Imagine! You Have Nothing to Lose: Collaboration and Play in Urban Development

Abstract

A community-driven, collaborative approach to urban development is central to the work of the Rebuild Foundation (RF). This group of artists has spent several years forging community ties while purchasing decrepit buildings in St Louis, gradually transforming them into creative incubators with residents. In winter 2012 Social Agency Lab, a collective of urban experts, gathered to work with youths that regularly partake in RF activities. The goal was to collaboratively develop an entry for Pruitt-Igoe Now, a competition to re-imagine the urban scar left by the demolition of the public housing project. In this article, we investigate the potentialities of play in forging a common language among diverse actors. We propose that this common language enables an agonistic model of the public that privileges dissent and instability over consensus. We argue that play enables diverse groups to collaboratively imagine and perform different possibilities of urban living beyond neat, authoritative urban visions.