Soñé that the green corridor of my neighborhood received openly its inhabitants with spaces to stay comfortably during a Sunday afternoon.
Spaces with vital characteristics such as contact with air, light and nature.
I dreamed that no one would ask “How long can I handle without making me want to do pis?” And no one was deprived of taking mate because “if they make me want to go to the bathroom I will have to go away”. I stopped listening to people, simply saying “we become a rat and go, because there is no bathroom and I have no place to change the nene”. There were no grandchildren worried about their grandparents "Can you sit down or are you very uncomfortable?" No one has ever heard grandparents or grandparents complain because “the bank is a little uncomfortable and makes me doler the body!” Magically, the voices of disappointment that they used to say “Now where do we sit?! I did not remember that there are no banks here”. “These spaces are no longer for us, but I could handle it, now I don’t need a bath nearby.” “It’s a little embarrassed and I think they’ll stick the wheels, we’d better stay here, a little rat and turn around.” “Because I am already great, because I am elderly, because my bladder does not resist, because I am simply a wheelchair user”...
A thousand voices exist in these squares. From within those who can enjoy and from outside those who see wish to be received. The squares in my neighborhood are crowded every weekend, especially in this context of pandemic, recruitment, being home and waiting. The squares were and are still meeting places to relax, run, share a breakfast, a snack, a picnic, a beer, a long conversation.
Mate, invoices, galletitas, juice, milk, chocolated, freshly made coffee from the front bar, queue in the bakery, servilletas, bags, packaging of all colors, food remains, disposable scarves...
No baths, there never was. It is curious how space invites and backs at the same time. Pis and caca, something so simple, human and necessary, is sealed in public space.
We learn to design in automatic, without looking elsewhere, without understanding that architecture is for people, to live and not to be contemplated.
The word “people” contains a diversity of realities that never seem to be seen by architecture. A gested architecture, curiously, by people.
And when we talk about people, who do we talk about? Who do we think, conceive and gest these spaces? Which city do we choose to generate?
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