ABSTRACT
This contribution focuses on the issue of temporary uses of public space related to bottom-up actions and placemaking approach, aimed at inform resilient strategies and effective tools for designing the contemporary city. The project of the contemporary city develops from the macro-scale dimension of the ‘great urban visions’ to the micro-level of exhibition design, increasingly focusing on the human scale of public design. The citizen, seen in his different meanings of “consumer”, “city-user” or sociologically as “citizen” participant to a local community, expresses his interest in living the city as an experience and opportunity; and the urban project, assuming the name of “contextual design”, “spatial design”, or “public design”, has become a temporary setting up of urban space. The paper also reflects on the risk of a possible ideological drift towards a “city on demand” model, based on episodic programs of urban transformations not supported by a wider vision; or toward a model of ‘performing city’, completely disconnected from daily life. According to the cheaper and quicker approach, our study finally prospects a resilient strategy for the contemporary city, where projects have to be tailored to the place, designed on the human scale and oriented to creation of responsive environments.
