During the master programme of Design For Public Spaces, we have attended workshop which is directed by Prof.Davide Fassi and Francesco Vergani. The name of the workshop was ‘’Living Streets’ and the workshop was continuing with theoretical courses and a project as well. The project was based on Tactical Urbanism intervention and I would like to mention the process of the project step by step.

First step

In this process, we start with selecting case studies and since I live in North Cyprus and North Cyprus is a developing country, therefore, there is no tactical urbanism approach in Cyprus so I’ve found out one example related with tactical urbanism in Greece. In this case study, I found out some keywords that design brought. Which are; Identifying of space, Activating people, and Bringing life to space.

Second Step

We made a research about sites, which we want to apply tactical urbanism. I found out three examples which are neglected and unused because there is no such space in North Cyprus where people walk through in it and it is also not very active. So I found out neglected but kind of active spaces. After that, our Instructors guided me to pick one and I chose one which is in the center of Famagusta City. Also, the selected space is neglected as well. However, beforehand there was a small temporary amusement park located in the space.

Third Step

We started to go deeper as Prof. Davide Fassi and Prof. Anna Meroni gave us a lecture based on Analysis of what we have to consider while we were making spatial/ethnographical analysis. And we started to work on Spatial/Ethnographical Analysis. There are several issues that were found out during spatial analysis;

Firstly the space is on the busiest street in Famagusta. The reason for being the busiest street is that it includes most of the clothes shopping, coffee shops, the biggest grocery(Lemar), the activity center… is on the street, also on this street there are 2 Universities which one of them has the biggest campus in Northern Cyprus.

Moreover, the selected site connects two busy streets which are Salamis Street and Hasan Barbacholli Street. Also there are many student flats around this space so generally students and people use the space as a shortcut walking area.

Furthermore, the space and the surroundings of the space is known as the Lemar Area. Lemar is the biggest supermarket chain within North Cyprus and it is located next to our space. In addition to this, there are Football Pitches next to the space.

Fourth Step

In this step, I have prepared a questionnaire and the respondents were all living in the city of Famagusta. The questionnaire included questions such as;

1-What is your age average?

2-Do you frequently visit the Lemar Area?

3-If yes how often?

4-If you visit the area how many hours do you spend?

5-What do you do in the area?

6- Should the EMPTY SPACE between Lemar supermarket and the football pitches (where the temporary amusement park is)BE design with a different social project?

7- Would you like the area to get named with a new project?

As a result I had 59 responses and you can see the results above.

Fifth Step

In this step we started to develop a concept based on our project, and my concept name was “The Space” because as I mentioned in the 3rd step there are many coffee shops and activity centers around the space but there is no outdoor spaces such as parks, walking paths, etc… on Salamis Street to spend time. Also in Cyprus, most of the time we spend hours times in coffee shops we meet with friends, we go for studying, so while developing my concept I thought I can use this as an advantage so I tried to design a space to bring in people together because there are 4 coffee shops that can people grab their coffees and can work outdoor. In addition to this as I mentioned in step3 people used the space as a shortcut walking path but since its ground and neglected its not a good walking space, with this initiative, I encourage people to go outdoor, bringing new identity to space. After that Idea, We developed a Mood board to show what we are imagining about space, and then we did the functional and spatial layout.

Sixth Step

Co-Design session; in this step, we made co-design via online;

1st We listen to each other’s concepts for half an hour

2nd We gave and received feedbacks to and from each other

3rd We carried out a SWOT analysis based on our projects.

Overall, It was helpful since we are far away.

Final Step

We started to develop our project with drawings and collages, during the project I used painted wooden palettes for sitting, water-resistance pillows and painted wooden ground for creating a more defined pathway and then since Cyprus is a very hot country and the space does not have any semi-open or closed space the area itself was all open space so because of this I found out a way to create a shadow by using tensile structure, therefore, I created semi-open spaces as well.

Moreover, we did Spatial Journey to show people what will be the experiences that they will have, we also did abacus of elements to show where the materials will come from.