Hacking the public space

Last week some of the We Creative People crew, together with many others (MakerLab Milan crew), went down to Milan to spark public action during the Milan Design Week.
As MakerLab, we took part in the Public Design Festival and set a public workshop in 4 different locations. We set up a workshop (with a working bench and tools) and brought some expertises from Berlin, to instigate Milan citizens to design their own public space.

How much do we need to change our public space?
Time? Money? People? Designers? Architects? Policy makers? ….
Most of us are always waiting for perfect situations, which normally never happen, in order to start to make a change.
It was great to meet the guys from Stortplaatsvandromen and the FOUNDation project. They set them self to make a cafe, in the public space, with whatever they could find in the street. With a clear goal in mind, but with a creative approach wich allows them to modify the concept according to what is available. They produced not just a very nice -temporary- cafe, but also a wide range of great furniture and tasty soup and coffee.  The cafe was full every day with the neighbours, first those who contribute by donating some materials, and then through word of mouth many others. The cafe was a great and lively place to be.

As citizen I want to be involved in the design of the urban space that I use, and want to have my say and propose solutions for those challenges that are common to us all.

As designers, how do we encourage and facilitate people to change the city and the urban space by them self?

As entrepreneurs and policy makers how do we create flexible and open structures which benefit from the input of the citizens to create solutions for us as society?