CIVIC CITY 2—DESIGNING IN URBAN CRISIS
Civic City will take as a platform of research the French city of Marseille, focusing in neighborhoods which took part of federal programs and that have experienced remarkable physical, economical and social transformations, Civic City will address the social and spatial exclusions that have been generated as consequence of the neoliberal shift in urban policy. The fieldwork will be performed to bring an understanding of how neoliberal urban restructure, policymaking, design and planning are devised under different contexts and conditions.
If design is to transcend its function as a complaisant tool of urbanisation in the service of private interests, the question arises as to its intent as well as to the potential of critical action beyond economic considerations. What is the role of design in the production of space? Does it wish to be merely an element in the commodified colonisation of social spaces, or could it be a strategic tool that can make an essential contribution to a social city? Or are graphic design and the visual representation of urban issues themselves the key means by which a Civic City may be created on the ideological ruins of existing urban spaces?