72 Hour Urban Action (exhibition & competition short list)

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RESEARCH BACKGROUND: Ten teams of architects and landscape architects from around the world were invited to compete in '72-hour Urban Action', a real-time architecture competition held during the Bat-Yam Biennale of Landscape Urbanism in Israel. One hundred and 20 people took part, working on projects that responded to community needs. Teams had to transform small spaces on very tight budgets. Monacella lead the 'Transformers' team and Douglas was a team member. They had three days and three nights to transform a barren, rectangular asphalt site into a communal backyard for people living in nearby apartments in Bat-Yam, a seaside city of 160,000 people just south of Tel-Aviv.
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Monacella and Douglas worked in collaboration with peers from around the world to create a new public space from a barren, rectangular asphalt site. Their constructed surface explored the idea of a multi-functional space enabling the individual to appropriate the space by their own means. The surface could act as a bike jump, a deck, a planter box, a sandpit, a ledge, a hangout and a gathering space. Transparent blue lampshades hung above the backyard, thus domesticating the space and revealing its playful aspect. The project raised questions about the appropriation of public space by various cultures and communities and researchers had to respond to these questions as they created the space.
RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: '72-hour Urban Action' is the world's first real-time architecture competition. 500 people applied to take part in the event; Monacella and Douglas were two of the 120 selected. Others came from South Korea, Italy, Russia, USA, Turkey and Morocco. The event was covered in the 'New York Times', Anthony Grant, 'Guerrilla Architecture in Israel', 28 Sept 2010. The five jurors included the mayor of Bat-Yam, Shlomo Lahiani, and the manager of public art and design for New York's Times Square Alliance, Glenn Weiss.