This research project is the summation of three semesters’ design and research work. Each semester represents a chapter of the project, with each one’s focus pre-empting the following semesters’ impetuses. The literature, primarily explored in Semester I, is the basis of this research project and played a significant role within each chapter. The physical outcome of Semester I was a written position paper which compared and contrasted various theories and texts around the public realm and the complexities and contra-dictions which these spaces constitute. This position paper sparked a greater interest and curiosity in the public realm and social spaces, not only for their design, but also for the social and democratic relations and interactions which these texts assert such realms both encourage and inhibit. In undertaking this research, the beginnings of a small personal repository of social theories developed. These, in turn, became the underpinnings of my second semester design project, both theoretically and methodologically. |
A visual summary of my position paper from Semester I.
This diagram highlights the overlaps and commonalities throughout the studied texts. |
Literature
The primary theorists studied and brought into my subsequent design project were Kevin Lynch, Rosalyn Deutsche, Chantal Mouffe, Jill Stoner and Sophie Watson – among other secondary, supporting theorists. Each of these theorists address the common idea/ideal of a ‘singular public sphere’ (Deutsche, 1998) - an idea(l) where every individual can be both catered for and included (Lynch, 1995). Each writer’s approach and conclusion is varied, and each are derived from, and for, differing reasons. Commonalities through each of the theorists’ texts are evident when the subject of diversity in social spaces is addressed. Broadly, they all share an acceptance of the fact that differing groups or individuals within a singular social space seem, currently, to be incapable of a fully synchronous, harmonious coexistence. |
Extract from my sketchbook showing my initial breaking down of these theories
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‘The misapplication of project design techniques to problems of city design has resulted in such sterilities as the monumental axis of the past, or the “mega-form” of today....There are serious gaps in the continuity and coherence of the design process, and substantial ignorance as to the consequences of city form...[City] design is so diverse in [its] nature as to call for different techniques, attitudes and criteria.’ |
The primary Kevin Lynch texts studied are: City Sense and City Design: City Design and City Appearance; The Image of the City and What Time Is This Place? Each text embraces the idea of, and analyses, the urban city. The overlapping premise of these three texts, is, in broad terms, the relationship between an individual and the city. Specifically, how they perceive the city environment, their connections to the city, city design itself and whether the individual has been appropriately considered throughout its design. Lynch considers the issue of a non-harmonic or conflictual urban public realm to be a solvable one. He believes any conflict existing within a social space can be partially attributed to the designer, for not adequately considering the unique experience for each user in the design, or for presuming the efficacy of that design, without such considerations (Lynch, 1995). He suggests the need for a new, updated design approach or method, where he believes a unified public sphere can be achieved, and proposes a resolution.
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In contrast, Deutsche (Evictions. In: Art and Spatial Politics) and Mouffe (The Democratic Paradox) would both agree that ‘the ideal of a non-coercive consensus reached through reason is an illusion maintained by repressing differences and particularities’ (Deutsche, 1998). Unlike Lynch, Deutsche believes that the ‘Habermasian ideal of a singular public sphere [has] … fallen [now] into decline’ (Deutsche, 1998). She questions the term ‘public’, and what, or who the term encompasses. She uses the example of a homeless person who is nightly evicted from Jackson Park, New York, in order to illustrate her doubt in the existence or possibility of a singular public sphere, but also to prove that ‘urban space is the product of conflict’ (Deutsche, 1998), which brings her to the idea of the ‘phantom public’, a concept conceived by Bruce Robbins. He believes the Habermasian ideal of a singular public realm is itself a phantom because the very quality that supposedly makes the public sphere public – its inclusiveness and accessibility – has always been illusory’ (Deutsche, 1998).
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‘the public sphere “belongs by rights to others, and to no one in particular.” It thus threatens the identity of “man” – the modern subject – who in this space can no longer construe the entire social world as a meaning for itself, as “mine”. In the phantom public sphere, man is deprived of the objectified, distance, knowable world’ |
Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic model of democracy can be linked to Deutsche’s points about the homeless person being the ‘bringer of conflict’ (Deutsche, 1998) to the public realm. Mouffe argues that ‘social space is structured around an impossibility and is therefore irrevocably split by antagonisms’ (Deutsche, 1998). Mouffe believes that ‘the ideal of a pluralist democracy, cannot be to reach a rational consensus in the public sphere. Such a consensus cannot exist’ (Mouffe, 2000).
Sophie Watson’s text City Publics: The (dis)Enchantments of Urban Encounters is central to individuals in an urban public context. She discusses her belief in the fall of the urban public realm, labelling it as ‘disenchantment’ (Watson, 2006). Like Deutsche and Mouffe, Watson is aware of the existing agonism that prevails in our public realms, however she believes these differences should be embraced. Watson proposes a united altered outlook rather than altered physical space. She expounds that having varying societies, groups or individuals being able to coexist within a public environment allows an ‘openness and porosity, a blurring of boundaries, a permeability where differences can collide and rub up against each other, even while the other is recognised as different’ (Watson, 2006). She asserts that public space can become ‘the space where these debates and negotiations can be enacted’ (Watson, 2006).
Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic model of democracy can be linked to Deutsche’s points about the homeless person being the ‘bringer of conflict’ (Deutsche, 1998) to the public realm. Mouffe argues that ‘social space is structured around an impossibility and is therefore irrevocably split by antagonisms’ (Deutsche, 1998). Mouffe believes that ‘the ideal of a pluralist democracy, cannot be to reach a rational consensus in the public sphere. Such a consensus cannot exist’ (Mouffe, 2000).
Sophie Watson’s text City Publics: The (dis)Enchantments of Urban Encounters is central to individuals in an urban public context. She discusses her belief in the fall of the urban public realm, labelling it as ‘disenchantment’ (Watson, 2006). Like Deutsche and Mouffe, Watson is aware of the existing agonism that prevails in our public realms, however she believes these differences should be embraced. Watson proposes a united altered outlook rather than altered physical space. She expounds that having varying societies, groups or individuals being able to coexist within a public environment allows an ‘openness and porosity, a blurring of boundaries, a permeability where differences can collide and rub up against each other, even while the other is recognised as different’ (Watson, 2006). She asserts that public space can become ‘the space where these debates and negotiations can be enacted’ (Watson, 2006).
The ideology of ‘minor architecture’ that Jill Stoner presents in her text, Toward A Minor Architecture does not directly address the subject of the public realm, rather it discusses the subject of society and architecture. Her concept of ‘minor architecture’ can be described as a non-Euclidian, ‘bottom-up approach’ (Stoner, 2012) towards architecture. She stipulates that ‘minor architectures’, such as the urban public realm, are ‘opportunistic events in response to latent, but powerful desires to undo structures of power’ (Stoner, 2012), and such opportunities emerge ‘when the soul of
a society is understood more than a singularity’ (Stoner, 2012). Much of Stoner’s principles of ‘minor architectures’ align with elements of the public realm as well as aspects of the forenamed texts. Within this expansive subject of individuals and the public realm, Lynch’s theories rest at one end of the spectrum, upholding an optimistic, solvable stance on this matter, with Deutsche and Mouffe at the other end, who defend a certainty of impossibility of a unified public realm. Stoner and Watson exist somewhere in-between, with elements of their theories alternately supporting both ends of the spectrum. While the differences in hypotheses were clear from my readings, each text also supports each one of the other studied texts in many instances. My position paper compared, contrasted, and considered these theories, then formed the basis for my second semester design project. |
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RESEARCH
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PART I
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PART II
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