{"id":1360,"date":"2016-04-06T00:29:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T00:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2020-08-11T14:22:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T14:22:36","slug":"redesigning-the-public-sphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/redesigning-the-public-sphere\/","title":{"rendered":"Redesigning the Public Sphere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>MAUD &#8217;14<\/em>. <em>V\u00edctor Manuel Rico Esp\u00ednola, MAUD &#8217;14<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/citiscope.org\/story\/2016\/what-mexico-city-learned-devoting-office-designing-public-spaces\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1362\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1362\" src=\"https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3.jpg\" alt=\"vista3\" width=\"1140\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3.jpg 1140w, https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3-768x404.jpg 768w, https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3-1024x539.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3-800x421.jpg 800w, https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/files\/2016\/04\/vista3-500x263.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1140px) 100vw, 1140px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mexico City is often portrayed as a kind of self-organizing chaos. Nonetheless, it follows a logic of its own. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521, insistence to consolidate the new capital in the middle of a marshy island, and a continuous battle against floods, led decision makers of the time to drain an entire lake to the ocean. In that sense, Mexico City confronted its own geography in a way very few cities have. Not only has the city&#8217;s form been the result of political intention, it has also been shaped by both material forces and didactic visions. Above all, it is the result of multiple colliding cultures. A city that emerges from a constant interaction between contradictory ideas and particular spatial conditions; social conflict and economic disparities.<\/p>\n<p>It is in such a complex arena, that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aep.cdmx.gob.mx\/que-es-aep\/mision-vision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Space Authority<\/a> or AEP &#8211; its achronym in Spanish &#8211; was conceived as a strategic area of Mexico City&#8217;s government in 2009, devoted to plan, design and implement high quality public spaces, in accordance to long term sectoral plans. It is a highly specialized urban design office within the Secretary of Urban Development and Housing (SEDUVI), that conceives human-centered and high quality design, as a powerful tool for social and economic transformation. A way in which the city commits to the cultivation of a strong, social agency, vis a vis urban vulnerabilities and even climate change.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working in this office for a year and a half now as Director of Special Projects. After graduating in May 2014, I couldn&#8217;t have thought of a better place to land. AEP lies at the very intersection of planning and design.<\/p>\n<p>Read\u00a0more about the innovative work of the Public Space Authority in this <a href=\"http:\/\/citiscope.org\/story\/2016\/what-mexico-city-learned-devoting-office-designing-public-spaces\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">latest post from Citiscope<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MAUD &#8217;14. V\u00edctor Manuel Rico Esp\u00ednola, MAUD &#8217;14. Mexico City is often portrayed as a kind of self-organizing chaos. Nonetheless, it follows a logic of its own. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521, insistence to consolidate the new capital in the middle of a marshy island, and a continuous battle against floods, led decision makers of the time to drain an entire lake to the ocean. In that sense, Mexico City confronted its own geography in a way very few cities have. Not only has the city&#8217;s form been the result of political intention, it has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Redesigning the Public Sphere - MCI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.gsd.harvard.edu\/mci\/redesigning-the-public-sphere\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redesigning the Public Sphere - MCI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MAUD &#8217;14. V\u00edctor Manuel Rico Esp\u00ednola, MAUD &#8217;14. Mexico City is often portrayed as a kind of self-organizing chaos. Nonetheless, it follows a logic of its own. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521, insistence to consolidate the new capital in the middle of a marshy island, and a continuous battle against floods, led decision makers of the time to drain an entire lake to the ocean. In that sense, Mexico City confronted its own geography in a way very few cities have. 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