Making space in our cities

Life in our overcrowded cities has become faster and more correlated to increased stress. Hence often in our mind-graph the issues with distress in cities are often connected to the lack of space in cities, but is it really the case?

For analysis of the situation with distress created by cities psychologists and urbanists often have to work together. One of the research project related to that is the project on solastalgia. You can read more on this in the book “Earth emotions” by Glenn Albrecht. We also talk about it in the blog on Seeing Solastalgia.

Solastalgia is not about distress created from cities, but mostly from fast changing environments. Cities nowadays are changing fast, not leaving people possibility to adapt or to relax in environments where it is natural to be.

Projects: failures and best practices

Projects like 2nd floor-cities explained in the “World as architecture project” are a good example of such imaginative solutions, built on the assumption that cities do need more spaces instead of changing our attitudes to cities.

Inspirational image of the project which was never implemented yet discussed as a possible extension of space by designing a second floor above the Earth. Image from the book “World as architecture project”

One can also think about “making more space in our cities” through creation of design of synchronisation moments in our cities. During big events, such as festival, demonstrations, carnivals, people typically are using space for meeting in a unified synchronised way, when even crowding in spaces does not look as a big issue, but more as a benefit and a contribution to creation of sense of synchronicity. Indeed the idea of creation of more of such synchronization rituals during the day may change something in our contemporary cities. Parks, abandoned churches, even trees can become good examples of contemporary “dojos of our cities”. Maybe actually it is not the space, but the space-time synchronicity, which is missing in our cities?

Project “community kitchens”

The associations and communities in our cities are isles of synchronisation, probably similar to what we had previously in the times, when churches and monasteries were at the center of such synchronisation places.
I have been always really struck by people, who are not participating in society or are less involved in its functionality (elderly people, people with illnesses), it has not been like this in older times when people used to live in villages or communities.
So big question arises here, whether today in our cities we can embed and integrate such systems of community participation inside districts or homes.
Next story to come: feeling it from the inside can be made possible through the story of “Le cantine” association in Paris (19th district).

Reconsidering some places is making more space

Cities hidden places, such as churches, monasteries are often dis-embedded from the current city landscapes in many Western European cities. Yet places like that can be used for meditation practices and considered as potential third safe spaces, regenerative for mental health.