, it now acts as base for new policies…
Jossie Appleton writes about laws handing sweeping new powers to police and private security to restrict access to public space are extinguishing the diversity of civic life.