www.attivismourbano.org

WALKMOBILE

In 1975 the Austrian civil engineer Hermann Knoflacher developed the Walkmobile or Gehzeug a wood frame worn by a pedestrian with the purpose to occupy the same space quantity as a motorist. The walkmobile is a tool of protest against the record of cars in city that easily allows to visualize the irrationality of the engine urban traffic and the fact that it takes up an excessive part of ground .
The experiment of Knoflacher has been repeated in different big cities in the world, from Austria to Thailand, showing the territorial potentialities of the urban areas without cars.

From 1975 Hermann Knoflacher was a Professor at Vienna Univesity of Tecnology and from 1985 a manager of the Institute for the planning of the transports and traffic at Vienna Technical University . He has given a fundamental contribution to the Sanfte Mobilität, the German activist movement for Sustainable Transports.

I GO TO WORK ON SURF

In the summer 2008 the British daily papers published a curious news. Fed up with the hours of queue in the traffic and of the overcrowded public means of transport in London, the English Andy White chose to use the surf table to go to work. After having got the permission from the coastal watch, every day it crosses eight kilometers on the Thames, in about two hours he reaches the garage of a friend, where he leaves the table, he washes himself and gets dressed then he walks to his office in the City.This is an original example of sustainable mobility that promotes the urban bathing and navigation.
We love you, Andy!

ACTIONS: WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THE CITY

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents the exhibition Actions: What You Can Do With the City, an exhibition with 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world.
Actions: What You Can Do With the City documents and presents specific projects by a large and diverse group of activists whose personal involvement has triggered radical change in today’s cities. These human motors of change include architects, engineers, university professors, students, children, pastors, artists, skateboarders, cyclists, root eaters, pedestrians, municipal employees, and many others who answer the question of what can be done to improve the urban experience with surprising and often playful actions.
The 99 actions featured include projects related to the production of food and possibilities of urban agriculture; the planning and creation of public spaces to strengthen community interactions; the recycling of abandoned buildings for new purposes; the use of the urban fabric as a terrain for play such as soccer, climbing, skateboarding, or parkour; the alternate use of roads for walking, or rail lines as park space; the design of clothing to circumvent urban barriers against resting on benches or sliding on railings; among others.
The exhibition also provides an opportunity to report their actions of urban activism through the official website of the exhibition, generating new ideas and creating visibility of the actions of the whole world.

Actions: What You Can Do With the City
26 November 2008 - 19 April 2009
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 Baile Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3H 2S6

web site

BIG CAR SHORT DICK

Big Car Short Dick is a type of urban activism which reacts to the invasion of Suvs on the road “in order to sensitize individuals about pollution, promote sustainable mobility and spread an essential way of living.”

One only needs to choose a sticker, find a Suv, take a quick look around, and attach the sticker to the Suv. This is a simple action, which could appear irreverent and vulgar - but the Suvs are even more so.

web site ∙ pictures

GUERRILLA GARDENING

Guerrilla gardening is a movement in which activists occupy a piece of abandoned land in order to cultivate plants and flowers in it. This movement “is fueled by the desire and necessity to bring back life to the degraded zones of metropolises which have been overlooked during times of momentary interest and left in a state of abandonment”*. This project, born in a small part of Manhattan called Loisaida in the 1970’s involved the appropriation of private a run-down plot of land and its transformation into a public garden by a group of artists and other people from the city. Thirty-five years later, the space has remained a garden maintained by its citizens and is protected by the Park Department of the city. Over time hundreds of other common gardens have been added and still today new gardens and parks are sprouting up all over the world. The gardeners cultivate and overlook the occupied green spaces autonomously. They not only cultivate the gardens but also organize initiatives which involve the participation of other districts and elementary schools, therefore giving Guerilla Gardening an important social and cultural role.

*Michela Pasquali, I giardini di Manhattan. Storie di guerrilla gardens, Bollati

BIG JUMP

A symbolic dive into rivers and lakes organized contemporarily all over Europe in order to sensitize the public opinion about the quality of water and to recover the capacity to swim in waterways. The Big Jump, which is a European campaign made by the European Rivers Network (ERN) and used specifically in large cities, invites citizens to take control of their rivers once again by simply going for a swim. This was a common and natural activity up until 30 years ago, but today, with highly polluted waterways, it has generated screams of dismay and protest. These protests are directed mainly towards local administrations who are invited to consider rivers not only as empty urban spaces, but as a precious natural resource. They are also invited to get involved in water purification programs which would allow citizens to swim in them once again.

The next collective dive is foreseen for July 12, 2009.

website ∙ pictures