Positioned at the intersection of environmental psychology and urban morphology, this intervention activates a critical discourse emerging from the 2024 UAM course, The Experience of the City. Speaking from the framework of socioplastics, I address the growing friction between strictly technical urban planning and the lived, symbolic necessity of shared space. Why this reflection now? Because our contemporary environments are suffering from "symbolic poverty"—a sterilization of the public realm that severs the connection between the citizen and the street. By situating this voice within the multidisciplinary debate of architects, biologists, and psychologists, the work addresses the urgency of "rehumanizing" our infrastructure, moving beyond decorative greening to treat the city as a performative and epistemic field where urban dignity is at stake. The core device explored here is the "Public Space as Communication," an operational system where morphology, vegetation, and collective memory function as structural agents. Rather than treating the city as a static grid, the methodology proposed by contributors like José Antonio Corraliza and Enric Pol views the urban fabric as a behaving system. The process involves deconstructing traditional typologies to reveal how "urban green" acts as a vehicle for identity and acoustic comfort. By liberating the interior of urban blocks from traffic—as suggested by Salvador Rueda—the project reimagines the spatial status of the citizen. This is not a symbolic gesture; it is a functional reconfiguration of the city’s operational logic, where the "blitz" of naturalness in marginal lots acts as a micro-reservoir of urban health.
The conceptual scaffolding of this inquiry integrates the "SOCIOPLASTICS" device with philosophical hermeneutics to expand the definition of relational art within the city. Referencing the work of Agustín Hernández Aja on urban appropriation and the "communicative nature" defended by Javier Ruiz, the piece situates itself within a broader ecological problematic: the unequal distribution of meaning. We invoke the idea that cities must remain "imperfect" to stay alive, resisting the singular, sanitized solutions of traditional planning. This frame connects the technicalities of urban gardening with the profound social perception of space, suggesting that sustainability is not just a biological requirement but an anchor for collective identity and emotional well-being. As this project moves through the academic and digital realm, it undergoes a significant media drift, transforming from a 2024 humanities course into a nomadic methodology for urban regeneration. It mutates as it is re-situated in different territorial contexts—from the consolidated urban networks of Madrid to the non-consolidated peripheries. The trajectory of these ideas moves across timescales, bridging the "landscape archives" of overlooked lots with the future-facing radical models of the "super-block." The work drifts through the architectural and sociological imaginary, becoming a tool for decoding how citizens perceive and inhabit the "symbolic void" of their surroundings, suggesting that the "beats" of a city are found in its capacity for random and vital communication. Rather than a formal conclusion, this investigation serves as an operative opening for future interventions in the "relational urban realm." What shifts in attention are made possible when we stop viewing trees as mere decoration and start seeing them as the heartbeat of the concrete? This work suggests a shift in method toward a "socioplastic urbanism" that prioritizes affect, plant quality, and the right to make sense of the city. It leaves the door open to new configurations of citizenship where the inhabitant is not an observer of the plan, but an active participant in the creation of urban meaning. This is a curatorial launchpad for a city that is not escaped from, but lived in with dignity.
