Dissertation 1 Design Question

Design Question - ‘How can architectural space stimulate societal awareness and incite participation and appropriation’.

The subsequent theories and theorists have been identified to extrapolate this assertion.

Alexander’s (1965) prose: “A City is Not a Tree” illustrates how the liveliness of urban life can be killed by rigid, hierarchical, tree-like thinking, where the fluxes and dynamics of urban life are removed.1 As a tool for rethinking urban space the implication of Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between “smooth” and “striated” space articulates a framework to further understand the use and meaning of urban space.

The formation of ‘smoothness’ focuses attention on the movements of use, on the areas between categories and on the relationship between ‘rhizomatic practices’ of everyday life and hierarchical schemes of spatial influence.3 The key Characteristic is instability: the uniqueness of place can be defined by its looseness, fluidity of forms, practices and meanings, 4. Dovey furthers the Deleuzian rhetoric in ‘Becoming Places’ through his articulation of place/power issues; linking phenomenology and spatial analysis.5

‘Loose space’ enables people, with ingenuity and purpose, to appropriate public space, to meet their own requirements and desires. Francks and Stevens suggest that these activities that make space loose; Impulsive or premeditated, temporary or long-lasting gives city life intensity and vitality.6

Appropriation of spaces is further contextualized through Innovation, which often arises in informal contexts, however, it is formal contexts that normally ensure long-lasting, sustainable effects. Given the research by Urban Catalyst where formal procedures of planning, and management are examined critically and an attempt has been made to de-formalise and de-institutionalise existing practices. Adapting them to more informal approaches opens new perspectives for participatory models giving citizens an influential role on how and by whom the city is used.7

This notion of flexible space is spatially analysed in Gehl’s ‘Life Between Buildings’, which draw conclusions in the human condition, the desire to interact with other people and the relationship, of not with but, between the person and the built environment.8

Through these theories I intend to enhance societal consciousnesses and consequential underpin the connectivity between people place and program.

1 Alexander, C 1965, The City Is Not a Tree, Architectural Forum, 122(1): 58-62

2 Deleuze, G 1993, The Fold, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

3 Dovey, K and Polakit, K 2007, ‘Urban Slippage: Smooth and Striated Streetscapes in Bangkok’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.113.

4. Dovey, K and Polakit, K 2007, ‘Urban Slippage: Smooth and Striated Streetscapes in Bangkok’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.117.

5. Dovey, K 2010, Becoming Places: Urbanism/Architecture/Identity/Power, Routledge, London, pp. 13

6. Franck, K and Stevens, Q 2007, Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.2.

7. Oswalt, P Misselwitz, P and Overmeyer, K 2007, ‘Patterns of the Unplanned: Urban catalyst’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.28

8. Gehl, J 2001, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.