Insurgent Public Space Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities

1. (Not) Your Everyday Public Space Jeffrey Hou  Part 1: Appropriating  2. Dancing in the Streets of Beijing: Improvised Uses within the Urban System Caroline Chen  3. Latino Urbanism in Los Angeles: A Model for Urban Improvisation and Reinvention James Rojas  4. Taking Place: Rebar’s Absurd Tactics in Generous Urbanism Blaine Merker for Rebar  Part 2: Reclaiming  5. eXperimentcity: Culturing + Publicizing Sustainable Development of Berlin’s Freiräume Michael A. LaFond  6. Re-City, Tokyo: Putting "Publicness" into the Urban Building Stocks Shin Aiba and Osamu Nishida  7. Claiming Residual Spaces in the Heterogeneous City Erick Villagomez  Part 3: Pluralizing  8. Claiming Latino Space: Building Cultural Capacity in the Public Realm Michael Rios  9. ‘ Night Market’ in Seattle: Community Eventscape and the Remaking of Public Space Jeffrey Hou  10. Making Places of Fusion and Resistance: the Experiences of Immigrant Women in Taiwanese Townships Hung-Ying Chen and Jia-He Lin  11. How Outsiders Find Home in the City: Chung Shan in Taipei Pina Wu  Part 4: Transgressing  12. Machizukuri House and Its Expanding Networks: Making New Public Realm in Private Homes Yasuyoshi Hayashi  13. Niwaroju: Private Gardens Serving the Public Realm Isami Kinoshita  14. Farmhouses as Urban/Rural Public Space Sawako Ono, Ryoko Sato, and Mima Nishiyama  Part 5: Uncovering  15. Urban Archives: Public Memories of Everyday Places Irina Gendelman, Tom Dobrowolsky, and Giorgia Aiello  16. Funny…It Doesn’t Look Like Insurgent Space: the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets and the Practice of History as a Public Art Jeannene Przyblyski  17. Mapping the Space of Desire: Brothel as a City Landmark Yung-Teen Annie Chiu  18. Spatial Limbo: Re-inscribing Landscapes in Temporal Suspension Min Jay Kang  Part 6: Contesting  19. Public Space Activism, Toronto and Vancouver: Using the Banner of Public Space to Build Capacity and Activate Change Andrew Pask  20. Urban Agriculture in the Making of Insurgent Spaces in Los Angeles and Seattle Teresa M. Mares and Devon G. Peña  21. When Overwhelming Needs Meets Underwhelming Prospects: Sustaining Community Open Space Activism in East St. Louis Laura Lawson and Janni Sorensen

Biography

Jeffrey Hou is Chair and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research and practice focus on design activism and engaging marginalized social groups in the making of public space. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Planning and M.Arch. from University of California, Berkeley.

"[W]hat this book provides through its narratives are strategies which have led to at least some remaking of the cities mentioned and through that hope for more inclusive cities in the future." – International Planning Studies Journal, Brian Simpson, University of New England, Australia

"All chapters are short and to the point; they are written in a reader-friendly manner, with a limited amount of theoretical abstractions and jargon. Furthermore, the case studies are illustrated by a good number of well-chosen and eye-catching photographs." – Society and Space - Environment and Planning D, Ioannis Chorianopoulos, University of the Aegean, Greece

"For the reader open to rethinking the nature of public space, Insurgent Public Space is an energizing read." – Carolina Planning, Maire Dekle

"Due to the book’s broad range of articles, the book will appeal not only to serious scholars, students and academics, but also to working professionals and citizens whose personal interests touch on the public realm. The discussion on public defiance has broadened to include more people and a more nuanced understanding of public spaces, and Hou’s book offers a refreshing, critical glimpse into these acts of spatial resistance." – Berkeley Planning Journal, Nicola Szibbo, UC Berkeley