Ensayos Urbanos
ENSAYOS URBANOS
Project: Urban Duct
Team: Ensayos Urbanos, Fluxlian
Year of Creation: 2024
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Contact: [email protected]
Instagram: http://instagram.com/ensayos.urbanos
Description, Concept and Objectives
Urban Duct is an inflatable, mobile, and participatory spatial device designed to activate collective actions in urban contexts shaped by the fragmentation of shared public space. Its aim is to intervene in the public realm through performativity and play, offering a soft, adaptable infrastructure that invites us to rethink how we inhabit, share, and transform our cities. The proposal seeks to rearticulate relationships between institutions, communities, and territories through situated, material, and collaborative spatial practices.
Activities
Urban Duct was initially developed in Buenos Aires during the XIX International Architecture Biennial as part of the AGGLO Maker Space program, and activated in the public space of Puerto Madero. It was later transported and reactivated in Berlin, at Mendelssohn-Platz, where it engaged local residents amidst the tensions of a heavily surveilled area.
Key actions included:
-Design, construction, and activation of the inflatable device in collaboration with the metalworkers’ cooperative 19 de Diciembre.
-Urban interventions in Buenos Aires and Berlin.
-Spontaneous activations that gave rise to moments of encounter, play, conflict, displacement, memory, and resistance.
-Installations and performances in institutional and urban spaces, involving dialogue and participation with local communities.
Difficulties
The project faced significant challenges, particularly the normative and symbolic restrictions of urban space: the difficulty of intervening in surveilled public areas, police reactions, and the logistical complexity of transporting and deploying the duct in diverse settings. Another major challenge was fostering collective processes in contexts marked by institutional fragmentation and political urgency.
Nevertheless, the device’s flexible nature and the collaborative methodology made it possible to overcome these barriers through adaptability and collective action.
Future Challenges
The project is ongoing and expanding. Upcoming objectives include:
-Developing new activations in additional cities and territories, adapting the device to diverse political and spatial contexts.
-Strengthening a network of collaboration with cooperatives, neighborhood organizations, and artistic collectives.
-Consolidating a replicable methodology combining urban action, pedagogy, and collaborative production.
-Exploring new materials, forms, and languages to expand the project’s agency and reach.
