Participatory processes, politics and something from the architect. Symmetries or the paradoxes of more is less

Abstract

The increasingly frequent participation of citizens in the design of public spaces is forcing architects to establish geometric patterns of consensus adaptable to the plurality of demands that arise in these forums. Paradoxically, symmetry as a principle of equivalence and open order, aims to facilitate a space of understanding between the control necessary in these processes and the freedom of action that is demanded. Analyzing both past and present projects of these participatory architectures, we observe the reiteration in these symmetrical organizational schemes as a framework that enables flexibility. This text focuses on one of the latter, the open-air auditorium in Plata and Castañar Park (Villaverde. Madrid), a work that was born from a participatory process where the particularity is that the competition for the drafting of the project had as bases the conclusions of this process. The analysis of the architectural solution adopted based on the results of the dialogue between the different agents allows us to reflect on these productive and operational interferences and the role that the architect must play in achieving flexibility, not only in the work, but also in the project itself. It is the logic of its genesis, the paradox of these times: more is less; more order, more symmetry, less projective rigidity.