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Lleis i reglaments a Barcelona

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1.1 BY-LAW FOR THE USE OF THE PUBLIC THOROUGHFARE (municipal)

The Barcelona City Council “Ordinance for the Use of the Public Thoroughfares and Public Space” is an archetypal by-law regulating activities in public space.

The by-laws that traditionally regulate the use of public space are commonly known as “public space by-laws”, which is the name that we will use in this guide. In Barcelona, the official name of this by-law is the “Ordinance for the Use of Public Thoroughfares and Public Space”, introduced in November 1998. The full text (in Catalan) can be found here.

The Statement of Purpose offers several interesting arguments suggesting that it is intended to be interpreted in a flexible and tolerant manner. These sections are liable to be quoted and used in negotiations, and to that end we include them here:
“The regulation of peaceful co-existence on the streets cannot be implemented in a rigid and predetermined manner, with the exception of some items that must be strictly enforced, such as those pertaining to cleanliness. Citizen activities that affect public space are extremely varied, and often unpredictable.”

“The difficulty in exhaustively and precisely defining what is permitted and what is prohibited does not just arise from the diversity of activities carried out in public spaces. It is also influenced by the historical differences in terms of what is acceptable or appropriate, by the rapid evolution of habits, and by the difficulty in foreseeing the public and private interests that must be reconciled in each case (…) For this reason, the by-laws are intended to be a flexible regulation, based on general clauses, that can be adapted to varying circumstances. In this sense, the by-laws define basic guidelines for behaviour, and trust the administrators and the material enforcers to concretely determine their precise scope.”

 

1.2 CIVIC BY-LAW (municipal)

The “Ordinance of Measures to Promote and Guarantee Citizen Co-existence in the Public Space” was introduced by Barcelona City Council in 2005 to toughen the conditions imposed in the existing by-law (on the use of the Public Thoroughfare). It became a precursor for subsequent by-laws implemented by City Councils around Spain, supposedly based on the notions of discouraging Anti-Social Behaviour and encouraging Peaceful Co-Existence.

The Civic By-Law is a controversial ordinance intended to regulate the general lines of peaceful co-existence, as Barcelona City Council understood them at the time of drafting, and is justified by its ability to adapt to social changes arising from globalisation. The full text (in Catalan) can be found here.

 

1.3 REGULATIONS ON PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES (regional)

“Law 11/2009, of 6 July, on public entertainment and recreational activities” is a law implemented by the autonomous community of Catalonia, but mostly expected to be enforced by municipal governments.

This Law places the emphasis on defining the legislative margins of municipal regulations and by-laws in order to establish additional requirements other than those of a general nature. Generally speaking, public performances and recreational activities, as well as the venues open to the public in which they are carried out, are subject to municipal licences or, in exceptional cases, to authorisation by the Catalan government. Nonetheless, to simplify administrative intervention as much as possible, the Law authorises Catalan government regulations and municipal by-laws so as to establish the obligatory requirement of prior notification in cases where the legislation does not specifically require authorisation or licence, or even to attain exemption from the requirement of a licence or authorisation for specific types of public performances or recreational activities, particularly if they have limited capacity or a special cultural or artistic value.

 

1.4 LAW REGULATING THE RIGHT TO GATHER AND DEMONSTRATE (national)

“Organic Law 9/1983, of 15 July, regulating the Right to Assembly”.
Article 21 of the Spanish Constitution states that:
1. The right to peaceful, unarmed assembly is recognised. The exercise of this right does not require prior authorisation.

2. In the cases of meetings in places of public transit and of manifestations prior notification shall be given to the authorities, which can only forbid them when there are reasons based on disturbances of public order with danger for persons or property.
This constitutional right is regulated through Organic Law 9/1983, of 15 July, pertaining to the Right to Gather (the full text can be found  here).

 

1.5 TECHNICAL STANDARDS FOR TEMPORARY STRUCTURES (European)

“Spanish Standards for Temporary Structures, Tents, Safety, UNE-EN 13782”, which is the Spanish adaptation of European Standard EN 13782:2005, setting out the guidelines for temporary demountable structures.

The “Spanish Standards for Temporary Structures, Tents, Safety, UNE-EN 13782″, is the Spanish adaptation of European Standard EN 13782:2005, setting out the guidelines for temporary demountable structures.

It is obligatory for the standardisation bodies of the following countries to implement this European guideline: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

This European guideline sets out the security measures that must be complied with during the design, calculation, manufacture, installation, maintenance, use, verification, and testing of mobile structures and temporary tents with a floor area greater than 50 m2. In the case of tents or temporary structures with a floor level below 50 m2, it is sufficient for the manufacturer to issue a document setting out the behaviour of the covering fabric in the event of fire, and the stability of the structure.

1.6 ORGANIC LAW ON THE PROTECTION OF PUBLIC SAFETY, ALSO KNOWN AS THE ‘GAG LAW’

At the time of writing the last edition of this guide, the Congress of Deputies is debating the new Law on Citizen Safety, which is intended to replace Organic Law on 1/1992, of 21 February, on the Protection of Public Safety, also known as the “Corcura Law”.

For a detailed critical study we recommend the work of the Platform against the Reform of the Criminal Code, the Law of Citizen Safety, and the Law of Private Safety (http://nosomosdelito.net), which we have used as the basis for this short summary that aims to give an initial idea of the possible consequences of the implementation of this law on activities in public space.

1.7 LEGISLATION ON SPORTS AND RELATED ACTIVITIES (national)

“Sports Law 10/1990, of 15 October 1990”

guerilla flowers

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On a summer day 10 friends went to one of Warsaw’s train stations to plant flowers in places where trees used to grow. The small station was working but hadn’t been cared for in a long time. The trees that used to grow there had been cut down and there were concrete planters which had been acting as ash trays for years. The action was spontaneous. It took us about 2 hours to add good soil, plant and water using basic tools. Each of us brought a few useful things – plants, soil or tools.

The plants grew for a few weeks and got some positive feedback. When a newspaper reporter asked the Polish National Railways who manage the station about the flowers, they replied that it was their idea in collaboration with the district council (it wasn’t). Soon after that they got rid of all the planters and poured concrete into every crack of the platform, making it impossible to repeat the planting operation. 

MECH.build

Mint&Lavender

 

Place:

Train station Ursus

https://mintandlavender.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/partyzantka-ogrodnicza-w-ursusie-etap-drugi/

http://mech.build/2013/01/30/guerilla-flowers/

8th Arquitecturas Colectivas International Meeting in Extremadura

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Last summer, Erku and David invited me to visit Los Santos de Maimona, a small town in the autonomous community of Extremadura in western Spain, very close to the Portuguese border, for this year’s annual meeting of the Arquitecturas Colectivas (AACC) network.

 

 

AACC is a network of people and projects that are actively involved in participatory creation of the urban environment. The aim of the network is to connect different factors that strongly influence urbanisation processes, in order to develop anthropogenic habitats that are characterised by special circumstances, and the communities that live in them. AACC is a complex network that combines practical and construction techniques with more social, cultural and technological aspects of urban contexts.

 

 

 

More specifically, AACC offers an organic framework for cooperation that can be divided into different types of projects and initiatives. It does this principally in three ways:

– Through face-to-face meetings for sharing experiences, workshops, and prototypes,

– Through the Internet and other systems of digital communication,

– Through projects / collaboration processes (analysing and producing works, cooperation and support of participatory processes, resources, pooling of experiences, and mutual support).

 

 

The theme of this year’s international meeting, which took place from 9 to 13 September, revolved around the participatory restructuring of urban space. The meeting brought together over 20 collectives and some two hundred people from around Spain, Europe, and Latin America, all involved with diverse practices concerning public matters and the commons.

 

 

 

The slogan of the meeting was “Pork in Progress”, a play on words on many levels inspired, on one hand, by pigs and pig farming, a major industry in the region and one of the most representative symbols of the collective imaginary of Extremadura, and, on the other, the idea of “work in progress” one of the ideas underpinning AACC as a network that is alive, changing, permeable and in constant organic growth.

 

The meeting took place at LaFábrika detodalavida (LFdTV), a self-managed social laboratory for the management of space, free time, and rural culture that generates cooperative practices based on the philosophies of free culture and the commons. The premises, which are a former cement factory on 40,000 square metres of public land, had been abandoned since 1974 until the LFdTV collective decided to reappropriate it as a self-managed cultural centre.

 

 

A pressing task for citizens today is to generate structures that promote cultural management based on an open source philosophy, bypassing entities that do not share those principles and do not have the capacity to adapt to the needs and conditions of the specific space. Self-management as a political act. The AACC meeting was in line with this mission and philosophy, and also aimed to more broadly highlight the needs and priority of citizens, and to promote good practices and strategies that ensure a more participatory society.

 

Our participation at the AACC meeting was linked to the presentation of the project PublicSpace.Tools (PST), developed by Straddle3 and WWB as a tool for citizen emancipation through critical, creative, and non-conventional applications. During the meeting, the team also worked on expanding and improving the functionality of the AACC website (arquitecturascolectivas.net)

 

 

The PST workshop presented guidelines for the activation of public space through the PublicSpace.Tools project that the team has been developing over the past year as an open platform. It is part of a strategy of generating new tools for participatory reconstruction of the urban environment within the AACC community and its philosophy.

 

I was invited to the meeting to talk about recent developments in Greece in relation to citizen use of public space (as from the start of public works in the lead up to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens), with a particular focus on parks and green spaces with high levels of vegetation, and about the self-management of these places. At the same time, I had the opportunity to produce a photographic report of the meeting. The debate that followed my presentation showed the shared interest in updating the concept of the Agora – which was the heart of public life in cities in Classical times – for the present.

 

 

 

The AACC meeting was free and open, and its main objective was to share and exchange ideas among participants, with a view to promoting the participatory, collaborative remodelling of the urban environment in all its aspects, through contributions from sociologists, anthropologists, activists, educators, social and cultural managers, landscape designers, environmentalists, urbanists, technology professionals and many others who form part of the community.

 

Many of the objectives of the organisers were met, including:

 

– To promote the town of Los Santos de Maimona (including its landscape, peculiarities, culture, and gastronomy) and the region of Extremadura in general, which can be considered peripheral in relation to the administrative centres of Spain.

– To support LaFábrika detodalavida and its structures and processes, as a benchmark project for the recovery of the heritage value of neglected or abandoned public spaces and facilities.

– To explore, reinforce, and publicise some of the collaborative practices that take place in the Extremadura region, so that they can connect to other similar processes/projects at the international level.

 

 

This year’s AACC meeting was special in that it strengthened the identity of people and projects in rural areas through collective, creative actions. In short, it showed how people can directly generate self-management processes that contribute to the governance of towns and cities: projects and actions in which people collaborate through collective activities that shape their environment, improve their lives, and, as a result expand and enhance social and economic relations.

 

At the final assembly, it was collectively decided that the 2016 AACC meeting will take place in the periphery of Madrid, a city very dear to me.

Pisando el territorio. Proyecto realizado por Iñigo Varona Sánchez y Mikel Calleja Jorge.

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The project began with choosing a site and digging. Based on the remains of buildings unexpectedly found on this wasteland on the outskirts of the city, it then turned into the “restoration” of a ruin, in the form of a sculptural-architectural space. As the work progressed, its many layers and potential became clear, and it expanded to a second “archaeological site” with a similar dynamic, creating something like resting points or “lookouts” forming part of the landscape.

From that point onwards, our task was to start to clean, clear-out, and level the area with the help of two hoes, and the idea of generating a sculptural space that would blend into the environment: lookouts or vantage points. As we dug, we realised that the soil was full of construction debris, and our work became a process of selection and classification of the rubble which we then incorporated into our sculptural action. The material and remains that we discovered shaped the work, becoming a key aspect of the construction process and the formal appearance.

After months of work, the site began to take on an identity, and the people who passed by began to take an interest in it. Passers-by were surprised to see us work because there seemed to be no apparent sense to what we were doing, and there were no recognisable points of reference. A man who regularly walked in the area revealed the historical identity of the place: a shantytown had occupied the space from 1945 until it was forcibly transferred to “Otxarkoaga”.

Los Planos self-managed SkatePlaza

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SkatePlaza autogestionada “Los Planos”, Badalona from david juarez on Vimeo.

Alberto, Oscar y Sergi nos cuentan la historia de la SkatePlaza que han estado autoconstruyendo en el Parque de Les Muntanyetes de Badalona

“Hello, we’re Albert, Oscar and Sergi.

We’re here to talk about “Muntanyetes Park”, and particularly “Los Planos Skate Plaza”, the park where we skate.  They started making the park in 2003, it looked good, it had a few good slopes, and we started skating.

We made module guides because we do a street circuit and we take the modules to the park on Fridays. We call them “Module Fridays”.

The town council banned skating; the locals complained because they saw a lot of skaters, and they damaged the curbs… the locals didn’t like it, they organised some protests to stop us, they moved the benches a few times and nailed them to the floor so we couldn’t move them, they put a handrail at the top of the slope and stoppers on the three levels of the square so that we couldn’t skate the ramp.   

After the last elections 4 or 5 years ago they changed the park. They took the lake away and added a playground and flat skating rink (old-style, like the ones where kids used to go with rollerskates).

So we asked them for a bowl, some more infrastructure for skating (at the site of the flat skating rink).

We got together and founded a sports association called Los Planos, to talk to the town council, request building permits, organise classes, hold events…
By creating the club, we got the all-clear to skate in the park where we had been banned before. And we managed to make it a shared-use area, for skating and for use by the locals.  Lines were painted on the ground to separate the skating area from the non-skating area.

 

That’s where we’ve been working: we put metal edging on the benches to avoid damaging them.
After this experience, we’ve talked to the town council and built many different things over the past four years.

The last things were two waves and a quarter curve. We still want build a bowl. We’ve but handrails on the stairs, the floor, etc… and different modules.
It’s a self-managed space, so we don’t ask the town council for permission. So every time we get our hands on a handrail or another element we go to the workshop after work, and we place the handrail in the park at night. They haven’t stopped; the park has kept growing over the past five years. There’s always activity, they build things, add new modules or change existing ones because they use recycled materials that wear out, they’re not always top-quality.
In these last changes we’ve had the help of skaters from other parks, like La Marbella, Kanki, Nico…

We use a mix of fixed elements and mobile elements. The mobile elements allow for more play, they can be moved around depending on the moment. There’s one element that interacts with the sculpture in the square, and bring it in and out so it won’t wear out. Sometimes we used to leave wooden ramps outside, but they soon wore out.

Now there are more than 15 modules.

We’d tell anybody who wants to do something similar to set up a youth association, a club, or a collective, and go and talk to their town council or the coordinator of the site, and suggest building elements in the places they would like to space.  We’d tell them to start designing modules. In some places we started illegally, but it’s better to take the legal option. Because you’re putting all that effort in, so at least you know you have the support, and you won’t get fined for modifying a public space, or have it demolished after working so hard to get the materials and build it.

People who want to do things should do them. Or collaborate in other places first, learn how to do it, and then start in their own neighbourhoods.
It’s really fulfilling. You finish and look at it and you feel good.

In this case, we didn’t have need homologation or anything. When we spoke to the municipal architect he said that he didn’t know anything about skating and he gave us a lot of scope to do whatever we wanted.

They gave us concrete and 400 euros, and we built around 17 m2 of high-quality modules, with sufficient thickness. That’s what a company would charge per square meter for any urban skating module. We did it for the love of it.”

Public Space Uses and Hacks, PST and P2P Plazas at Medialab Prado

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Public Space Uses and Hacks: tools for collective maps of unforeseen actions

Location: LAB at Medialab Prado

A debate on boundaries that apply to the use of public space in relation to initiatives based on developing tools and communal spaces for unforeseen actions and for the expression of citizen demands.

Introduction

“All citizens have the obligation to use the city’s public spaces, services, facilities, and urban furniture, and other elements, correctly and in accordance with their nature, intention and purpose, always respecting the rights of other citizens to use and enjoy them.”    

Paragraphs like these can be found in the municipal by-laws of any of our cities. This particular one is taken from the Barcelona municipal by-laws. Nonetheless, the idea that there is a “correct” way to use public space is not in line with real urban practices, or habitual ways of living in the city, or with the needs of different groups, individuals, moments in time, situations…

Language is not innocent, and the idea of a supposedly “correct” use of public space gives rise to a long list of unforeseen actions that citizens engage in and that could potentially lead to sanctions. The phrasing also reflects the increasing standardisation and privatisation of common spaces. But in response to these same boundaries, many initiatives try to go beyond the limits, to provide tools for the collaborative construction of shared gathering places and to create environments in which to support and sustain legitimate claims.

 

PublicSpace.Tools

PublicSpace.Tools is a tool developed by Straddle3 (Barcelona) to promote citizen empowerment for critical, creative, or unconventional uses of public space.

PublicSpace.Tools is a multilingual online platform that is still in development stage. It consists of two elements: 1) an interactive platform based on open source software that includes a map of posts created by users, with information on legal regulations pertaining to public space, good practices, recipes and tips, the reporting of abuses, etcetera; 2) a mobile application linked to a geolocalisation interface that allows users to publish content in real time.

 

P2P Plazas

P2P Plazas, a Southern European Network, is a research project carried out by Carmen Lozano Bright (Madrid), that is presented in tandem with PublicSpace.Tools at MediaLab. P2P Plazas was presented at MediaLab on 7 April 2015 as part of Open Conversation: Maps of the Commons in Public Space. The project now returns to MediaLab to present some of the common characteristics found in the study of three different spaces: Patio Maravillas (Madrid), La Casa Invisible (Malaga) and Navarinou park (Athens) with the aim of defining certain tools that can be useful for connecting community spaces which are cared for and self-managed by users.

 

 
The objectives of the MediaLab workshop are:

– To contextualise PublicSpace.Tools within the concept of the right to the city, in relation to specific matters regarding public space in different European cities.

– To analyse the legal conditions that apply to public space, and how to deal with them when planning and implementing unconventional activities.

– To provide basic technical and conceptual information to participants, allowing them to appropriate the tool and use it for their own objectives.

– To explore the possibilities for interaction between the platform PublicSpace.Tools and the P2P Plazas research project.

Cardboardia: Ciudad de cartón

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Cardboardia is an independent community of artists, performers, event managers and experts with various backgrounds from Russia, USA, UK,
the Netherlands other countries. We design, create and experiment with both the most unbelievable and the very practical ideas in relation
to the organization of public spaces and events.

Cardboardia is a country without a territory but with a functioning political and economic system. The members of the community or “Personages of Cardboardia”, are the majority of the country’s population – now reaching several tens of thousands of people.

The political system of Cardboardia is Tyranny!. Administration of Cardboardia is represented by the Tyran and his wife Prime
Victoria. It is they who provoke and coordinate the activities of the numerous ministries, divisions and departments which are headed by Personages of Cardboardia.

Cardboardia country comes into being during the materialization of Cardboardia. At the invitation of other states and nations,
personages of Cardboardia build large scale Cardboard towns. Each Cardboard town has a local currency, the ‘Bad Taste’, as well as
a powerful and senseless bureaucracy. Each Cardboard town is open for tourists and for potential new residents. Anyone willing to can
officially join the population of Cardboardia through the receipt of a Cardboardia Personages (Citizenship) Permit. Anyone can become an
owner of immobile and mobile cardboard property or implement their own project within the area of the town’s creative economy.

National holidays and celebrations are extremely popular among residents and tourists to Cardboardia. Either by their own initiative or by
invitation from other countries and organizations personages of Cardboardia arrange large scale parades, cardboard tube fights and unique
themed parties. For the preparation of Parades and parties as well as for promotion of fun, the Tyran usually opens the borders to all
those who are willing to take part.

The Cardboardia Administration is ready to discuss opportunities and options to arrange events in your Region. For various presentations on
programs, parades and parties arranged by Cardboardia please go to CARDBOARDIA EVENTS.

Cardboardia is the world’s biggest exporter of designer made cardboard furniture and decorations. Anyone from any part of the world can
order unique useful and useless objects for home and public space at MadeinCardboardia. To find out more and to order cardboard
furniture and decorations please go to MADE IN CARDBOARDIA.

The Prime Victoria’s House (DGV) is an event agency and a part of Cardboardia community. To find out more about the programs and
to order a family celebration or a corporate event please go to PRIME VICTORIA HOUSE.

Personages of Cardboardia are always willing to share their experience and achievements. For rumors and news about our community go toPERSONAGES. For updates on public art and design go to GLOBAL CONTEXT.

Cardboardia is an open community. Everyone can learn, work, communicate and have fun in Cardboardia. For updates and reports from our
events and for vacancy announcements go to EVENTS.

To find out about the Partners of Cardboardia Administration go to FRIENDS.

To contact Cardboardia Administration please go to CONTACTS.

http://cardboardia.info/?lang=en

 

Cardboardia parade on Spoffin (NL) from Stories from Cardboardia on Vimeo.