In(c)(v)ite: the in-Between Project

Abstract

The present paper presents an alternative urban design approach that explores the project as an in- between mechanism. By in-between, we assume that “the project is neither the beginning nor the ending it is just an in-between in places’ time, both past and indeterminate future.”[1] It is an in-between time process that crosses several scales, actors, and places. We found the in-Between Project by searching through the existing cracks [2] in the contemporary built environment – uncertain and abandoned places/buildings and wastelands – generated by four factors: (a) the increasing of a fragile global economy; (b) the recurrent urban transformation processes (such as the over construction of road infra- structures and the cyclic destruction/construction of the old/new housing planning); (c) the absence of activities/production; and (d) the consequent abandonment of buildings and urban plots. Therefore, it was acknowledged that these cracking processes are creating a catalytic effect in the built environment, causing uncertain cross-scaled consequences between time, space, and society such as: not knowing the future of these places, not expecting positive scenarios for these places, not conveying the relationships of these places, and not engaging socially with these places. When addressing this problematic, fundamental questions arise: how can we articulate the (dis)connections created by the existing cracks in the urban environment? How can we transform the waste inherent to these cracks into a life potential? How can we create a viable metabolism with this waste? How can we generate new activities? How can we attract new inhabitants? How can we transform cracks into magnets? In this research, we realised that these questions cannot be answered through the narrow design solutions formalized by neither the conventional object/programmatic approach, nor by the top-to-bottom/bottom-to-top urban strategies, detached from the indeterminate cross time-scale relationships of these cracked places. An alternative urban design approach was required. The in-Between Project is structured using three interconnected concepts: Cite, Recite. and Incite. Cite is to select the time traces found in the place to trigger and ground the design project. Recite is to transform the cited elements into a simple base structure that stimulates unforeseen appropriations and becomes adaptable to change. Incite is to critically imagine future possible scenarios for the created base structure. These ideas are presented, tested, and developed in one specific design research in Azenha do Mar, a remote fishing village on the southwest coast of Portugal. It is acknowledged that the in-Between Project is a simple practice of in(c)(v)itation: it incites the hidden potentials of cracked places and invites human beings to appropriate them in an imaginative and unforeseeable way.