Abstract
Adaptive Actions initiated in London in 2007 by Jean-François Prost explores alterations in the workplace, the home, and public spaces in general. Identifying the variety of these personal and found alterations in the city as different forms of adaptation creates a vocabulary for the expression of the collective imagination, through the existing urban structures therein. These ‘actions’ modify and activate the intended use of architecture and enhance the character of urban environments. They create positive tensions that test the limits of tolerated appropriation. Can these simple actions, images, and ideas, such as the hybridization of conventional and unusual urban realities, infiltrate our collective imagination to promote feelings of identity and a sense of cultural belonging? Adaptive Actions points to how urban phenomena impact on residents’ perception of the environment and their relation to it. By offering a space to share experiences, ideas, forms of actions, and specific accomplishments, Adaptive Actions creates an inventory of alterations rarely visible to the public. Printed documents and organized events are being planned to increase visibility of the selected actions to the public eye and build affiliations and communal thinking.
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Notes
Part of the Canada Council for the Arts International Residency program, hosted by SPACE in Hackney, London East End.
A series of ‘open houses’ and workshops were organized at SPACE (London) to discuss several proposed actions or context of intervention—see Olympic walks and suppers following the All Aboard action (http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/46/).
Such as Gewuerfel’s action Building the Future? which reused the All Aboard action paint to erase pictures taken by this urban photographer of the past and lost Lower Lea Valley in London (http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/59/).
Also such as the All Aboard action (http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/41/).
Adaptive Actions is the continuation of prior research initiated at the Liverpool Biennial 2006—Public Loitering Area: http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/21/.
A new phase of this project is being initiated as we speak by a Liverpool resident on new proposed sites—for news and further detail, visit the Adaptive Actions website.
For more information on the concept, see Marc Augé (1994).
See the article by Jean-François Prost on project Inflexions in the Generic City recently translated into English at: http://www.adaptiveactions.net/information/.
For accounts and testimonies, see website: http://www.deadmalls.com.
Nobert, Frank, Narrative Breaks. In Adaptive Actions (UK Edition). Adaptive Actions and SPACE, London, pp. 70–71.
Nicolas-Le Strat, Pascal (2009) Micropolitics of Uses. In: Adaptive Actions (UK Edition). Adaptive Actions & SPACE, London, pp 57–62.
For further details: http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/71/.
For further detail: http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/71/.
Corboz, André (2001) Le territoire comme palimpseste et autres essais. Éditions L’imprimeur, Paris.
For further details: Adaptive House at http://www.adaptiveactions.net/action/67/.
idem, Wright, Stephen, p. 123.
Querrien, Anne, Fabriquer des seuils à une troisième nature, Multitudes no.20, Spring 2005.
Such as the housing project by Le Corbusier in Pessac, France, transformed by residents and currently being restored to its original state. Series of modifications described and addressed in Philippe Boudon’s book: Pessac de Le Corbusier. Dunod, Paris (1967 and 1983).
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Prost, JF. Adaptive Actions. AI & Soc 26, 163–170 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-010-0298-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-010-0298-y