Analysing tiers-lieux using Twitter and Commune Mesure

(Website created by Eamon Drumm and Onkar Sadekar for « Diving into the Digital Public Space: From individual digital traces to collective social and political dynamics », a course in the Civica research programme, Sciences Po Paris/Central European University.)

“Transitional urbanism” is a term used to describe a range of practices and projects that have emerged over the past ten years in the field of urban development (Besson 2020). These projects typically involve the temporary (1-3 year) occupancy of urban brownfield sites by a mix of local SMEs, artists and community organisations while the sites await approval for redevelopment or demolition. The buildings can be publicly or privately owned; examples include industrial sites, warehouses, transportation infrastructure, office space and municipal buildings.

Unlike squats, with which they share some features, transitional urbanism projects are regulated (tenants sign leases and pay nominal rent to the building owners) and are increasingly being encouraged by municipalities, who see them as a way to expand community involvement, preserve low-cost space for non-profit and cultural activities and foster local economic development. In fact, some local authorities now use the permitting process to encourage site owners to initiate transitional urbanism projects and then incorporate aspects of them into their final building plans, resulting in permanent space for local and community-based activities.

In France, transitional urbanism projects are often referred to as “tiers-lieux”: literally “third places”, or hybrid places – defined to an extent by their “in betweenness”, between temporary and permanent, public and private, single and multiple uses, ownership and occupancy, top-down and bottom-up.

github.com/sadekar-onkar/tierslieux_ddps