ABSTRACT
Rehearsals of shared encounters are an improvisational, ad hoc strategy in public space. This proposal is based on a minimal formal and material effort for designing incomplete scenographies for social encounters. Proposed rehearsals are anchored in the notion of a public square as a manifestation and background of different crises that are argued as being positive as they are necessary for a change to occur. The strategy (dis)articulates several levels of contemporary public space agenda, such as shared co-creation, individual repositioning, improvisation technology and green solutions. As an improvisational strategy, rehearsals of shared encounters tackles different levels, relationships, applications, and outputs shared encounters have in the realm of the public square. It proposes a creation of a textbook (2) in the form of open-ended theoretical, practical, and design rehearsals inspired by theatre scripts (3) without a fixed material output. The process of improvisation is a goal per se. This exploratory work introduces a platform (4), which puts together a repository of shared co-creative solutions with a set of authors’ proposals that render the nature of the rehearsals of shared encounters evident as social processes, not as final products. Through several situations of shared encounters, the chapter explores notions of rehearsal and improvisation as a generative process for public square theories and praxis.
