Eco-didactic design in the public realm

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to assess a distinctive form of environmentally driven art and design practice that has emerged in urban contexts over the last two decades. This art and design form, which is provisionally named the “eco-art installation”, distinguishes itself from previous environmental work in its crossing of disciplines - specifically, art, environmental design, and architecture - in its mobilization of different publics within various urban landscapes, and in its sanctioned collaboration with municipal authorities. This paper proposes that the urban eco-art installation does not simply demonstrate its alignment with pressing ecological issues; rather, it is driven by the urgent need to explain, and thus constitutes an entirely new form of explanatory discourse that places an “eco-message” squarely in the public realm. In this perspective, these eco-art installations in the public realm can help construct personal, social and cultural meanings of place, as urban agents of sustainable change. This paper presents a series of cases meant to illustrate the increasing world-wide phenomenon of public spaces as hinges for sustainable change in cities.