Investigating Tactical urbanism as a way to achieve long-term results. Case study: Cairo

Tactical Design is a phenomena that has been gained the attention of the urban experts and has been targeted with the name of Tactical, Emergent or Bottom-up Urbanism. Tactical urbanism initiatives have been interpreted as an alternative and a challenge to formal spatial planning tools to the need for a more responsive planning system. Short-term implementation, scarce resources and citizens’ involvement are said to be the key characteristics of this emerging movement in urbanism. In tactical urbanism, everything seems focused on one thing: action. Tactical urbanism as a low cost - temporary change approach to the urban environment can also act as a pop-up solution for Cairo s built environment as well. [12, p-1]The aim of this paper is to investigate why tactical design is one of the good options we currently have in hand, and how can we empower cities using this design system. This paper also highlights a practice that have been carried out by inhabitants and entities in Cairo, which carries out the principles of Tactical Urbanism and has led to some spontaneous results.

Keywords:

Tactical urbanism , Bottom-up Urbanism , Short-term implementation , Cairo