Participatory design of a public space in the historic center of Seville.

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the northern part of the historic city of Sevilla has been transformed into a laboratory for social innovation in terms of emerging urban planning, resistance to gentrification, and social production of down-to-top managed public spaces (Barber et al., 2006). The debate on the public use of a plot, on which neighborhood initiative calls for a "Green Lung" for the quarter, represents the last instance of a long series of experiences referred to emerging urbanism.

This article reviews the participatory process initiated by an active group of citizens, in collaboration with a participatory action research team of the University of Sevilla, of which authors take part, to generate a green public space on a plot of the northern part of the city. Initially, the city council intended to build a housing complex, when neighborhood mobilization began, the authorities promised to carry out a participatory process to discuss the fate of the site.

The collaboration between neighbors and technicians allows the building of the base of the triangle of social management of habitat (Ortiz Flores, 2007; Romero, 2008; de Manuel Jerez, 2010); and after agreeing on synergistic satisfiers (Max-Neef et al., 1986), the group proposes a participatory design methodology to neighbors and local authorities. To conclude, this article discusses advantages of active participation of neighbors in design compared to other merely consultative approaches to participatory design.