TACTICAL URBANISM

Our proposal for the 2023 Tactical Urbanism Design Contest by Terraviva
Honorable mention

The reDISTRIBUTor

The location of this project is in Budapest downtown, but the idea is adaptable to any similar situation, where the historic downtown streets are creating a very dense urban fabric, with few openings and usable public space. The streets are mainly occupied by parking cars, the distribution of the avaible space is unequal.

Overall, the main goal of this intervention is to change the mindset of the residents, empower their behavior to become an active member of their communtiy and to create the foundation for integrated and structural changes. Changing the way we think about our public spaces is a slow process, that is why we focused on long term attention creation. The act of redesigning of one’s living area is a possibility to create an event for community engagement. We imagined a moving street „parade”, with a rolling event stage („the reDistributor”). This stage holds the building elements of new street-addons. As the parade moves along its path, the streets behind it are changing into their new form.

„It’s an ice-cream truck that appears from time to time, but rather than giving ice cream it creates small public spots”

Over time, this always moving festival slowly changes the streets by placing small pockets of public space extenstions to the pavements. These addons change the structures of the narrow streets, slowing down the traffic and making more space for the pedestrians. The addons are creating a more walking friendly street without the need for rebuilding existing road surface.