Design can transform territories. This becomes possible through the activation of relationships, meanings, and practices that shape community life, particularly in popular urban contexts. This paper analyzes a case developed in the Chachafruto neighborhood (Manizales, Colombia) which, from a care-based Transition Design approach, proposes that the appropriation of public space in a popular urban context, depends on the progressive construction of affective bonds and collective capacities for agency through three dimensions: care of the self, others, and environment. The case study was carried out through university-community projects, in which the role of design as a mediator of social change processes was examined in a context characterized by low levels of community participation. The results demonstrate that the most significant transformations are not reflected in immediate physical changes, but rather in processes of trust-building, the strengthening of community agency, and the resignification of public space as a shared place of care and coexistence.