The Craft of Making Place: Lessons for Auroville?

In September 2009, the first meeting for “Landscaped Spaces” took place in Auroville. It followed a proposal by Mr. Doshi, the Chairperson of Auroville’s Town Development Council, to create interesting public spaces at various Auroville locations for people to gather and socialize. This included areas for art performances, places for families, tea stalls, farmer’s markets, and public art installations. But unfortunately, the project didn’t advance very far.

The question of how to create vibrant common spaces remains. All too often, communal spaces in or between our communities are neglected or are simply spaces of transition or movement. But public spaces remain an integral part of the city we want to inhabit, and how we design and use them speaks directly to what we value as a community.

Outside of Auroville, efforts are underway to reclaim common spaces, especially in cities dominated by the life-alienating grid system of town planning. In the city of Portland, Oregon, USA, the volunteer organization City Repair organizes an annual Village Building Convergence (VBC) to encourage place-making, defined as “a multi-layered process within which citizens foster active, engaged relationships to the space which they inhabit, the landscapes of their lives, and shape those spaces in a way which creates a sense of communal stewardship and lived connection”.

For a period of ten days each year, neighbours from across the city engage in projects to revitalize, beautify, and embody their neighborhoods. Projects range from intersection painting to the construction of cob benches, kiosks, pizza ovens, or Little Libraries, which are small, covered kiosks in which people can leave and take books for free. Neighbours might mobilize around schools and construct a natural playground, or come together to create a community garden or a reflective space. All projects are based on the principles of natural building and permaculture, ensuring that the process of ‘localizing’ neighborhoods is harmonious with the natural environment.

The first stage of these projects begins eight months earlier, and is usually initiated by a citizen seeking to energise their neighbourhood. The first step is to meet the neighbours. In most urban American centres, where anonymity is the norm, this step of breaking the ice can be the biggest one. Informal get-togethers, such as potlucks, are organized for neighbours to socialize and become familiar with one another. There is then an open process of brainstorming the shared values of the neighbourhood, which may include safety, accessibility, creativity, cleanliness, the natural world, self-sufficiency, or the honouring of those who lived there in the past.

The next step is to brainstorm projects that are feasible for the neighbourhood. Ideas might include a book exchange, a poetry kiosk, a community post-box to write notes between neighbours, a tool-lending library, a tree house, bicycle racks, murals, creating mosaic stepping stones, or events such as monthly teas or litter pick-ups.

The months of preparation are assisted by VBC coordinators, who help to facilitate meetings, lead design workshops, and assist with permit processes where required. Then, over a 10-day event, in which everyone in the city is invited, neighbourhood work parties happen. They are as much fun as they are work – and not only to beautify spaces but also to build connections between neighbours.

Are such projects relevant to Auroville? In some ways, Auroville is already far beyond the challenges that other cities have to overcome. We are not subjected to the grid mentality that plunks cities down in squares, without regard to natural surroundings or the curves of human creativity. We also, for the most part, are familiar with our neighbours, and that first knock on the door isn’t such a revolutionary act.

But Auroville also faces a host of other challenges. A different reality exists, for instance on the material level. In the US, supplies are often donated by neighbours themselves, who scrounge through their garages to find old paint, wood pieces, or old doors or window frames. Doubtless, also Auroville’s storerooms contain much that can be used in public areas. But one can’t help but wonder whether such projects in Auroville might become another fundraising burden on someone’s shoulders.

At a deeper level, though, such projects might help us finally face the question: “What do we value as a community?” A collective reflection within your neighbourhood might reveal some curious answers. Perhaps your neighbourhood, filled with children, values exploration and play, or maybe it values solitude and reflection. What could be created in the common spaces to reflect these values?

Unlike Landscaped Spaces, which seeks to revitalize common public spaces within the city, place-making begins on the smaller scale, in our communities. It expects each person to individually take up the work of determining what we value in our communities, to talk to our neighbours about it, and become an integral part in the creation of the space to reflect those values. And instead of waiting for funding to come, it encourages us to give what we have, be creative, and think outside of the box in terms of natural design.

Based on what an Auroville neighbourhood determines as its core values, perhaps the installation of a community garden would be appropriate. Or maybe the shed that houses waste bins could be beautified with the creative genius of the young ones in the neighbourhood. Or perhaps your neighbourhood values meeting spaces, and decides that it wants to build a small, shaded sitting area and host monthly tea parties. These small projects might have a large impact on how we live in our neighbourhoods and on our sense of empowerment in the act of town planning.