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Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis

Urban Prescriptions: strategies for subversive occupation

One of the prerequisites of Recetas Urbanas, a practice by Santiago Cirugeda, is exploiting loopholes and uncertainties in the bureaucratic system of city planning in order to reclaim parts of cities and therefore enable people to manifest themselves and their ideas.

via recetasurbanas

via recetasurbanas

via recetasurbanas

via recetasurbanas


TAKING THE STREET
Skips. Dumpsters.

How:
1.Apply to the Urban Planning Department of your town for a permit to install a skip on the chosen site. Your application should include a detailed sketch (pavements, road, position, etc.), along with the 5.688 ptas / 35 euros it costs. The guarantee of the concession of the license comes given by the simultaneous justification from a supposed inner reform, which involves filling out a minor works application form (no technical design is required), with its corresponding cost (approximately 3.000 ptas / 18 euros).

2.Once the permit for installation has been granted (a month later), proceed immediately to install the skip. You should preferably build it yourself, as in this way you wiIl avoid any possible misunderstandings with the firm contracted.

3.There is also the option of applying, free of charge, for the KUVA SC. 670-794409 skip, which will be loaned by friendly agreement to the people or groups of people wishing to create reserves of urban land.

4.The functions and uses which can be created by these urban reserves are open to the imagination of those inhabiting them; they can be filled with the elements suggested or required by given functional and intellectual intentions: children’s playground, information point, reading room, exhibition space, flamenco venue, giant flowerpot, etc.

EXECUTION UNIT

Citizen who reviews, reinterprets and re-uses a city ordinance of the Seville General Urban Zoning Plan governing dumpster placement on public roads. He creates an Urban Public Ground Reserve, using the dumpsters as the physical base for installing temporary equipment that can be run autonomously by neighborhood residents without institutional control. In this way, citizens can practice their right to participate in the city’s development. The project involves collecting dumpsters holding steel beams and sheets, painting them in striking colors, and labeling them appropriately, just as the ordinance demands. In place of rubble, the citizens fill the dumpsters with a variety of equipment of their choosing, such as: a wood floor used to build a Flamenco stage, steel benches and tables to form an area for reading and table games, various types of trees and plants for a garden, plasticized EPDM film with water and a trampoline for a swimming pool, and children’s balance beams as part of a play area.

Subject > Citizen
Collaborators > Friends and neighbors and technics from the “Centro Andaluz de Teatro”, especially Domi

Materials > Occupation license, steel beams and sheets, wooden boards, paint

Description > Skips with public furniture

Approximate surface area > 4 – 12 m2, depending on skip model

VoilĂ !

Filed under: International Practice, Social Engineering , ,

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Engineering Society

Social engineering is a controversial and highly politically incorrect term. We know. The practice of engineering societies is associated with colonial and apartheid repression and oppressive rule. We despise. In our brave new world in which colonisators, colonials and postcolonials battle for identity and space social engineering might be more complex, but nevertheless just as present. We REclaim.


Engineering Society is the publicationplatform for recent developments in social engineering and the interdisciplinary university program 'Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis!'


Social Engineering is een controversiele en politiek incorrecte term. Daarvan zijn we ons bewust! In de alledaagse praktijk is de maakbare samenleving vaak verbonden met apartheid, onderdrukking en tyrannie. Dat verafschuwen we! In onze brave new world waar kolonisatoren, gekoloniseerden en post-kolonialen strijden om identiteit en ruimte is social engineering misschien complexer dan ooit, maar minstens zo actueel! Point made!

Engineering Society is het publicatieplatform voor actuele ontwikkelingen omtrent de maakbare samenleving en de interdisciplinaire minor 'Maakbaarheid in de Grote Stad!'

Office for Social Engineering

The Office for Social Engineering is a foundation based in Amsterdam and a joint-initiative by Partizan Publik and Martijn van Tol, Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and radio journalist at the wereldomroep.

Office for Social Engineering is een vanuit Amsterdam opererende stichting en een gemeenschappelijk initiatief van Partizan Publik en Martijn van Tol, docent politicologie en internationale betrekkingen aan de Faculteit der Maatschappij en Gedragswetenschappen van de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) en journalist voor de wereldomroep.

Contact
Tolhuisweg 1
Amsterdam The Netherlands
T +31 (0) 20 5535173
F +31 (0) 20 5535155
E maakbaarheid [at] partizanpublik [dot] nl


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