Urban Pioneers

Skate parks in abandoned industrial zones, ponies grazing alongside the former Berlin Wall, flea markets in empty warehouses, music and fashion shows in hard-to-rent retail locations and climbing walls in development niches--scarcely a city in Europe has made such radically widespread use of "temporary use" projects as has Berlin in the last few decades. The idea of temporary use--which has been defined as "activity in spaces currently unsuitable or undesirable in mainstream economic cycles"--is of increasing strategic importance for urban development around the world, as individuals and government agencies pioneer new prospects at disused sites that defy traditional urban planning. Urban Pioneers documents more than 40 such projects in the city of Berlin, and comes with a series of essays and interviews that offer comprehensive, timely insight into the subject, proposing new guidelines for shaping urban development.