The rhythm at which different neighborhoods in the city of Barcelona move, especially peripheral neighborhoods thriving in diversity and rich in cultural heritage, makes it challenging for municipalities to keep up or even understand the multiple dynamics these communities so naturally develop, resulting in many occasions in the misinterpretation of their actual necessities and lack of adequate action upon them. Necessities, nevertheless, are very well understood by the people who actually walk those streets.
The project explores how the community of La Florida, a peripheral neighborhood of Barcelona, collaboratively meets its needs through grassroots creativity and mutual support. Paying special attention to diverse migrant communities, it investigates how informal, unrecognized design practices shape everyday life. Rather than approaching design as a luxury, the project seeks to highlight it as an open service. One that is accessible, community-driven, and dynamically responsive to real needs.
The research immerses itself in the neighborhood’s communal activities, events, gatherings, engaging with local associations that have been deeply involved in urban and socioeconomic initiatives for over a decade. In an attempt to better understand and engage with the local dynamics, the opportunity to carry out an open tactical urbanism workshop with members of the community arose. Workshop developed by the designer in collaboration with members of the La Fundició and La Associació de Veïnes i Veïns La Florida, to think of ways to collectively think of ways to use public space through the production of urban hacking artifacts.
The research aims to generate a visual and documented representation of the unique identity of this neighborhood and their collective activities to challenge the conversation around design interventions at community level in the form of a critique to traditional participatory design practices, by focusing on the informal and unrecognized aspects of community life and everyday interactions that reveal a deeper, collective intelligence in problem-solving.
