Drawing as a tool for dialogue between technicians and citizens: practical application in a neighborhood of Seville

Depósito de investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla https://idus.us.es/ Esta es la versión aceptada del capítulo de libro publicado en: This is a accepted manuscript of a book chapter published in: Graphic Horizons. Volume 2. Graphics for Education and Production (2024): 17/01/2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57575-4 Copyright: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 “This version of the book chapter has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections.” Drawing as a tool for dialogue between technicians and citizens: practical application in a neighborhood of Seville Esteban de Manuel Jerez1[0000-0002-6548-1699], Marta Donadei1 [0000-0003-1620-1459], Conso González-Arriero1 [0000-0002-3749-3350] and Ana Bravo Bernal1 [0000-0003-3777-1362] 1 Dpto Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) [email protected] Abstract. Drawing in participatory processes of ecosocial transition plays an interface role in presenting information, synthesizing and communicating participatory diagnoses and shaping the ideas co-created with communities. Since the Aalborg Charter for Sustainable Cities to the Urban Agendas, participation and sustainability form an inseparable binomial. The 3rd World Habitat Summit laid the foundations to link the Right to the City with the formulation of strategies, plans and projects of transition towards sustainability, deploying the Sustainable Development Goals along the territory. What forms of expression are the most appropriate in each phase of these processes according to their purpose? What techniques are most suitable? To address these questions, we establish dialogical relationships between the theory of production and social management of habitat and the theory of architectural graphic expression. With this theoretical framework we will analyze the drawings presented to the participants in the elaboration of the “Huerta del Carmen en Transición” and we will draw conclusions about the relationship between purpose, technique and form of expression of these drawings. Keywords: Participation, Sustainable Urban Development Strategies, Neighborhoods in Transition 1 Introduction In the processes of urban transition of neighborhoods towards sustainability, a strategy with a participatory approach is essential. The III World Habitat Summit held in Quito in 2016 consolidated the right to the city, as the right to the equitable use of urban space and as the right to participate in decision-making in the social transformation of the habitat [1] [2] [3]. It assumes the Sustainable Development Goals with an integrated approach to sustainable development and the need for elaboration, implementation and monitoring of participatory processes. This converges with the theory of Social Production and Management of habitat, that provides a complex and systemic perspective of habitat as an interaction of physical, economic, social, cultural, environmental, legal and political scenarios [4] [5]. Therefore, in scenarios of social vulnerability as in processes of transition to sustainability, citizen participation is necessary condition for the achievement of the objectives. And as a central axis, it allows to propose new methodologies of analysis and approach to the reality of habitat production and management in all its stages, from 2 the formulation of the issue-problem to be solved, the informative, diagnostic, planning and action phases to the evaluation and monitoring. In this sense, drawing, in its different formats and scales, is a tool for learning and participatory urban research capable of generating urban knowledge in a transdisciplinary way. It facilitates collective and transformative actions in an appropriate and appropriable way by all the actors involved in the context: technicians, institutions, students, teachers, neighbors. On the other hand, it contributes to present relevant information for socio-spatial decision making; and to transform that information and to progressively shape ideas and formulate strategies, plans and transformation projects. To this end, drawing must adapt its form to its function and must be thought of as a process of joint, pedagogical graphic expression intended for all types of actors, not only the technical ones. Mimetic and analytical-expressive forms seem more appropriate than highly codified conventional representation. In the design of participatory processes of social transformation of the habitat, drawing facilitates the sum of technical and popular knowledge. Drawing as a form of knowledge construction and communication becomes a mediating tool for community participation in decision making. The problem then arises of how to provide the necessary graphic information, in each phase of the participatory process, in a language that is understandable to the community. We developed this theme at a theoretical and methodological level in a previous work from which we extract the following quote: "spatial representation is revealed here as a need for approximation between both knowledge and sensibilities (technicians and citizens) but also, precisely, as an opportunity for encounter and collective construction of knowledge capable of enriching both perspectives to give rise to new horizons of transformation" [x, p.81]. The ADICI research group has been working in this framework in the design of participatory processes since its foundation in 2004, based on precedents such as the Neighborhood Workshops [6]. Fig. 1. Activation of the three dimensions of the social function of the university based on University Extension. They are processes of Participatory Action Research (PAR) that allow the interaction of the three social functions of the university, research, teaching and university extension or knowledge transfer, in which the transforming action on the habitat predominates over the other two dimensions (Fig. 1) [7]. "We understand by social transformation of habitat a process that starts from the awareness of the need to face a habitat problem, by a social community, and that progressively leads to defining and implementing strategies to overcome it" [8]. In this paper we present and discuss the use of the graphic medium to transfer the results during the stages of the participatory process in a case study and the 3 appropriation of these by the community. The drawings evaluated are outcomes from the diagnostic, planning-project phases of the participatory elaboration of the ecosocial transition of a social housing neighborhood. Jorge Sainz (1990) established the structural parallelism between the three dimensions of Vitruvian architecture (UTILITAS, FIRMITAS, VENUSTAS) and those of the drawing [9]. Based on this structural similarity, we can propose a complex interaction between the three dimensions of drawing: mode, technique and use [10]. The use is linked with the function it fulfills in the participatory process and in this way we link it to the dimension of the triangle of the Habitat (urbs, civitas, polis) and the triangle of agents involved in its Production and Social Management (politicians, technicians, citizens). The complex analysis of the relationship between drawing and participation can be linked to the complex analysis of drawing with architecture and urban habitat (fig. 2) Fig.2. Triangles of habitat (utilitas, firmitas, venustas), drawing (use, technique and form) and participation (politicians, technicians, citizens). At the end of the process, an evaluation survey was distributed among the participants, from which we can extract revealing conclusions to answer our research problem: the role of drawing in ecosocial transition participative processes. 4 2 Case study presentation The case study focuses on the analysis of the role of drawing in the context of the technical assistance provided by the research group ADICI-HUM810 to the neighborhood association Huerta del Carmen-Macarena . The Association asked us for help to formalize a project of socio-spatial and environmental transformation of the neighborhood. We agreed with the neighborhood motor group to design a participatory process fed with an educational project of learning and service to the community in which undergraduate students would participate, from the subjects of Drawing 3 Analysis and Drawing 4 Ideation and Configuration, and postgraduate students, from the master's degree in Sustainable City and Architecture [11]. Through the construction of a technical-neighborhood link, the basis of the triangle of the social management of habitat is built and the lines of action of the Transition Project are defined (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. Construction of the triangle of Social Management of Habitat in Huerta del Carmen in Transition. The neighborhood of Huerta del Carmen Macarena was promoted by the Real Patronato de Casas Baratas in 1960 and projected by Fernando Barquín. It is located north of downtown, in the first outer ring of it [12] [13]. The public housing and schools require energy rehabilitation and the motor group wants to promote an energy community including housing and educational centers and taking advantage of the roofs for energy production. Some of the blocks of apartments, four floors high, lack elevators and require a solution that the neighborhood communities had not found so far. The intercommunity spaces, very activeas meeting and coexistence spaces in the 60s and 70s, are now abandoned and the communities want to promote a Green Lung project, and community gardens. The neighbors want to improve sustainable mobility and the quality of public space, connecting the neighborhood to the city with green corridors and efficient public transportation. 5 3 Purpose and methodological approach of the case study The objective of this paper is to analyze the use of drawing in the different phases of a participatory process of elaboration of ecosocial transition plans and projects. To this end, the categories of analysis of drawings are taken from the theory of graphic representation: use, mode (mimetic, conventional, expressive) and graphic technique (references). The uses of the drawings are related to their purpose in the participatory process. From the production and social management of the habitat we take the phases of the participatory process in which these drawings are used (awareness, information, analysis, diagnosis, planning, action, evaluation). With these categories we propose to elaborate an analysis that reflects the correspondence between the form of the drawings and their function in the participatory process and of the theme-problem being addressed. These processes, in which technical agents, politicians, citizens and entrepreneurs participate, require their own language in which technical knowledge is expressed in an appropriate and appropriable way by all participants. The methodology for approaching the planning of the ecosocial transition of the neighborhood was developed for the project Neighborhoods in Transition [14][15]. It is based on a conceptual map that draws the lines of action of a neighborhood ecosocial transition process, drawing them as lines of a synoptic map of a subway that intersect drawing nodes. The nodes are meeting points between lines of action that make it possible to activate the lines that intersect with the main line. The main line represents the thematic line felt and constructed as a priority issue-problem with the community (Fig. 4). Fig. 4. Synoptic map of a neighborhood in transition. Source: Conso González Arriero, Barrios en Transición project The design of the participatory process consists of the following stages:  Pre-diagnosis. We carried out a combination of Jane's Walks and the transect: walk with key actors to diagnose problems and opportunities in the common and public spaces of the neighborhood (Fig. 5). The result is a mapping in 6 which the information gathered is classified using emergent categories or categories drawn from theory. In our case we used categories of analysis drawn from feminist urbanism developed by the Collectiu.6 [16]. Fig. 5. Photographs taken during the walk with neighborhood residents and experts that served as the basis for the map of problems and opportunities shown in Figure 8. Source: Authors  Diagnosis and Proposals A technical work of documentation, data collection, analysis and search for references was carried out, which later will serve as the basis for the informative part of the participatory process (Fig. 5). In addition, two participatory workshop sessions were held with neighbors (Fig. 6), technical experts, companies and public officials, in which floor plans, markers and post-it notes were used to collect, classify and organize ideas.  Returns. A session of exhibition, discussion and validation of results in the neighborhood in which DIN-A1 exhibition panels and a multimedia presentation are combined. (Fig. 7). Fig. 6. Photographs taken during the workshop of Plan Barrio and experts that served as the basis for the Plan shown in Figure 8: Authors 7 Fig. 7. Photographs taken during the workshop of Plan Barrio and experts that served as the basis for the Plan shown in Figure 8: Authors 4 Results The project, by activating the three social functions of the university, yields results in each of them. We have systematized the results in terms of knowledge transfer to other cases of ecosocial transition of neighborhoods in a communication to the CONAMA2022 congress [13]. We have systematized the learning and service results for the Aps(U)11 Congress [11]. In this paper we present and discuss the correlation between the mode and use of the drawings in the different stages of the participatory process and the appropriation of the drawings by the community. We describe the mode and graphic technique used and analyze to what extent there is an adequate correspondence between use and graphic form. 3.1 Mapping the quality of public and community space for daily life The mappings include images and text that represent problems and opportunities observed and discussed during the transect technique. The function of the technicians in this case is to contribute to making visible problematic situations and opportunities revealed in dialogue with the participants through the images and texts (Fig.8). At the beginning of the walk, the technicians in charge explain the subject to be observed and provide information and evaluation criteria. During the walk they ask questions and make comments, as do the participating neighbors. In this case we proposed to observe problems and opportunities in relation to accessibility, safety and climatic comfort. The graphic modes and techniques used to systematize their results are very variable. We studied references from Iconoclastas, Jane's walk Sevilla association and transversal landscape (references). We found representations that use the comic as a popular graphic reference and other images full of handwritten annotations on the plan that express that a large amount of qualitative content has been unveiled and invite to read to understand. The case we are going to analyze combines descriptive resources (photographs with notes of observations) that complement the information on the main map, which 8 uses graphic analysis resources to draw attention to the main issues diagnosed. To what extent does the graphic mode and technique used to elaborate the map fulfill the function of making problems and opportunities visible? The map elaborated and delivered to the neighborhood motor group uses as a base an aerial photo of the neighborhood in black and white with lowered tones to highlight the texts and colored lines that systematize the information collected. It thus combines mimetic, conventional and expressive forms of expression. A thick line marks the route, and numbers enclosed in a circle locate the points where we stopped to observe and comment. Thick colored lines are used to indicate problems, with a color code associated with the corresponding category, and colored stars to indicate opportunities, with a color associated with each category. It is an expressive technique that helps to point out edge problems detected, unsafe areas, with barriers, uncomfortable in the summer due to lack of trees. The main keys have already been identified and will be further explored in the following stages. . Fig. 8. Mapping urban quality for everyday life. Source: Noemí Bizuela Montenegro, MCAS 2021/22 We can say that there is an adequacy between form and content. As base plan, instead of an aerial photograph, a morphotypological plan could have been used, with full and empty spaces, as Jane's Walk Sevilla does, which allows highlighting the changes in the urban form. At the same time the coding could be more expressive, using more recognizable symbols for the analyzed themes: accessibility, safety, comfort, proximity. These symbols could use a traffic light code to value these categories according to whether they are perceived as problematic, improvable or adequate.