FLUID PUBLICS: Green Little Worlds

This paper explores the concept of fluid publics through an experimental landscape design pedagogy centered on urban streams in Thessaloniki. Drawing on theories of publics and counterpublics, it argues that publicness is relational, adaptive, and co-produced through ecological and material engagement. The study introduces messy tasks as a pedagogical methodology that encourages students to work with uncertainty, heterogeneous materials, and ecological processes rather than predefined design solutions. Through observation, mapping, collection, and speculative design, students develop small-scale interventions— Green Little Worlds—that reinterpret overlooked streams as living commons fostering coexistence, participation, and environmental awareness. The paper demonstrates how material complexity and ecological imagination can generate inclusive and resilient forms of public space while positioning design education itself as a counterpublic practice that promotes critical, adaptive, and environmentally responsive urban design.