When facing emergencies such as natural disasters, warfare or pandemics, architecture must offer immediate and effective solutions. In these unfortunate circumstances, the priority is usually to solve problems around housing, however, once the emergency is under control, the focus starts to slowly move towards meeting places such as community centers, neighborhood councils and public spaces.

To create new meeting places in emergency situations, scaffolding is a good alternative regarding construction speed and tight budgets. Although they are usually used as temporary structures, they also allow creating a quickly composed space playing with horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, and the combination with other materials such as textile, wood, polycarbonate and metal.

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Cities constantly go through infinite changes leaving many spaces of the urban fabric forgotten and unused. Historic buildings are refurbished and adaptive reuse takes care of its new possibilities, but what happens with public space? Small interventions with simple resources and innovative solutions are the perfect way to bring back to life these neglected alleys, plazas, highways, and incorporate them into the cities' once again.

These gestures bring new opportunities for the personal and collective appropriation and new uses of public spaces, encouraging interactions and exchange amongst users. Below are seven successful examples of this.

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