The City as a Space of Conflict

The images above depict a smaller scale of guerrilla architecture within the city. An architecture grad student, John Locke, decided to install these pop-up libraries in old phone booths. With everyone having a cell phone, these structures no longer serve a functional purpose. Locke states by inserting these book sharing centers provides these areas with a purpose beyond being advertising spaces. This intervention provides a new use for outdated spaces that can benefit people in the area. 

ParaSITE inflatable shelters which respond to individual needs for shelter within the city. The structures created out of cheap everyday materials; trash bags, Ziploc bags, and tape; allowed homeless people a place to sleep and sit out of the elements. These structures which attach to ventilation systems of buildings to inflate fulfill a need for shelter. Some of the designs like the small flat structure in the lower right corner of the image were created to exploit an anti-tent encampment law based on height. 

Insightful designers at Urfun Lab have taken a pile of roadside concrete storm pipes and created an unexpected public space with just the addition of color. In many area of India the existing infrastructure is being updated which have resulted in unpleasing areas filled with construction projects. These designers used cellophane on one side of each pipe to create colorful filters for light to penetrate. These pipes provide a new place to sit and lounge within the area.  

 Beyond the city of Taipei a collective of architects have come together to create an illegal network of structures that form social gathering places called Instant City. The structures have developed on top of the industrial base of the city of Taipei. The image above depicts a wood-beam structure that atop of an abandoned 5 story building that was taken over to house workshops on sustainable urbanism. Prior to this use, the building was a community built by a low social class within Taiwan’s society.