100 foldable chairs and 3 biodiverse urban lounges for Logroño
Citizens from Logroño would benefit from having folding chairs allowing them to rest where they want and decide the best use of municipal furniture: if they sit under a tree, with many people or search for intimacy. This custom of sitting has existed in Spain till cars appropriated the city.
The project aims to pacify public spaces introducing living areas that are free, where citizens can meet without paying while supporting active governance, public engagement, placemaking and biodiversity.
Regional
Spain
Region: La Rioja
City: Logroño
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-09-06
As an individual
First name: Izaskun Last name: Chinchilla Moreno Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Cyesa 3 Town: Madrid Postal code: 28017 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 636 59 39 50 E-mail:info@izaskunchinchilla.es Website:https://izaskunchinchilla.es/
This proposal arises from a new alliance with the Carasso Foundation and Concéntrico. It has been an open process developed since December 2021 that was opened in Logroño September 2022, and had a tour in Madrid. It is composed of 3 biodiverse urban living rooms and 100 folding chairs co designed through a public open participatory process.
In compliance with the Paris Agreements, by 2030, cities over 50.000 inhabitants must have a low emission area proportional to their population. Logroño is a paradigmatic case. The project proposes to involve citizens in the definition and promotion of said area.
A participatory process was designed seeking the involvement of the maximum number of Logroño citizens in the reappropriation and redefinition of urban space, through direct involvement in the design of chairs that articulated the relationship between citizens and their environment. The methodology was the launch of an online survey.
Through this survey, 580 of citizens have been able to reflect on how our cities should be to guarantee more sustainable spaces, better life quality and better use of public space.
The 3 urban living rooms ('Porch', 'Bird' and 'Butterfly') are ephemeral structures designed to occupy city spaces previously destined for cars when our cities systematically implement their low emission areas. The living rooms are conceived as spaces for coexistence, inspired by the domestic sphere, which will allow the population to make free use of the public space while supporting urban biodiversity.
The main goal is that the important liberation of space due to the change in urban mobility already proposed by many municipalities is used for civic benefit and not colonized exclusively by the hospitality industry. It is also intended that these spaces create a network of biodiverse islands in areas with low amounts of green. Human spaces of enjoyment are therefore associated with actions of care towards other species and towards our environment.
Social capital
Public engagement
Place making
Active gobernance
Urban biodiversity
The Paris Agreements require that the implementation of low emission areas entail a 50% decrease in the number of vehicles in circulation. This decrease in traffic could generate an increase in vacant space in the city, due to the reuse of both parking spaces and circulation space. In her book, the Caring City, Izaskun Chinchilla estimates that 16% of the total urban space could be liberated in many cities. Although part of this space would possibly be reoccupied by public transport and zero-impact vehicles, it is presumable that the implementation of these areas would mean the liberation of approximately 10-11% of the total urban surface.
The space released by the vehicles must be subject to programming. Active governance, already happening in museums or sports equipment (with events and curatorship), should be implemented in the public space. This programming can and should aim to mitigate climate change, conciliation, care for dependency and, fundamentally, improve residents’ lives, which is why it is essential to have their participation through public engagement.
In this important liberation of space, especially from the perspective of care, the promotion of biodiversity is essential. The most effective internationally proven strategy in cities that lack biodiverse corridors is the use of public squares and spaces as nodes in a species support network. The squares and the roofs are part of a grid that can allow the preservation of the environment and collective health. The project strategy was to generate a mesh with the greatest number of possible nodes, our biodiverse rooms, and articulate them with each other, guaranteeing proximity and diversity.
During much of its beginnings and in its early development, ecological thought was presented as antagonistic to economic growth.
This project, as most of Izaskun's work sketch out horizons for the environment, the economy, and health and comprehensive care as mutually reconcilable collective goals.
Buildings that are perceived as points of reference within the city pattern, display a more elaborate architecture with more details and a more careful construction. Citizens tend to take as their points of reference architectures in which the design and construction of windows, fences, doors, accessory elements, façade materials, articulations, etc., seem to have been thought out and attended to in response to an intention.
Anthropologically, the reading of the texts by Lévi-Strauss and the beautiful reflections he refers as the ´House Society´ show us that the kind of architecture that has the capacity to unite communities around tends to be very elaborated in terms of details and in the incorporation of elements that may, at first glance, be considered decorative.
Elaborated architecture makes it possible to combine identity and a certain sense of pride for the community, and it can be applied to any human environment. This is a point that should be cause for reflection among architects, who will be taught to love abstraction at architecture school, as Edward Ford aptly reminds us: “The means to abstraction in architecture and in detailing is elimination.” (Ford, 2009). By eliminating those small elements that characterize a more elaborated architecture we are also eliminating the possibility for those designs to qualify, articulate and structure citizens’ perceptions.
Online participatory survey for the 100 chairs was transforming citizens into codesigners and made them aware of the importance of details in placemaking. Participants needed to choose an icon of design chair that had been transformed into a foldable CNC chair, they had to pick heritage buildings and historical characters that were all transformed into small details making each of the 100 chairs unique and personal. Significant elements in the collective construction of Logroño identity, have been collectively chosen to contribute placemaking celebrating tangible and non-tangible heritage
Active governance is, in our opinion, one of the most important topics in urban design. Governance takes place, de facto, in all the cities of the world. They all have town halls and urban police forces and the majority have municipal landscaping services, all of them with many tasks to perform. But there is a difference between whether the function of the local police is to ensure compliance with the law or, for example, to organize the transformation of a wide street into an area for playing, walking or riding bikes. Active governance is not limited to monitoring compliance with regulations and the correct and predictable functioning of resources; rather, it puts forward an agenda to improve the city and commits to improving the inhabitants’ quality of life through the promotion of activities. Active governance is based on the premise that no city offers optimal support for the lives of all its inhabitants, and that it is possible to contribute to well-being by promoting new forms of collective use. The planning of governance should, of course, account for the diversity and foster the coexistence of diverse forms of life.
The identification of governance as an emerging need opens up a new field of opportunities for citizens collaboration – and not just between the public and private sectors. It also makes room for promotion: on the part of municipal policy or citizen associations. Governance offers the possibility for neighborhood parents to join together to organize activities related to sports, education, culture, etc., contributing to the construction of social capital in the sense it has been used by Putnam.
In this project, the portability of chairs around the city allowed not only the delocalization of resting areas to accommodate emerging necessities but the transformation of existing public spaces into new ones that citizens perceived as less hostile, more welcoming and more representative of the community values.
This project promotes the use of public engagement methodology proposing citizens to codesign the public space furniture. Izaskun Chinchilla has been a Public Engagement fellow at UCL and her formal training has structured the design of the project. According to the definition given by the National UK Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement the term “public engagement” describes the ways in which the benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. Engagement is a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit.
The public will gain knowledge, tools, and the capacity for analysis, and the researchers will be able to nourish the empirical foundations of their work, obtain evidence that is difficult to deduce only from academic literature, and increase their capacity for diagnosis and assessment.
In our project we have combined the fabrication of physical devices (urban furniture) with the celebration of two workshops. Jane Jacob workshop-guided walk was celebrated with 20 participants carrying their chairs. This allowed a discussion of urban regulations and how they avoid citizens agency plus share the experiences of the citizens in its different corners. Possible Configurations for Logroño Low emission area was deliberative workshop has allowed the participants to understand and discuss what consequences LEZ implementation may have. The workshops ensured the acquisition of tools for assessment and action on the part of citizens.
Participating researchers have been able to incorporate into the tangible and intangible heritage elements that were not in the initial official catalog: illustrious people and fictional characters (Lucrecia Arana or Miguel de Unamuno) and non-so central buildings (Teatro Bretón de los Herreros or IES Sagasta). A really effective research on areas of the city missing equipments (citizens pointed out markets, schools, health facilities) has also taken place.
Carasso Foundation, a family foundation affiliated with Fondation de France, funded most of the project through a grant in recognition of its high potential for social impact.
Izaskun Chinchilla Architects are the authors and design developers of the project. Led by Izaskun Chinchilla, Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School in London. They address a comprehensive sustainability strategy together with social and cultural innovation criteria.
The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL). Supported all the research activities related to the project in which Izaskun Chinchilla was involved.
Logroño and La Rioja Government gave administrative support.
Concéntrico, the International Festival of Architecture and Design that reflects over the urban environment, hosted the project during its 8th edition, providing logistic and diffusion support. It is organized by La Rioja Cultural Foundation of Architects (COAR).
Javier Peña, its Director, was responsible for the communication and the administrative management.
Sunbrella, a textile company specialized in outdoor fabric, provided the fabrics free of charge and co funded the project.
Gerardo Gorris. Carpentry workshop in charge of the fabrication process.
IE School of Architecture. The 5th year Thesis students will develop a more in-depth investigation after the project.
Taller En Blanco. A group of local architects experienced in guided tours throughout Logroño. Co-designers of the workshops, they summoned the participants.
Zerynthia. The Spanish Association for Butterflies Protection has advised on the optimum plant species for the project to support butterflies and birds.
CRIE (Rioja Center for innovation in Education). Izaskun Chinchilla and Javier Peña gave an online course on public space and education including the participation in the survey as a practice for 30 teachers and their students.
We think architecture can contribute to SOCIAL CAPITAL in the way R. Putman defined it as ‘features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’. The project contributes by promoting: public engagement, place making and active governance.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT is fundamental. Evaluation is an essential part of the projects that provides tools for critical reflection and brings accountability. Emilio Luque Pulgar, Doctor in sociologist and Anthropology, Specialist in Sociology of Consumption, Professor on Urban Environment and Society and whose PHD thesis is ´Social capital, sustainability and deliberative participation´ has monitored all the participatory actions in the project. He advised on the survey language and configuration and analyzed the results to narrow from 580 participants to 100.
The chairs acted as a PLACE MAKING action by honoring Logroño heritage and celebrating local identity. This element of the participatory design generated conversations around the relationship between urban icons and the equipment that allowed, or not, the relaxed and relational, individual or shared, by the citizens. Javier Peña, curator in Design exhibitions along Europe and Concentrico Director adviced the list of heritage elements to be introduced in the survey.
ACTIVE GOBERNANCE is embodied in processes that empower citizens to participate in public decision-making. We asked citizens whether they wanted to place their chairs, allowing them to choose between a list of places but also asking them if we were missing relevant places. It allowed the detection of urban areas perceived as poorly equipped. This matter was also dealt with in detail within the workshops where we had the help of Aurora Adalid, mediation expert from the Zuloark Collective, an open Architecture and Urbanism office skilled in liquid and collaborative professional models, building co-responsibility environments.
The action being part of Concéntrico meant that the participants were both people related to the Festival and ordinary surrounding citizens.
The survey was quite a successful device for participatory involvement and creative connections. We got over 400 fully finished answers, with a distribution by gender self-identification of: 34% men, 62% women, 4% non-binary. The distribution by age shows the usual biases in digital surveys, lower participation of people over 60 (4.5%), 17% under 18, 15% between 18 and 25, 37% between 25 and 40, 26% between 40 and 60. The theme and its affinity with Concéntrico, made the structure by occupations concentrate on those related to design and urban space with an important representation of teachers. Students were the largest group.
To keep involving citizens and catalyzing these creative and affective relationships between materials, urban space and their uses, we kept in touch by email, thanking them for their participation and asking for ‘pictures enjoying the chair in public areas but giving different uses to the space from those that we usually give to our cities.’
Coordinated with the project, La Rioja Center for Educational Innovation launched an educational innovation course, allowing 30 teachers from the surroundings to work on the application of the project with their students. They came almost entirely from public centers, mostly with an artistic line of work, where they teach specialties such as drawing, technology, interior and product design, arts & crafts, ...
We involved the council in the project ideation by inviting the Councilor for Sustainable Urban Development to join us, and they subsequently developed a deliberative workshop on the area of low emissions together with Ecologistas en Acción (a confederation of over 300 environmental groups throughout Spain) instead of unilaterally developing its implementation. The conclusions are available online and have informed the actions of the project.
Commitment to achieve an effective public engagement process through the development of a very detailed survey where we asked the citizenship to choose: the chair structure, accessories to make it comfortable (armrest, side table, umbrella, footrest, …), emblematic icons and illustrious characters of the city to integrate them into the design, colors (a palette relating colors with local aspects such as Ebro blue, due to the city river) and where they would like to find the chairs. There were also personal questions such as age, gender (female, male or non-binary), profession and contact details that allowed us to better understand the answers and keep contact.
Long-term relationship with project users. By keeping in touch and asking them for pictures using the chair in public, giving different uses to the space, we encourage the community to own and go on with the project.
Effective citizenship involvement in the design process (designers, testers, owners and researchers). They made design decisions through the survey that were applied in the chairs manufacture. They put the design to test in the workshops. After the festival they kept the chairs and have been giving them new uses in the public space, sharing with us graphic material about their experiments.
The introduction of “stepping stones” to support biodiversity, like the stones you might jump on as you cross a river. When there are no large natural spaces close, support can only be provided by a network of smaller spaces. Squares, corners or monuments are part of a network that has the potential to contribute to preserving collective health and the environment. The open spaces of the city, seen from a perspective that supports urban biodiversity, should form part of a matrix structure in which these “urban patches” become the nodes in a network (Breuste et al., 2008; Wu, 2008).
Design process considering the effective application of the low emissions area, with at least 50% fewer cars scenario.
Customized folding chairs. This action sought the involvement of Logroño citizens in the design of a simple facility that linked historical symbols and urban references with the new possibilities of use for spaces that would be regained with the LEZ. These designs were materialized in 100 chairs, acting as an effective infrastructure for the reoccupation of the city.
The methodology was the launch of an online survey, with a high response level: 591 answers received. It offered the possibility of choosing the basic structure of the chairs, accessories, emblematic icons, historical figures or colours and in which places in Logroño the chairs should be located.
Workshop for the low emission area definition. The design criteria were explained and put into context from various perspectives (sociology, architecture or ecology). After the exchange of knowledge between the citizens and the project team, some conclusions were drawn up.
We proposed landing each general principle in three formats: recommendations (it could favor intergenerational mix), proposals (spaces for traditional games) and calls for attention (less climatically aggressive areas).
Jane's walk, going through different areas to share what was valuable in them, trying to recover the collective memory and following the guidelines of Jane Jacob's thought. The decision to transport and use the chairs had three consequences: to increase the visibility of the intervention, to restrict and shorten the intended route of the walk, and to transform the walk into a deliberative action. In a new verification of the relevance of the project, the spontaneous emergence of “deliberative rooms” also sharply highlighted the aggressive sound imprint of traffic noise.
For the implementation of the urban living rooms we have received advice from the Spanish Association for the Protection of Butterflies (Zerynthia) helping create proper environment for the life cycle of butterflies, birds and the supporting plants.
Being the project’s main goal to involve citizens in the definition and promotion of a low emission area in the City, the replica or transfer of any part or the whole project in cities over 50.000 inhabitants would not only be possible but highly recommended. All the elements in the project (foldable chairs and movable living rooms) could be transported to new sites to study new opportunities for social agency. The online survey could be redesign for different cities since it has proven to be a very successful public engagement tool. All the actions that build the project can be designed and promoted online to reach any local community in the world. The physical fabrication of the chairs and their movement around the city allow engagement to older citizens with less digital abilities.
The project already had an itinerary in Madrid, giving rise to a new relationship with the context and reaching new public. The project aims for creating awareness and has been disseminated and presented in several international conferences for professional and academic audiences like:
The Bartlett International Lectures: The Caring Exception: Building the Oasis in the Concrete Jungle. 12-10-2022. University College of London.
The Generous City, Ideas for the city of the future. Theatre El Musical. Valencia.
All the built parts of the project are made from small pieces of discarded boards of wood donated by the local producer Garnica that can be carried by just one person and assembled by hand and the CNC technology used in the manufacturing process has become commonplace for years. The designs of the chairs are offered as an open source for anybody wanting to replicate.
The three biodiverse living rooms could be taken or replicated in different cities in which traffic pacification has taken place with local adaptations to meet biodiversity requirements. They are capable to decrease heat island effect and citizens health in areas of cities with poor green equipment
Globally, all 50,000 inhabitants cities are facing the challenge of designing and implementing a low emission areas proportional to their population by 2030. This project contribution shows LEZ´s design and governance can follow a bottom up decision making process, giving research and empirical support and connecting local communities and collectives with public administrations in Logroño.
The chairs were given to voluntary citizens once the Festival was over. They were asked to keep us updated about the new uses and new locations. This is crucial for us to face one other global challenge: making participation work requires abundant training; the social dialogue can only become effective with long term practice and with the repeated cultivation of trust-building processes. In Chomsky’s terms, citizens require the acquisition of a competence. From a technical point of view, but also from a symbolic and cultural standpoint, citizens are told, from childhood, that “the planning, design and building of any part of the environment is so difficult and special that only the gifted few – those with degrees and certificates – can properly solve environmental problems” (Nicholson, 1972). Nicholson, in his theory of loose parts, asserts that if children are stimulated from an early age to modify their environment by interacting with individual elements (pieces, blocks, materials), development of creative skills and capacity for cooperation can be taught uniformly to all members of the community.
Another important global challenge is biodiversity. The open spaces in consolidated cities should be transformed into a matrix structure in which “urban patches” become nodes in a network. Most cities struggle to generate a mesh with enough intersections, proximity and diversity. The living rooms aims to create a catalog of movable elements that can be adapted to areas lacking green spaces making them compatible with other uses, giving new chances to existing dry cities
