Author:

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Alive Architecture

Abstract:

Socio-economic factors as part of the process of globalization lead to the transformation of our cities towards archipelagos of different realities. This tendency is not reduced to the creation of private enclaves but produces spatial containments of marginal societies in western world as immigration camps, red-light districts or trailer parks. Kees Christiaanse, curator of the 4th International Architecture Biennale, revealed the notion of the ‘open city’ where encounter among the polarized society happens through small-scale urban interventions. Alive Architecture is a research-based practice that applies eclectic mappings as a method to uncover the hidden possibilities in and around socio-spatial margins from within space. The empiric approach leads to hands-on actions that are applied to transform potential urban spaces in order to provide for better co-existence. What is the role of the architect in and around socio-spatial margins in western world? Could the activation of interstices transform our perception of these areas? If hacking is defined as ‘opening and changing a system by plugging in and redirecting its flows into a more desirable goal’, could the term City-Hacking be an appropriate description for this type of action?