Yasmina Huckins

How can design facilitate reclamation of public space? Can participatory design processes be used to expand access to and facilitate occupation of the urban environment in order to support infrastructures of care? In the city, public space plays a crucial role in strengthening communities and keeping them safe, serving as sites for social infrastructure. Despite its importance to all communities, public space is distributed inequitably and is more widely available to people in majority-white, higher-income neighborhoods than to those in minority communities, who often lack the services to meet their needs. In New York City, public space is generally designed and regulated by institutions that emphasize economic growth and privatization over communal access to infrastructure. My thesis, Framing Inhabitation: A Counter-Manual Towards Reclaiming Urban Space, is a response to the inequitable distribution of public space. Drawing on decolonial and participatory design ideas, I provide a method and a tool aimed at helping communities redistribute public space for the purpose of providing sites for infrastructures of care in the urban environment.