37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 325ART AND CULTURE: SOCIAL INTERACTION TOOLS FORURBAN TRANSFORMATIONJavier Moreno del OjoDepartment of Graphic Expression and Architectural ProjectsProject i+d BIA 2088-02753. Urban Recycling. E.T.S. of Architecture, Granada, Spainjavi.mdo@gmail.comKey words: social interaction, urban transformation, design toolsAbstractThe intervention is focused on the search of tools which will allow to foster and to channelthe existing social energy in the different areas of the city with the purpose of involving thecitizens actively in the processes of its configuration.The aim is to create an approach which will open up new channels in professional practicewhich consider the ‘social aspect’ as a tool of the project. Thus the inhabitants will beprovided with urban spaces, buildings, furniture, allowing them to change and to take part intheir own environment. The aim is to promote with all this a kind of active citizen involvedwith their reality, and try to change the trend of a passive consumer citizen promoted by themedia, the institutions and the forms of an urban growth as a generic city: homogenized andwithout identity.Communication is structured in three parts:1. New relationships with the environment: An analysis of the contemporary cityconfiguration in which the citizen is induced to produce and consume by simulatedenvironments.2. Contemporary art as an instrument of interpretation and participation: Study architectureprojects and art installations that are grouped according to two main features:Art as an interpretation of the environment: interventions can make visible a phenomenonwhich is usually barely perceptible, thereby they change the way we appreciate our city. Theinstallations look for the citizens’ awareness of their environment. People love what theyknow.Contemporary art as catalyst for social intervention: it shows interventions in which the mainthing is the social action and the relations generated in the public. Such interventions, if theyare focused in its context, involve citizens actively in creating and shaping their ownenvironment.3. Ways for participation: Examples of projects made by architects, universities and socialaction groups in which, citizens are involved as an active agent in different situations.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 186