5 SPATIAL DESIGN TACTICS

The third millennium sets the scene for a profound and radical change in the way people live. For design – which works as a continuous process, by identifying and interpreting the needs which trace the new paths and scenarios of life as it develops, and then by proposing design actions which become space, objects and ways of behaving – it is a unique opportunity to generate creative concepts and the territorial sphere, which is undergoing profound metamorphosis, provides design with another field for experimentation with great potential. By freely facing challenges and imbuing itself in its work with the languages of architecture, art, communication sciences, urban planning, landscape design and territorial marketing, spatial design can carry through a concrete revolution in the dynamics of the design of other spaces. The temporary, adaptable and reversible methods offered by the systemic approaches typical of the Design process mesh particularly well with the requirements for development and adaptability of post-industrial society, structured as it is on networked, multiple, pervasive and invisible systems, which are being continuously implemented and transformed, and on the value of the global-local relationship. The study highlights how these goals can be achieved using different and distinctive spatial design tactics through collaborative engagement with neighboring creative disciplines. Tactical Spatial Design is a form of intervention in territorial and urban space, where the spatial designer is part of a transdisciplinary team, which operates within a variable intervention scale. Projects can be the result of a co-design process, from micro to macro scale, or they may find place very close to interventions for private players. Projects can be answers to everyday reality and to users, or placed in the large dimension of mending, between urban infrastructures and landscape, to merge the indiscriminate urban sprawl of postmodernity. The various dualistic tactics identified – Plug-In, Art-Mix, In-Out, Border-line, Analog-Digital – highlight the incredible potential of spatial design. Links and QR codes, alongside the text of each chapter, directly connected to the case studies and websites references.