Bridging the gap between Do-It-Yourself urban practices and urban systems

In contemporary fragmented cities, DIY urbanism is seen as a way to insure inclusiveness and cohesion by mobilizing citizens and improving urban space. However, the capacity of DIY to go beyond local epiphenomena and contribute to a systemized way of city making is still an open question that is gaining increasing interest in literature and practice. In this article, we differ from answers provided in the literature to this question in that we are interested in the ways DIY practices could contribute to build from the bottom-up large-scale territories. We rely on Lévy-Strauss oppositions of the bricoleur vs. the engineer and the “savage” vs. the scientist to stress that DIY is instrumental and political. This leads us to consider DIY as a process of problem-solving and domos building where the operational and socio-spatial aspects of DIY are intrinsically linked and evolving together. It is by understanding both these aspects that we can understand the possibilities of, and limitations facing, the development of DIY on a larger territorial scale. We build on case studies in Cochabamba, Bolivia and Beirut, Lebanon. We argue that though it is possible to succeed to build on DIY to develop local territories and rely on these experiences to trace larger ones, the operational and political modes would invariably move towards more top-down comprehensive engineer-like approaches.