Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the operational conditions by which architecture and planning are currently engaged with the production of new spaces in European cities. To do so, it refreshes the old diatribe on project vs plan, and offers examples of projects from different European cities to discuss the critical relation between rules and projects in present times. Particular attention is posed by the author toward those 'interstitial' projects of public space or social housing showing a subversive tension which can give rise to spatial and social innovation. These examples are offered as new spaces of 'capacitation' subverting the normative strictures addressing the production of space in contemporary European cities.