Acetate film, an exhaust fan, lollipops, a bicycle, paper and pens—in Group Efforts: Changing Public Space, vital voices in art and design use everyday objects to transform surroundings in remarkable ways.

An illustrated chronicle of projects organized by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in collaboration with Elastic City, this volume contains interviews with Todd Shalom and Hayal Pozanti, who assemble new shapes from Manhattan’s West Village streetscape; Greta Hansen, Kyung Jae Kim, and Adam Koogler, who host spontaneous political forums in a pavilion built with plastic and blown air; and Karen Finley, who détourns Columbus Circle into an urban-scale mandala of resistance, reparation, and discovery.

An incisive essay by designer and cultural historian Mabel O. Wilson positions these creative occupations alongside recent acts of protest.