How to Cite: Ocampo Aguilar, Ximena. "[Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space". Dearq no. 42 (2025): 40-52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq42.2025.05
How to Cite: Ocampo Aguilar, Ximena. "[Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space". Dearq no. 42 (2025): 40-52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq42.2025.05
Ximena Ocampo Aguilar
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dérive lab, Mexico
Received: January 30, 2024 | Accepted: January 23, 2025
[Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space is an architectural research project aimed at critically analyzing and reclaiming the everyday forms and actions that bring life to our cities and shape their public sphere. Using architecture as an ethnographic tool to explore and document complex spatial phenomena, the project has compiled an archive that records uses, objects, and actions of public space occupation—including those that are unintentional or unplanned. This documentation reveals that the city is a dynamic and ever-evolving space of tension, emphasizing the need for architecture to acknowledge its complexity and spontaneity.
Keywords: Urbanism, spatial determinism, space appropriation, public space, social production of space, public space use, architectural anthropology.
[Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space is an artistic-architectural research project aimed at critically analyzing, reclaiming, and redefining the everyday forms and actions that bring life to our cities and shape their public sphere. In its development and methodology, architecture is employed not as a discipline for designing but as a means of understanding the city. Its tools serve to explore, observe, and document complex spatial phenomena that lie beyond the reach or control of architects yet remain an inherent reality in various urban settings, enriching and adding uniqueness to the city. This approach reconfigures architecture as a discipline of exploration and study, fostering intersections with other fields such as anthropology, ethnography, and art.
The outcome of this process is the creation of an archive documenting the uses, objects, elements, and actions involved in the occupation and appropriation of public space. This detailed compilation—almost an inventory—includes both intentional and unplanned, undesigned uses that shape the urban environment.
In 1863, Ildefons Cerdá, considered one of the founders of modern urbanism, cataloged more than ninety activities regularly carried out on the streets of Barcelona, including amanuensis, conjuring, hairdressing, and the sale of various goods. Beyond merely documenting how the city was inhabited, his goal was to regulate these activities by relocating them to kiosks placed at the newly designed chamfered corners of the Eixample (Magrinyà & Marzá 2017). This approach laid the foundation for what Ángela Giglia (2017) later termed the fallacy of spatial determinism. Overall, this urbanization project was driven by a desire to reconstruct urban aesthetics and impose order on what was perceived as urban chaos—an idea characteristic of 19th-century Europe (Edensor 2021).
More than 150 years later, this overdetermination of both the visual forms of the city and its social functions (Sennett 2017) remains present—not only in how we perceive the city but also in the norms and public policies that define its design. These policies aim to monitor and control undesirable behaviors while taming informality at all costs. Colonial and Western notions of order, along with modernist planning imperatives, have become part of a globalized discourse. This has led to the erasure of much of the social diversity within urban spaces, as well as the loss of social infrastructures, economic foundations, and urban vibrancy (McFarlane 2022). Today, cities seem designed solely to be clean, safe, orderly, and harmonious (Sennett 2017). In this context, public spaces are conceived as efficient and temporary, meant to serve specific functions—turning the city into a marketable space where a hegemonic and conflict-free vision is imposed (Hernández 2016). To ensure the existence of these supposedly conflict-free spaces, cities rely on regulations governing space usage, the installation of signage and organizational elements, the integration of surveillance cameras, the instrumentalization of law enforcement, and, in some cases, the tacit complicity of citizens—who validate which activities should be allowed and which should be marked as dissident or inappropriate (Delgado 2015).
Despite such homogenizing efforts, urban life—improvised, dynamic, and complex as it is—continues to thrive, especially in cities of the Global South. In this context, occupying public space in ways that deviate from established norms and predetermined spatial designs becomes an act of resistance, opening up possibilities for rupture, emancipation, and an uncertain yet liberating spontaneity (Martínez 2014). Sitting on a bollard, a step, or squatting in public can be seen as a discreet yet defiant way to meet personal needs where the designed environment has failed (Handler 2008). This points to the urgent need to reject the tradition of urban theorization based on a single model (Amin & Lancione 2022) and to develop new vocabularies for urban analysis—ones rooted in historical experiences beyond the Western framework (Robinson 2008).
Understanding disorder and spontaneity as a challenge to imposed orders can open new possibilities for rethinking the role of architecture in the 21st century. This aligns with Richard Sennett's (2017) premise that championing dissonance is the task of the radical planner—and the architect! If we are to envision an alternative urban future where people have agency over their environment, we must first understand the existing strategies that challenge the forms imposed by power and its systems. Additionally, we need to recognize non-human elements as active participants in social life and, therefore, as crucial agents of change. Following Amin's (2012) perspective, this approach invites us to consider the agency of all elements—material and virtual, human and non-human, visible and invisible—as ecologies of human existence and habitation.
The study of public space is far from new. The insights and analytical tools developed by Jacobs (2013), Whyte (1979), Appleyard (1980), Gehl (1971, 2010), and Gehl & Svarre (2013) have been highly influential in contemporary urbanism and architecture. These researchers have brought attention to seemingly trivial or self-evident questions—often overlooked—such as where people tend to sit, what activities they engage in, and how they interact with others. They also emphasize the "organized complexity" (Jacobs, 2013) of cities, where all elements interact and influence one another. However, as Angela Giglia (2017) notes, there is an important opportunity to recognize that many of these seemingly universal conclusions—based on studies of public spaces in the United States and Northern Europe—cannot be automatically applied to other urban and social contexts. Furthermore, as Tim Ingold (2022) suggests, people and objects should not be viewed merely as passive consumers of a designed and built environment but, more importantly, as agents of change who challenge the traditional authority of architects as the sole creators of urban design. This perspective reinforces Lefebvre's (2013) idea of space as a social product, shaped by the practices, relationships, and lived experiences of its inhabitants.
Figure 1_ File record of [Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space. Source: project archive.
The true value of creating an inventory of [other] Ways of Occupying Public Space today lies precisely in this: representing the vast range of activities, actors, and objects that make them possible allows for a detailed reconstruction of contemporary urban life, capturing both its spontaneity and its dissonance—persisting and existing despite the countless mechanisms designed to control and suppress them.
What is proposed here is the creation of an alternative archive of public life as a radical resource of possibility for cities—an archive that engages with "southern knowledge" (Amin & Lancione 2022), documenting informal urban practices of appropriation and dissident spatial interventions.
The very notion of creating an archive of alternative ways of using space may seem ironic or even contradictory. Attempting to represent chaotic, disordered, and ambiguous urban life through a rationalist classification process inherently suggests a tension. However, developing an open and flexible cataloging framework—one that accommodates diverse facets and multiple perspectives—can serve as a powerful tool for ethnographic analysis. By capturing the spontaneous, everyday, and ephemeral occurrences that unfold throughout the city, it operates on the intuition that beneath the seemingly disordered empirical reality, there exists an underlying structure that can be revealed through research (Hjørland 2013). With its expansive and adaptable nature, this alternative archive of public life has the potential to become a valuable resource, fostering new connections and insights across disciplines such as design, architecture, and the social sciences. It offers a lens through which to examine public space and the many ways in which it is inhabited and redefined.
Figure 2_ View of the records that make up the physical archive exhibited at Pabellón, an event organized by the Faculty of Architecture and Design at Universidad de los Andes in 2023. Source: project archive.
Figure 3_ Interaction with the physical archive by the public who visited the exhibition at Galería Torre del Reloj in February 2024 in Mexico City. Source: project archive.
Beyond scrutiny, the project focuses on the systematization and archiving of various forms of public space appropriation, using a faceted—rather than hierarchical—classification of findings. This organizational method required the development of an analytical-synthetic process that offers the possibility of continuity and dynamic expansion, allowing for an indefinite increase in concepts and their relationships should previously unidentified forms of occupation emerge. The result is an archive filled with photographic, architectural, categorical, and conceptual information on multiple public space occupations in different cities around the world.
Public space—understood here as streets, walkways, parks, plazas, facades, bollards, benches, planters, fountains, public transportation stations, and, in general, any space between buildings—has lost its multifunctionality (Martínez 2014). According to the rational principles of functionalist urbanism, specific functions have been assigned to each time, place, and space, leading to a segregation that concentrates activities in productive terms while controlling everything that takes place outside these designated areas.
Despite this rationalist understanding of the city, the informal—conceived not in economic terms but as an action that does not follow or conform to established forms, rules, norms, or conventions—persists as a synchronous act (Sennett 2017), relatively uncoordinated yet essential in making the city more than just the sum of its parts.
These arbitrary intrusions (Sennett 2017)—random choices, personal whims, or specific needs—alter the course of a city's development by acting as a counterbalance to contemporary urbanization systems. Such intrusions employ various tactics and resistance artifacts, including reappropriation and re-signification. Reappropriation is the act of transforming a pre-existing space into a new one, challenging and destabilizing hegemonic narratives within power structures. For example, it could involve sitting where it is prohibited, asserting an alternative use that defies imposed restrictions. Re-signification, on the other hand, alters the meaning of an object or space, assigning it a new significance or symbolic value. A simple yet powerful example is repurposing a bollard as a chair, redefining its function beyond its original intent.
Figure 4_ Drawings and descriptions of various forms of occupation recorded in Mexico City. Source: the author.
A non-exhaustive list of tactics of reappropriation and re-signification, on an ordinary day at an ordinary corner, might include:
Sitting on an informal seat
On the sidewalk
On the curb
On a railing or fence
On a bollard
On a step
On a window ledge
On a plinth
On a fountain
On a planter or tree grate
On a bucket
On a personal stool
On a chair
A wooden dining table chair
A plastic garden chair
A wrought iron chair
A wooden chair
Conceiving an alternative archive of public life requires the adoption of an interdisciplinary approach—a ethnographic turn (Yaneva 2018) that moves away from traditional conceptions of people as mere users of space and places as mere functionalist narratives formed after occupation (Yaneva 2021). This shift views architecture not as an object or product but as "a discipline of study, a mode of inquiry, distinguished by a fascination with materials and structures, with surfaces and atmospheres, and with the fashioning of a multisensory environment that can become a place of habitation for both human and non- human beings" (Ingold 2022).
Following these principles and recognizing that dwelling practices cannot be fully captured from a static observational standpoint (Yaneva 2021), this project has been based on extensive ethnographic journeys through various cities in Mexico, Colombia, and Hong Kong, searching for diverse actions and activities. These walks, understood as an aesthetic instrument of knowledge (Careri 2014), enable the identification of different scenes and situations in public space, providing structure for the observation, documentation, and tracking of activities, movements, and gestures. These findings are recorded in a field diary, as well as in photographic images, video recordings, and audio files. This slow mode of inquiry reclaims the value of learning from disordered and contingent realities that elude the objective categorizations of traditional disciplines (Yaneva 2021).
Once the surveys were conducted, each mode of occupation was systematically classified using a faceted—rather than hierarchical—classification. This system consists of a set of categories and subcategories that allow for the grouping of elements (modes of occupation) based on shared characteristics, without any single characteristic being the sole defining factor within the classification. This organizational method not only provides a dynamic framework for presenting various modes of occupation but also incorporates an analytical-synthetic process. It involves identifying the core concepts within each category and mapping the relationships and connections between them (Hjørland 2013). Furthermore, it offers a flexible and evolving structure, allowing for the continuous expansion of concepts and relationships as new forms of occupation emerge, ensuring that the system remains open-ended and adaptable.
The categories developed for the project [Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space are intended to capture the defining characteristics of all modes of occupation. These are summarized as follows: personality, referring to the nature of subjects or objects; energy, encompassing any action or interaction related to them; space, the geographical context in which they are situated; and time, the temporal dimension associated with their presence or activity.
Accordingly, the following categories and subcategories were developed:
Table 1_ Detailed Classification of Occupation Categories and Subcategories. Source: the author.
This category specifies the geographical location of each mode of occupation, identifying the city where it was observed. Beyond simply mapping these occupations, it enables a comparative analysis of patterns, similarities, and variations across different urban contexts. For example, while cargo bicycles may be widely used in multiple cities, their function can differ—some cities may rely on them primarily for selling goods, while in others, they may serve alternative commercial or logistical purposes. This highlights how a single object can take on distinct cultural and economic meanings, shaped by the specific needs, practices, and dynamics of each location.
This category describes the frequency with which a particular mode of occupation takes place. It can refer to a one-time event, an occasional occurrence, a seasonal practice, a recurring activity, or a permanent fixture. While determining this characteristic with absolute precision was sometimes challenging, it could often be inferred through direct observation and intuition or, in some cases, by consulting the individuals responsible for the activity. Temporality is closely linked to economic, social, and cultural factors, which shape whether a celebration happens annually or seasonally, whether the sale of goods is permanent or sporadic, or whether a person regularly or occasionally visits a particular street corner in the city.
This represents a spatio-temporal characteristic of modes of occupation, helping to determine whether an occupation stems from an object or subject in motion, a stationary element with the potential to be relocated, or a permanently fixed structure. Understanding this characteristic is essential for assessing the flexibility, adaptability, and transformative potential of different forms of occupation within public space.
This category explores the wide-ranging reasons people occupy public space, from waiting for public transportation or changing a baby's diaper to blocking a street for play or protest. It also sheds light on informal, everyday practices that, while often overlooked, enrich and diversify public space, reinforcing its role as a dynamic social and cultural arena.
This category refers to the means by which a person occupies or reclaims space. In the case of Body Only, the body itself is understood as the primary space; it is the most fundamental form of occupation, as it requires solely the presence of the body, without the need for additional elements, artifacts, or objects. It involves one or more people occupying a space and transforming it through their presence. A person may be standing, sitting (particularly in an informal or unplanned manner, such as in places not originally designed for seating, like a sidewalk, planter, or bollard), lying down, or leaning against a post, wall, door, tree, or other structure. This occupation can be a conscious act—such as planting one's body (or multiple bodies) in the street as a form of protest—or an unconscious one, like stopping in a place to chat or wait for public transportation.
Found Objects or readymades refer to modes of occupation that repurpose objects not originally designed for a given use but rather discovered—hence the term readymade—and then modified (without rendering them unrecognizable), adapted, or reinterpreted. This subcategory includes shopping carts, wheelbarrows, and seating elements not originally intended for the space, such as chairs, benches, or armchairs made from various materials. It also encompasses other objects that, despite not being designed for their adopted function, effectively serve their new purpose.
A custom-made object in contrast refers to an occupation that involves the use of objects specifically designed and built for a particular function, such as selling goods (especially food) or providing services (such as shoe shining or playing the barrel organ). This subcategory includes cargo bicycles, carts of various types, and fixed market stalls, among others.
Finally, the infrastructure hack refers to a mode of occupation that does not necessarily involve the presence of a person but rather the use of public infrastructure to carry out a specific activity that was not originally intended or planned for that space. This subcategory includes actions such as using illegal electrical connections (diablitos) to access the power grid or displaying goods for sale by repurposing urban furniture, among other improvised adaptations of public infrastructure.
This category defines the key characteristics that give quality to the objects, artifacts, and elements that shape a particular mode of occupation. Highlighting an element's nature, composition, appearance, predominant material, or color helps to identify the attributes that provide subjective value and identity to the diverse ways in which public space is occupied.
This category describes whether a mode of occupation is individual, collective, or undefined when it is not clearly distinguishable. Defining this aspect is crucial for understanding how a particular form of occupation interacts with and influences the surrounding space.
This category defines the type of space where different modes of occupation take place. Understanding this information allows for the analysis of whether certain locations tend to host specific activities more frequently.
This category includes all the elements or objects used when occupying space. It is an exhaustive rather than synthetic category, listing specific items such as a plastic chair or bench, microphone, hat, soda crate, mannequin, cardboard sign, etc. Developing this category contributes to an inventory of all objects used for alternative modes of public space occupation and helps determine whether these objects are universally present across cities or vary depending on location.
Table 2_ Minimal sample of occupations, descriptions, and cataloging categories from the archive [Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space. Location [U]; Space [S]; Type of occupation [O], Temporality [T], Permanence [P], Agent [AG], Activity [AC]. Source: the author.
This archive is not intended to define a single framework for understanding the diverse forms, strategies, situations, and experiences that shape public space occupations. Instead, it challenges the idea of public space as a sphere of peaceful and harmonious coexistence of society's heterogeneity (Delgado 2015), exposing it as an illusion. The countless ways in which public space is occupied challenge the idea of a uniform, shared understanding of its use, revealing instead a landscape of constant negotiation and divergence. Alternative and informal occupations embody the resilience of urban life, serving as the foundation of a dynamic and thriving social fabric (Sennett 2017). They drive economic and cultural innovation in cities, showcasing the creativity and resourcefulness with which people navigate and reimagine everyday spaces.
Even with the mediation of design, the sanitizing intent of urban renewal processes, and the explicit efforts to eliminate behaviors deemed undesirable or to domesticate informal practices, our way of inhabiting the city will always generate new expressions, spontaneous formulations, alternative responses, and diverse ways of occupying space. These adaptations sustain our needs, impulses, and activities, reinforcing the idea that every city is, by definition, a never-ending story (Delgado 2019), and that no urban project can fully determine the fate of cities and their inhabitants.
Against all forms of spatial determinism (Giglia 2017), [Other] Ways of Occupying Public Space stands as a direct rebuttal. Public space is a contested arena where the most fundamental conditions of existence, permanence, and visibility are negotiated, embodying the vast spectrum of human possibilities. Informal occupations emerge as acts of resistance, challenging the control and homogenization imposed by urban policies, while simultaneously revealing the ingenuity, creativity, and agency of urban residents.
I argue that documenting and valuing these practices offers an alternative way of seeing—not only people and objects but also their intrinsic relationships within cities—in order to recognize and embrace the "urban-ness of urban life" (Wilson 1991). This premise calls for moving beyond the need for order and, as David Kishik (2017) suggests, allowing the city to change the way we think, rather than seeking ways to change it. A dynamic and adaptable study of these practices enables us to expand and rethink the categories we use to understand urban habitability, highlighting the richness and complexity of city life. By revealing the creativity and agency of individuals in appropriating space, this perspective challenges dominant design narratives. It not only provides insight into the present values of a city and its society but also offers a way to read between the lines—to discern the subjective interests and capacities that shape possible futures. These informal occupations are an ongoing, everyday work in progress, reaffirming that space is inherently social.
In this vein, every type of occupation and appropriation of space can be seen as an ongoing act of maintenance and repair—an act of care, defined in Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher's words as "everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we can live in it as well as possible" (1990, cited in Mattern 2018). From this perspective, cities that acknowledge the informal wisdom embedded in their streets may ultimately be far more intelligent than any supercomputer (Mattern 2020). This reinforces the idea that architecture is not just projects, not just technology, not just representation—it is never just one thing, but rather a vast, interwoven network of knowledge, experiences, and ways of knowing (Muxí 2022).
By understanding the processes of inhabiting space, architecture can finally acknowledge that users do not passively accept—and will never passively accept—what projects, strategies, and plans dictate for them. Architecture should not be a means of predetermining urban life but rather a way of assembling possibilities for the future. This shift requires situating the creative force of design not solely within architectural projects but also within the generative potential of social relationships involving all participants. It calls for embracing a certain degree of friction and even resistance as integral to the very process of transformation (Ingold 2022).
* This project was made possible through the support of the Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales of the Mexican Ministry of Culture. Its results were exhibited at the Museo de San Ildefonso (Mexico City), at the XII Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (Mexico City), and at Pabellón in Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). To access the project archive, visit: https://otrasmanerasdeocuparelespaciopublico.com/.