Want to know to use open space creatively in a legally correct way?

Laura Bruns, Konrad Braun, Sabeth Tödtli, Iver Ohm and Michael Ziehl mapped out the existing regulations around creative use of open spaces in Germany and put together guidelines to make using public space a bit easier.

An amazing resource that can be downloaded for free at
http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Veroeffentlichungen/Sonderveroeffentlichungen/2016/freiraum-fibel.html?nn=1131994

Throughout history, the night has been, in the words of geographer Tim Edensor, time for “transgression, fantasy and experimentation”, when the public comes out to play. However rights to the night have long been contested.

Read the full article here.

In 2003, when the city of Amsterdam ceased to issue licenses to non-European street theatre performers. SAS (Amsterdamse Straatartiesten), a cooperative of individual autonom street theatre performers, published STRAATTHEATER.INFO as a protest against the general policy of the city council regarding street theatre. The website since has provided information and support for all street theatre performers doing their thing in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, other developments have occurred and the website have also become a research tool and important reference for us here at Playfulcommons.org. Check it out!

In Silicon Valley, the region’s homeless use a 24-hour bus line as a shelter at night.

Produced by: Elizabeth Lo

This is part of a series of videos produced by Independent filmmakers, who are supported in part by the nonprofit Sundance Institute.

Read the story here: http://nyti.ms/1y6cK6M

Image © Copyright La Jetée.

Friction Atlas is an ongoing critical archive, where laws regulating behaviours and gatherings in public spaces, sampled from different contexts, are represented and collected. Always implicitly present in any public space, law tends to be algorithmic, quantitative and invisible. Local and national regulations discretise human behaviour; sometimes they are rigorous and mathematical, other times loose and under-defined. Addressing the issue of legibility of public space, the project aims to make regulations explicit, through graphical devices. By drawing 1:1 diagrams, enacting laws on public surfaces, the project makes legal prescriptions and loopholes debatable. Through the engagement of the public, the dynamics of authority become also physically discernible. The diagrams represent cases from different cities, including Athens, Genoa, Cairo, Washington, Stockholm, Sydney, New York, and Rome. We invite the public to participate in a choreographed debate, in a rereading of urban space, which will highlight some of its hidden aspects.

Friction Atlas is a project by La Jetée (Paolo Patelli, Giuditta Vendrame). Initiated within BIO 50, the 24th Biennial of Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia, it is currently part of the ongoing Adhocracy Athens exhibition and programme.

Image © Copyright Rebar Group, Inc.

ReBar group in San Francisco, initators of “Park Day”, among other urban fantasies, havecame up with an experimental project to map, explore and evaluate San Francisco’s privately owned public open spaces. This project was so successful, it now acts as base for new policies in the city. Take some time to follow the links in their page. 

http://ludocity.org/wiki/Main_Page