Source: Coimbatore Creates Case for Tactical Urbanism
Why Pilots Matter
Ideas can be powerful, but unless they are tested on the ground, they risk staying confined to drawings, maps, and conversations. This is especially true when those ideas come from adolescents. Their imagination is often dismissed as unrealistic, yet it is in their lived experience that the sharpest insights about public space emerge.
Pilots offer a way to bridge this gap. They allow ideas to move from paper to place, not as permanent transformations, but as temporary experiments that invite reflection. Even small shifts can open people’s eyes: a path painted for safe passage, a mural that signals care, or a corner rearranged for study and rest. Each of these acts shows that change is not only necessary but possible.
From Ideas to Action
In the workshops, adolescents spoke of their desire for spaces that felt safe, welcoming, and expressive. They imagined quiet zones where they could study, lively areas where they could dance, corners where mirrors would increase visibility, and walls where art could tell their stories.
Not all these ideas require major infrastructure or heavy investment. Many can be tested at a modest scale, allowing both youth and city actors to see how they function in practice. A cardboard model can become a painted corner in a lane. A sketch of benches under a tree can be tested with temporary seating. A collective wish for colour and vibrancy can be realised through murals co-created with the community.
The Value of Tactical Urbanism
This way of working is often described as tactical urbanism—making small, quick, and low-cost changes to test ideas before scaling them up. The value lies not only in the physical outcome, but in the process of learning.
A painted crossing may reveal how people respond to safer movement. A pop-up play area may show what is possible in an underused park. A storytelling circle organised by youth may reveal the potential of programming to activate public space. Each pilot generates knowledge that no drawing alone can capture.
Who Shapes These Pilots
For pilots to succeed, they must be collaborative. Adolescents bring the ideas and the energy. Residents provide local wisdom and support. Councillors and municipal staff give permissions and legitimacy. Designers and NGOs offer facilitation and technical guidance.
This network of actors ensures that a pilot is not just a showcase, but a shared classroom. It demonstrates what is possible, but it also teaches us what does not work, what needs adjusting, and what communities value most.
Learning by Doing
Pilots are rarely perfect. Some may not attract the use expected. Others may face maintenance challenges. Yet these outcomes are not failures—they are lessons. Each attempt brings us closer to understanding what truly matters in shaping inclusive, healthy spaces for adolescents.
By allowing room for trial, error, and adjustment, pilots ensure that the eventual solutions are rooted in reality. They transform abstract ideas into grounded proposals that institutions can respond to with confidence.
Reflections
When adolescents see their ideas come alive in real space, even temporarily, it is more than an experiment. It is recognition that their voices carry weight, that their vision of the city matters.
Pilots are not the end of the journey, but they are an essential step. They translate possibility into presence, bridging the distance between imagination and institution. And in doing so, they remind us that change often begins not with large plans, but with small acts that make transformation visible.
