A Study into the Process of Public Facilities Design through Transitional Urbanism

(Background and Purpose) Recently, activism movements in which residents take the lead and change the public environment to a people-centered one have occurred more actively worldwide. Citizens who want to change a temporary urban experiment implemented in a short period do not rely solely on the government's public environmental improvement but form a community on their own and cooperate with experts in each field to make new use of idle space in the city. This study deals with transitional urbanism, derived from the concept of tactical urbanism, creative and practical urban experimentation that collaborates with stakeholders by utilizing unexplored, neglected, or transitional stages before the final project is set in urban planning. This study compares and analyzes the cases of design projects by Cabanon Vertical, a French creative association that acts as a facilitator between stakeholders in all project processes and creates user-oriented temporary public facilities by reinterpreting urban space based on experience and cooperation with residents. This study aims to analyze the role and approach of a sustainable platform developed by Cabanon and the process model they built to provide a basis for reference on how public design should proceed based on resident participation in Korea. (Method) As for the research method, first, it examines the overall concept, background, and differences between tactical and transitional urbanism. Second, it derives and compares four temporary public facility design projects, both at home and abroad, created using the transitional methodology established by Cabanon. Third, it analyzes Cabanon’s transitional urbanism process and the possibility of developing a Korean Cabanon model. (Results) Transitional urbanism pursued by Cabanon was accompanied by the local community throughout the process, except for project approval. Therefore, regardless of the project's outcome, the various community members that participated and cooperated maintained their own communities and continuously managed their facilities. Their projects induced the participants' desire for a better urban space to engage in bolder urban experimentation by utilizing the features of transitional urbanism called “temporality.” (Conclusions) Considering the urban environment and resident participatory public design projects in Korea, Cabanon’s transitional urbanism process model induces the continuous participation of residents and encourages sustainability by allowing them to create spaces for communication. In Korea, where most public design projects end with a one-off participation induction, a Korean transitional urbanism process, such as Cabanon’s, should be developed and further activated. In addition, more intensive studies should be conducted in the direction of public design based on subjective citizen participation.