Urban Acupuncture Research Articles

‘Urban acupuncture’ to alleviate stress in informal settlements in Mexico

ABSTRACTThis paper explores whether smaller-scale physical space interventions (‘urban acupuncture’) have the power to alleviate the stress, social pathologies and political disengagement experienced by the residents of informal settlements. The case study is Tepito, a barrio in Mexico City. The results, based on 20 qualitative interviews with local residents, support the idea that an ‘urban acupuncture’ approach has a high potential in this respect. In view of these findings, the authors argue that an indirect approach, focused on physical space, might, at least in the short term, be more productive in empowering of informal settlement dwellers than direct efforts at political organization. Physical, economic and political spaces are intrinsically linked. Little political engagement can be expected if people live in poor physical environments. While certainly not a panacea, acupunctural interventions might trigger much broader changes than initially intended.

Near Zero Consumption Building as an Urban Acupuncture for a Vertical Slum. A Case Study in the City of Malaga, Spain

A vertical slum is defined as a socially vulnerable community in a building, with serious problems of functionality, safety and habitability. It is related to an important level of physical degradation, and a precarious socioeconomic situation of its occupants. Their inability to create a real community for proper and mandatory maintenance increases the physical deterioration of the building. The abandonment of the original owners of the houses can cause a system of illegal occupation and illegal activities, and vice versa. In many cases, the new occupants are primarily interested in maintaining the building in a state of precariousness in order to avoid any attempt of renovation by administrations. These security and habitability problems often extend outside the building and they affect a whole community of neighbours within the neighbourhood who feel threatened and insecure, causing their rejection and a strong social segregation in the area. This article wants to show some of the results from a research work developed on a case study of vertical slum in the city of Malaga, in Spain. In this context of marginality previously described, the research project explores different alternatives for the renovation of a building, its vulnerable community and the neighbourhood in which it is inserted. The project establishes four major objectives: (a) a physical renovation of the building, (b) social transformation in a disadvantaged environment, (c) functional evolution-from a residential model to a new hybrid model with a mixed supply of social services, and (d) the incorporation of new parameters of environmental sustainability that improve the energetic behaviour of the building (transforming it into a building of almost zero consumption).The research closes with a series of strategies and results for the case study. However, the main contribution of the work is related to the research methodology that has been developed. This is structured according to the four principles of integrated urban renovation, based on a physical, social, economic and environmental perspective. This methodology and results have been explained so that they can be transferred to other areas and experience of urban recycling in vulnerable social environments.

Patient Demographics at an Urban Acupuncture Teaching Clinic

Patient Demographics at an Urban Acupuncture Teaching Clinic

A new New Babylon. Bottom-up Urban Planning & The Situationist utopia

The recent “Participatory Turn” in Urbanism has flourished most significantly in situations of economic turmoil, material scarcity and technical insufficiency: those circumstances have boosted creative and audacious urban processes that take advantage of such limitations as an opportunity to enhance social engagement, formal exploration and developmental experimentation. All across Europe or Latin America, multidisciplinary collectives aim to reinvent the socioeconomical conditions for urban design and construction, favoring the architectural Process rather than the Object.Experiences in Urban Acupuncture, bottom-up urbanism, activism for the public space and the claim for neighborly ties are often struggling against Top-Down urban planning and the modern articulation of the zoned city: according to some of these collectives, the Welfare State and its urban culture has been overtaken by capitalism, and the classical Ville Radieuse model has somehow become synonymous with Corporatocracy and social engineering.In this sociopolitical milieu , some of the mid twentieth century arguments against the Modern Movement have emerged again. Many scholars have linked the Occupy and Indignados movements with the events of May 68, and the urban guerrillas within both periods have been strongly biased towards a radical reformulation of the Structuralist urban parameters: in order to re-humanize the city, urban planning must give way to spontaneity, autopoiesis, dynamism and horizontal decision-making. The city is not considered a ready made object designed from scratch, but an always-evolving living entity, where perennial mutation and reconfiguration is the at the key feature. The City is a rhizome rather than a tree.The Situationist utopia of the New Babylon (as conceived by Constant Nieuwenhuys) revives as the core intellectual reference of many Participatory Urbanism experiences. Psycho-geography, détournement, the urban dweller as a homo ludens, and the harmonization of life and work are presented as the shield against the alienation, social segregation and gentrification inherent to the capitalist city and its planning instruments. The Situationist model is now enhanced with ideas of sustainability, social responsibility, gender claims, global migrations and ecology, depicting a contemporary Utopia that collapses the boundary between planners and dwellers.In this paper we´ll trace the influence of the Situationist ethos upon recent experiences in participatory urbanism: the impact of mid-twentieth century radical activism upon contemporary counter-cultural urban praxis, a trend that is pushing the Academia to reconsider its ethical foundations and methodological tools, and ultimately to reformulate the consensual ontology of the city inherited from the early Modern Movement.

Inter-species encounters at the “Hexa-Hives”

The Hexa-Hives illustrate how an outdoor live installation (landscaped garden installation) can serve as incentive for inter-species encounters and at the same time challenge the paradigm of conventional beekeeping. The Hexa-Hive is an experimental hive, designed to both host honeybees and serve as outdoor furniture for humans. Since 2012, the Hexa-Hive has been a semi-permanent installation in Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden of Helsinki.A further development, the Hexa-Hive Village was first installed at the campus of Aalto University, in Otaniemi, Finland in 2013. Launched as artistic intervention, the Hexa-Hive village became a landscaped area hosting honeybees and inviting people to hang out.In 2014, a further development - the installation “Hexa-Hive Village with Airstrip for Bees” - was exhibited as part of the art exhibition “Semi-Wild Gardens” at Kouvola city art museum and in 2016, the installation was placed in Tarja Halonen Park, a public area in the centre of Helsinki.The article explores the effects of the installation assessed via a questionnaire. The findings include the emergence of a “garden quality” around the “Hexa-Hive”, the increase of local faunal and floral diversity and the notion of wilderness in the city. The concept of urban acupuncture and the mental and psychological value of public gardens for humans are described as features of the installation.The Hexa-Hive is part of Melliferopolis and was launched in Helsinki in 2012. The activities comprise exhibitions, workshops, installations and lectures.www.melliferopolis.net

“Poverty” and the Politics of Syncopation

By means of an ethnographic “urban acupuncture” of a specific building within the city of Kinshasa, this article explores how poverty effects emerging publics in the city. Poverty “rhythms” city life in specific ways, and these rhythms may be best understood in terms of a politics of the syncopated and the suspended through which urban publics are constantly splintered and reassembled. The suspensions and missed beats that thus punctuate urban daily living often produce violence, closure, and isolation, but simultaneously they also generate unexpected accents that form openings into the “something else” of the offbeat track, thereby hinting at the (always vulnerable and equally problematic) possibility of alternative collective action and the ad hoc creation of new groups, publics, and public spaces.

Urban Acupuncture: Hybrid Social and Technological Practices for Hyperlocal Placemaking

This paper considers an emerging planning practice that uses networked connections to interact with urban places and re-create enlivened cities. The paper presents “urban acupuncture” as a new planning approach that broadens communication and strategically targets interventions across the city. Defined as an approach, which, through the use of digital social networks and interactions, involves citizens and planners in place activations in order to stimulate and reinvigorate place, thus creating meaningful relationships between citizens and their urban settings. This paper uses the UR[BNE] Brisbane Festival 2012 as a qualitative case study of urban acupuncture, best defined as a hyper-localized healing treatment through place activation to enliven and recreate cities. It examines the challenges faced and opportunities embraced by a network of urban professionals. Their aim was to activate the underused urban spaces of central Brisbane through the festival's activities and events. The findings identify the key elements required to design public spaces using socially and technologically networked interactions.

Mobile Design as Neighborhood Acupuncture: Activating the Storytelling Networks of South Los Angeles

A delicate touch is required to empower neighborhoods using civic media. Funding is persistently scarce. Especially in marginalized neighborhoods, blunt designs can be counterproductive and even entrench complex problems. New metaphors may be needed to guide design and empower local neighborhoods. Urban acupuncture is used as the basis for this study, emphasizing a light-touch strategy that has shown success in Brazil with urban transit, and more recently in Europe with urban design. We specifically propose “neighborhood acupuncture” to address the local level, tapping the sociology of place-based communication. To investigate the implications for systematic design, a case study is probed in South Los Angeles using mobile media for community mapping. Using qualitative methods, three tactics were investigated for the potential to “poke” the network into action, including one to bridge diverse storytelling networks. Each tactic ultimately seeks to build the capacity for collective action around neighborhood issues. Acupuncture is broadly argued to sustain two design shifts: first to help approach neighborhoods as ecosystems, and second, to design for circulation rather than any single technology platform.

Social Media Use as Urban Acupuncture for Empowering Socially Challenged Communities

This paper explores potential roles of social media in community empowerment, based on a study of a non-profit NGO in a socially challenged suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. In particular, it focuses on the relation between online and offline behavior, and how the use of social media can counteract negative influences in the community, e.g., drug abuse and gangsterism. Interviews with staff and participants reveal that using social media in a socially challenged community results in different social media use and different connections between online and offline activities than earlier social-media research reported.. These differences may inform design and social innovation for disruptive interaction to address negative influences, such as drugs and gangsterism, in socially challenged communities.

Urban Acupuncture in the era on Ubiquitous Media

The concept of Urban Acupuncture as applied to a contemporary vision of cities, between ubiquitous technologies, social networks, sensors and cloud computing. From the possibility to listen in real time to the digital life of the city to the opportunity to design and implement novel models for participatory, co-creation practices for city governance, planning, culture, tourism, citizen activation. The paper describes the construction process of a methodology and of the required set of digital tools which allow to enact Urban Acupuncture practices in cities with high numbers of social media interactions Two case studies are included for the City of Rome and the City of Turin, showing two practical applications in the domains of culture and of multiculturalism, respectively. The two cases have been performed in collaboration and with the support of the city administrations and, in the final remarks, they are used to produce an evaluation of the proposed methodology and a series of focuses for further research and investigation

The impact of small-scale design interventions on the behaviour patterns of the users of an urban wasteland

Urban derelict space can form a valuable complementary element to the formal green spaces of a city: wastelands are often biologically diverse and their unregulated status can provoke innovative spatial activities by a wide range of users. Using the case of an urban brownfield in Tallinn, Estonia, this paper examines how such a space is used and evaluates the magnitude of the impact of minor design interventions – so-called urban acupuncture – on the activities carried out by the users. The study used field observations and behaviour mapping to compare the spatial pattern of the users before and after small design interventions. Although there was widespread use beforehand there was both an increase in use and a different pattern afterwards, which was clearly detectable from the composite behaviour maps of both arrangements, where users follow the properties of the particular environment. The small improvements tested showed the largest effect on the female and the older user groups, raising the number of overall visits and increasing the occurrence of active behaviour almost five times. The research demonstrates that small, inexpensive and possibly temporary interventions can have a major positive effect.

A Conversation with Cengiz Bektas—Architect, Engineer, Author

Children, Youth and Environments 16(2), 2006 A Conversation with Cengiz Bektas— Architect, Engineer, Author Fahriye Sancar Children, Youth and Environments Center University of Colorado Citation: Sancar, Fahriye (2006). “A Conversation with Cengiz Bektas— Architect, Engineer, Author.” Children, Youth and Environments 16(2): 207219 . Recently the editors of Children, Youth and Environments posted a request at the Habitat Jam website inviting examples of work undertaken by child-related organizations and groups that address the challenges of poverty and illustrate children taking an active role in improving the communities in which they live. In response, Dr. Pietro Garau (co-author, MDG Task Force Report, Italy) described the weeklong Global Studio in Istanbul, in which 70 students from 20 countries took part around the theme, “People Building Better Cities” (December 3, 2005, Habitat Jam). The Global Studio was led by Istanbul architect Cengiz Bektas (Figure 1), who has “devoted his life to building community spirit and involvement in addition to designing splendidly sophisticated architectural solutions” (Garau 2005). When Bektas was the keynote speaker at the 2005 UIA Congress in Istanbul, he urged the architects in attendance to go outside into Zeyrek. Garau described the following scene: Building on the preparatory consultation exercise carried out by Global Studio prior to, and during, the design assignment, they asked children to draw their own vision of Zeyrek. The children started drawing on everything: on paper, on the ground itself, on crumbling walls. Practicing the Lerner principle of urban acupuncture, they found out what the children wanted right there and then: a swing and a space for playing soccer. The swing was easy to build. Then students and children cleared the rubble, garbage and broken glass from a derelict empty site. Municipal bulldozers sent to take away the rubble also leveled the grounds for play at the children’s request. Then the children and the students decided to reclaim all the walls encircling the site. Armed with paint and brushes, they turned the wall into a beautiful, colorful mural.... A Conversation with Cengiz Bektas— Architect, Engineer, Author 208 As a result of this project, “many students and tutors previously unfamiliar with the Global Studio mission will become ambassadors of participatory planning and design and policy change in their respective countries” (Garau 2005). Figure 1. Cengiz Bektas and his wife, Gonul I have known Cengiz Bektas since my days in college as an advocate for the vernacular. I still have his book on Bodrum Aesthetics from those days when I was also doing research on the same topic. Later, I was part of the audience that heard his impassioned speeches on friendship and tolerance, addressed to peoples of both sides of the Aegean Sea. I also remember a presentation at an international conference where he was making the case that it is not the physical environment but our ways of life that we need to preserve. Pointing at a wonderful slide, he said: “Collective memory is not preserved by tomes or edifices; it is manifested and preserved when the youngster follows the steps of the grand elder dancing in the village square on the first day of the holidays.” Cengiz Bey1 started his career in 1963 by building an elementary school. He later designed several other schools and a village for autistic children. In the following 1 “Bey” is the Turkish equivalent to “Mr.” but used after the first name. A Conversation with Cengiz Bektas— Architect, Engineer, Author 209 interview, we talked not about the particulars of his architectural practice or his designs but his experiences with children’s participation in building community. I wanted to learn what motivated him to work with children and communities with limited resources and what lessons we could draw from his lifetime of experiences. On a cold and rainy Saturday in December, 2005, I caught him between trips to job sites in Istanbul Airport. On the way to his house, where his office is, we talked about his experiences in Germany, his current projects and teaching. He commented on architectural education and how it is disengaged from practice. When we reached Kuzguncuk, an old neighborhood in Istanbul on the Anatolian side, on the short walk between the tiny parking lot and...

Tijuana Case Study Tactics of Invasion: Manufactured Sites

AbstractTeddy Cruz describes how his practice in San Diego has used its experience of Mexican/US border conditions to inform a project of ‘urban acupuncture’ that has the potential to bridge the enormity of a transnational divide that exists between two adjacent communities. In essence a simple prefabricated aluminium frame, Manufactured Sites could provide the much‐needed, small‐scale infrastructures and services for favela‐like settlements. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.