Queering the City: Reclaiming Space Between Spontaneous Actions and Design Practices

The reclaim of the term queer has operated since the 90s as a real cultural revolution, starting from the sphere of activism up to contaminating different areas of academic research with its critical and revolutionary approach. Queer thought and marginalized identities have historically been linked to the city and its spaces. Therefore, the topic of queer space has been treated especially by geographers, urbanists, and sociologists, who have been open to contamination with Queer Studies for several decades. However, the intersection between the latter and the world of design remains to be explored, particularly in the urban spatial dimension. This chapter illustrates an overview of the various meanings of queer and its links with the spatial urban dimensions and offers some examples between spontaneous autonomous actions and design projects that queer public space, interrogating the role of queer adopted as an epistemological lens to transform design for public urban spaces.