PUBLIC SPACE
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Public/Space Design Process Studio Spring 2011 KTH-A In Kafka’s unfinished novel The Man How Disappeared, published posthumously as Amerika in 1928, we come to visit a familiar and still somewhat uncanny place.Tiny aero planes shearing through the sky above a hundred thousand seat sport stadium, brass bands playing in illuminated hotel foyers, an Italian delegation outside La Guardia immigration hall all wearing cowboy boots. A whole universe of impressions of a world never visited. From a European perspective America was at the time Kafka wrote about it, but never visited, still understood as a mythical place. Embraced as a land of dreams and promise, it was close and simultaneous but just out of reach, mediated through gossip, speculation, images, stories, movies, posters and whispers. These types of unchartered territories or surfaces for our projection of utopia played an important role in structuring our societies’ notion of place. Today we witness how such symbolic spaces are being transformed, islands of potentiality seem to continually be shrinking, becoming more and more striated and inscribed in an increasingly tighter and tighter network of political protocols and economic strategies. Deliberate or not, an over-arching project for an emerging alternative architectural practice would seem to be to discuss the control of the utopian dimension of society. What role does architecture and the architect play in this discussion about the future of public spaces? During this course we will study possibilities and limitations of architecture within a small but complex program for a public building/community centre. The starting point is to examine what kind of public buildings would be needed today and in our immediate future. The ambition here is to link a deeper discussion about public space, architecture and planning with a hands-on, programmtic proposal for a public building/space. Your assignment is both to propose a working program as well as making a detailed design for such a program within Norra Djurgårdsstaden, (Stockholm Royal Seaport) a planned future urban district in Stockholm.
Tor Lindstrand Associate Professor
School of Architecture • Royal Institute of Technology • Stockholm
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Week Assignment 24 January -
31 January 2011
Research: In this first assignment you will do individual research, your task is to present four A4’s on what a contemporary or future public space could be. The over-arching idea is to produce an encyclopedia of ideas for a new public space. You are free to choose anything to study but make sure that the research is relevant to a contemporary architectural discourse. Since you have such diverse backgrounds one possible starting point could be some phenomena form your home countries or from your personal history. It is essential that you think in terms of concepts, so rather than the history about a famous square, it could be for instance the Impact of MTV on uses of public space. Try and address it in relation to classical architectural concepts such as program, function, scale, material, temporary, use, permanence, monument. Presentation: 31 January in the Studio 15-17 Each student will hang-up there presentation on the wall and prepare a 10-15 minute presentation. All material should also be formatted according to a template that will be sent out. The idea is to put the material together in a small on-line publication. Iùigo Cornago Bonal Ingrid Evenstad Dahl Helena Krahner Michele Manzella Sigrid Hansen Rossebo Sheng Sun Ulrike Tinnacher Jonas Westberg
p4 p7 p 11 p 14 p 17 p 21 p 24 p 27
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Augmented Public Space by Ă?Ăąigo Cornago Bonal
The Greek word agora means both the public square and the meeting held in it. Activity is put on a level with the space where it is hosted and vice versa. Public space is closely linked to people and the way they use it. Management, opening hours and prohibitions or restrictions seem more important than its form or its program. In an classic city pattern, public space is built by a network of streets and squares [links and nodes] complemented by certain buildings with a cultural or social program. The words used to refer to virtual reality on the Internet are analogies to physical reality. In the Beginning, words such as sites, addresses, mails or anchors were just avatars dependant on their physical references. However, feedback is a common fact nowadays. Virtual social networks is one of the phenonema that has further developed their abilities and also reached a wide part of the population. The boundaries between public and private are constantly modified. They are the meeting and discussion place on the Internet. Although poke friends and make comments seem actions very close to the ones held in traditional public space, their management and their potential use are in
a physical and temporal scale with still uncertain limits. For more than 15 years the term augmented reality has been used to describe a kind of relationship between physical and virtual reality in which the first one acts as a support for virtual information layers. Despite the fact that it has been related to futuristic visions or some sci-fi aesthetics, the widespread use of smart phones has made possible a certain and modest understanding of augmented reality. In this context in which public space is understood as the way we use it, architecture can be defined as the use protocol of a program or the relationship of the activities that form it. It is in the connection between virtual and physical world where some of the contemporary public spaces can be placed. There is an example of feedback between both realities trough mutual hyperlinks that shows the appearance of this new sort of public space: the web site icouldgothat.org that tries to implement in street art the option to comment on graffiti the same way as comments on posts are made on the net.
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“I Could Do That is an experimental project where members of the public are invited to write comments about works of street art in and around East London. We thought, if you can post words of praise/criticism/abuse under videos on Youtube, why can’t you do it for graffiti? The streets belong to everyone don’t they? Why shouldn’t everyone have a say?” The novelty of this initiative is that these comments are virtual but they refer to a physical work [and inseparable physically and conceptually from the city]. Then, thanks to the feedback between both realities, something unexpected happens. Unintentionally, the street art museum is being built. Several works that could never be within a single building [due to their condition of street art] are brought together within a structure that catalogs them, not only allowing comments on them but also relating them both virtually and geographically. In this way the exhibition catalog is as broad as their users get around. It does not depend on a foundation that maintains it or decides on its contents, in a sort of cultural paternalism more characteristic of enlightened despotism than of underground culture. Its perpetuity depends on its success and its use, if it becomes not interesting it will be abandoned. The budget is zero. Everyone is a visitor and a curator of the exhibition [and even an artist]. The visit takes place around the city and generate new and unforeseen paths. Time is fragmented and non linear. Every point is an access to the museum and no order is imposed but everyone is possible.
have been spotted for many and diverse reasons. A device that has brought together this kind of information on urban elements so far has been the travel guide. It could be understood as a mask on the city map that hides most of it but spot certain landmarks. The user used to trust on the experience and knowledge of the publishing company that was paid to simplify the complexity of the city and tell little secrets and tricks. All sides of city
In parallel, other projects have raised hyperlinking physical and virtual reality as for example semapedia.org in which a place or an object of physical reality is related to its article in wikipedia by means of QR code [a bidimensional bar code]. The contemporary version of the commemorative plaque. These initiatives are scattered but they share a vision of a low tech augmented reality, selfless initiative and collaborative nature in which users are also the sources of the content. They are 2.0 and open source, which in the contemporary dictionary is synonymous with free and public. From them we can also deduce that the information and interaction in the virtual layer mostly includes highlighted elements from the city, although they
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life are gathered: cultural centers, bohemian or shopping neighborhoods, restaurants, nightclubs or accommodation for different budgets. However, this picture can be seen as an illusion made for tourists in which most of the reviewed sites are not part of the daily city life. Just buying your own city guide and using it to walk the city is needed to check the resonances and differences between the lived city and the visited one. If our understanding of public space is so wide to cover almost the whole city, our intervention can just be the network that links the various information layers created by everyone’s experience of the city. By hyperlinking the city components with this network, reviewing and making comments on them or even other ways of interaction yet to explore, we
are not just verifying and showing different readings of the city but creating a new one. By these means instead of simplifying the reading of the city according to some private criteria, we are making clear its complexity. It is a tool to access the city from other citizens view. It is no longer the square or an Internet forum, not even the augmented square. We are building the augmented city. A new layer of urban structure built by and for citizens who generate its content, keep it alive and change it.
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Contemporary/Common by Ingrid Evenstad Dahl
A public space is a space that is open to everybody, a space that does not discriminate. The definition is somewhat blurred, as semi-public spaces such as restaurants, public baths, cinemas, shopping malls, also usually are open to all, but require you to behave according to certain social codes, and sometimes you have to pay to enter these spaces. In many settings you might feel that you don’t fit in. To find ut what a public space could be today and in the near future, one have to think through what is relevant for the state of our society and western culture today. Not that one public space could be the perfect answer to all of this, but it could adress and try to improve some problems or enhance some qualities of today’s society. Western societies are largely based on individual needs, and every individual is different than the other, he prefers something over something else, and has his own needs and wishes. This has not always been, and in some cultures, collectiveness has a more prominent place in the society, and the individual’s need is seen as less important (however, they might achieve something we’re lacking through their focus on collectiveness). But in all this focus on the
individual, we still need spaces where we could be these individuals together. Social medias such as twitter and facebook could be called virtual public spaces. But we are still physical beings (maybe too little so), and our bodies need physical spaces to meet in. And maybe one could say that some wishes and needs are collective for humans; common for all the individuals. What could this be? Sustainability/Fashion The last decade or so, a ghost has been more and more visible for us. It becomes more and more clear that we need to take the consequences of our growing wealth and comfortable lifestyle; a world in climate crisis. Sustainability became a fashionable word in the nineties, and the recent years it became fashionable yet again. Today we’ve heard so much about it that we’re rather bored with it. The last couple of years in Norway, the number of people that believe that climate change is created by humans, have dropped. All in all, we seem to feel that sustainability is fair and well, and we seem to like the connotations and the image of sustainability, as long as we don’t have to give up on our steak and airplane tickets. The question is how to relate to this as architects and citizens of new, “environmentally friendly” areas such as Norra Djurgården. I am not sure if it is so interest-
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ing making a big sculpture of rubbish or reuse all rubbish as a gimmick, as we have seen so many examples of, or other small symbols of sustainability that don’t really change anything. I am not quite sure how to grasp it. What is important either way is to prevent that sustainability is just an image. If it sells and gives buyers a good concience, fine. But it has to work as well, and I think it might be hard to get there. I don’t know if the answer to this is to make the local environment so interesting that you don’t always want to fly as far off as possible everytime you have a long weekend off, or to make public spaces with local farming, or if this is just a naive idea from the seventies. However, I have a feeling that public spaces with strong qualities, plus changing people’s lifestyle through architecture could play as a part of the sustainability puzzle. Consumerism/Technology Many of the most vibrant public spaces in western world today, is completely taken over by shopping. One can not ignore this; almost everything is commercialised. In older times, shopping was also important. People met on the markets; this was where you got what you needed, met the neighbours, chatted gossip. Today, people are more consumers than citizens. Shopping is a hobby, a main activity for many, a way to waste time. We don’t need anything, that’s not the issue. What is it that we are looking for? More, more, more! People are so numbed by all impressions, videos, internet, information, pictures, all medias, sounds, that we don’t feel shocked by anything anymore. And why do i not feel anything else than a big gasp when i see Lady Gaga’s boob? The Japanese architect Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow states in interviews that these shopping areas are popular because they exclude the responsibility of their users; this responsibility is in the hands of maintenance companies. People are so used to being provided for, that they forget that they have rights to have an impact on their cities. According to Tsukamoto, we need to change these views on the public space, provoke imagination and make people interact to a larger extent. Today this happens largely based on temporary contructions and art installations. Is it possible to rethink public spaces of a more permanent character in the same way? Introvert/Extrovert A place where people meet to be together, gossip and shop, can be called an extrovert public
space. It is a place where the one of main focuses is interacting with other people, or being alone in a group of people, often while doing something else. Either way, it is a busy ambience. If you want to see what’s happening, you would always go here. Public squares or important streets in cities have this function, and there is a reason why the most important of these are often pictured on postcards; they are tied to the image of the city. However, these places do not need to be big; they can be a metro stop or even where you recycle your garbage. A less obvious and more intricate sort of public space, is the public space with a more intimate character. A public space that is more an inbetween of the public and private, maybe meant for fewer people at a time. These places are like secrets and like to be discovered by children. These places trig our imagination and encourage personal production of space. This way they are linked to how attached people are to a certain area, and therefore also the identification people feel with that area. The identity issue is often tied to these smaller public spaces in a more personal way. You might just stumble upon it, or you might have to seek for it and find it yourself. We all remember how we as children found a pile of rocks or a beautiful tree, and we filled it with meaning and purpose. An intimate public space can trig you that way.
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I think that the foundation of the program of a future public space is the same as it has always been; meeting people, exchanging ideas, being together in an area that everyone feel a degree of ownership to. Or being alone among other people. Also, a very important factor is the public space’s function as something that gives an area identity. This basic program can have many alternative uses and shapes, and how open or exclusive it should be depends on who you want to attract and what kind of ambience you want to achieve. A square in the middle of the city is of course different than a public building in a middle class residential area, a bench overlooking a view in a quiet park has a completely different function. A personal example Last semester i worked in a very different context than the Norra Djurgården, but the topic I worked with was linked to these two types of public spaces. Me and the rest of my class worked in a group of 50 villages with a total of 100.000 inhabitants in the suburbs of Xi’an, China, for six weeks. These villages were situated in a heritage area, and therefore they were under threat of being demolished, as the government had somewhat unclear plans for the area, possibly turning it into a heritage park. Another place in Xi’an, the government has recently moved out 60.000 people in order to make a gigantic heritage theme park, hoping to attract tourists, and the area we worked in is possibly the next. However, nobody really knew, there had been rumours in the area for years, but no one knew anything for certain. The government wouldn’t comment on their plans, keeping them secret until they would be carried out. For the most part, I worked in a village called Da Liu Zhai. It was a small village of 2000 people, for the most part migrant workers. The buildings in the area were all very new, as they had been rebuilt as workers had gotten money to upgrade from earth buildings to brick and tiles. The village had a market, where the inhabitants sold and bought their food. The market was too little and next to a noisy, dusty road with a lot of trailer traffic. But it was still where everybody met, and it was without a doubt the heart of the village. People from other villages came to this village only because of the market, they chatted, hung out drinking tea, playing mahjong, grandmothers took their grandkids there to meet with the other kids. The streets of the village was for the most part composed by closed gates, as the family houses were courtyard houses with a strict inwards direction, and the
streets were not seen as so important, and became where they dumped their garbage. The public street was the backside. Sometimes, however, you saw the residents sitting on their little stools outside the gate, to see what was happening and so on. Many other villages had no market and therefore no other public space than the street. Some villages had excercise equipment by the road, free for everyone to use. The streets in the villages had little hierarchy between them, and as a foreigner in the village, you would always seek towards the market. In other places we were in China, street life was vibrant, full of people extending their houses out on the street. The extrovert public spaces in Da Liu Zhai was definitely there, and had some important qualities, and many potentials of improvement. When it comes to what I called the introvert public spaces, we couldn’t find so much in the village as it was. We saw a lot of places with potentials, such as the transition spaces between the village and the beautiful surroundings, a cultivated landscape, and the transition space between the very private courtyard house and the very public street (the frontyard), but these transition spaces were mostly used as garbage dumps. Sometimes we could find small spaces where someone had created a small place with simple elements, such as a random flowerbed or a chair in a tree. We decided to make our project based on the in-between spaces, working with their potentials to show the qualities that
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was already there, such as the landscape and the quality of sitting on the doorstep looking at what happens in the very public street.
text, as well as many, many other expressions of our time. What feels most important or interesting depends on contest, site and many other factors.
This is a very different context than Norra Djurg책rden, but the two different types of public spaces will still be relevant, however with other programs, scales, sites and forms. Still they point towards some common needs that all humans have. I think public spaces should try to work with these common factors, whatever the culture and context. A relevant public space could also address some of the other subjects mentioned in this
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Someday/Everyday by Helena Krahner
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Public culture by Michele Manzella
01_culture The Latin etymology of the word culture tells us immediately what it means. In fact it comes from the term cultivation, a practice that is exclusively related to humans. There is nothing more human and pragmatic of what is grown and cared for by ourselves. All along humans made culture because all along they handed down their traditions and therefore knowledge. Obviously, culture has accumulated over the centuries and now we often feel it like a boulder. Probably the lack of self-esteem and little confidence in ourselves is leading us towards idolatry of past culture that in past centuries has never been greater. The big problem is that idolatry brings nothing active and constructive. While in the Renaissance the exaltation of classical antiquity brought back the man at the center of the universe and it was therefore a very active phase of history, nowadays the obsessive preservation of the past is making us regress in many fields. Do we need a new Renaissance? 02_declensions As said, culture is any human result. Let’s try to understand what centuries brought us to. First of all culture is knowledge and to keep it
alive places where preserve documents are necessary. The knowledge is about religion, science, society, philosophy, art, history, geography, letters, costumes, etc.. and due to the various nature of documents different kind of buildings are useful, such as museums, libraries, archives, mediatheques, fairs. School is the breeding ground of culture: all our interests and passions start there, our personality is formed in the school since we are kids and for this reason it is so important. To create places where children grow up well is really fundamental for their future. Religion is another important element of culture. All along humanity is in the search of the transcendent, looking for the answers to which he can not reach by itself. To exercise the rites, man has first gathered in the fields or woods, then in very different buildings depending on the religion. Also gastronomy is a human product and therefore culture. It is one of the oldest examples of the tradition, because recipes and secrets are handed down from generation to generation within the family. Restaurants was so born to accommodate travelers and to bring them the peculiar culinary traditions. In ancient times all wars were stopped during the Olympic Games. Despite their different national characteristics, sport has always been considered a
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very high value because it is a physical outlet and a reason for aggregation and friendship. In each city we can find many sports facilities that are well connected to the most densely populated residential areas. Linked to the sport areas are wellness centers such as gyms and thermal baths. Classic culture has also taught us to value the res publica (public things), where all citizens must feel in their own home, according to the rules of civil society. Squares and parks are places where everyone can relax, walk, meet, discuss, think. And finally art. It is the highest human expression, because it connects thought with reality: what man thinks becomes concrete. It may become a movie, an opera, music, a painting, a sculpture, an architecture, a photo, an art installation. For this reason all along theater, art galleries, auditorium exist. Contemporary forms of art need new spaces, often very large, such as cinemas, arenas, parks. 03_future cities There isn’t a solution, a sort of valid potion able to restore critical situations of cities that do not work properly or, even worse, are dead. However, we can find solutions for every different situation. Solutions don’t have to create happy islands, leaving other parts of the city as they were before, and they also don’t have to break down everything, thinking that everything has been done is garbage. The city (any city) needs radical solutions to be changed without being destroyed it, with the purpose of making it active as we have thought. It isn’t necessary to build cities in the city, such as city of culture, of science and technology, of arts and sciences, of music and culture. Our cities are the result of culture and therefore are culture themselves, so we just have to maintain and nurse our cities. All in all, cities need to grow up as they have already grown: contemporary architecture has to be integrated into the historical texture of the city. Without being nostalgic it must deal with the past and always remember that without innovation and respect it will never be truly contemporary. So we don’t need a new Renaissance. 04_how The city is populated and grows well only if it is inhabited. Living the city is not just stay there, in fact there are so many dormitory towns that, though populated, are completely dead. Inhabiting the city means to live it and, to be truly citizens of our city, we need to feel at comfortable. But how? Thanks to public spaces the city is active, because people are attracted by the community: to spend our days in company is far better than alone, locked
in our own houses. The architect’s role is therefore to create attractive centers in the city for which the people want to leave their houses. These are all the cultural places described above and the city needs each of theme. The aim of the project is to link all those buildings that are culturally bound and this is possible with adequate services and infrastructure, possibly already existing. The ambition of public spaces is to promote a positive imagery of living together that is capable of being continuously strengthened by joint actions. The goal is flexibility of the common spaces. 05_critical stockholm To produce concrete proposals for our city is essential to observe the current location of the cultural poles understanding how to act in the areas of new and future construction such as Annedal, Slussen, Hammarby Sjöstad, Västra Kungsholmen, Liljeholmen. From the analysis, the most culturally disconnected area is Liljeholmen, considering the proximity to the centre and the picturesque landscape. In fact this area of offices, houses and semi-abandoned factories lacks gathering places, with the exception of some education center, a gallery and green areas. There is another area between Gamla Stan and Södermalm that has grown into chaos and randomness, even if well connected and entered into local folklore. This is Slussen, which has now become a node rather than a part of the city. The first area demands to shift the barycentre of Stockholm and
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the second to reorganize a city jam. The main point where to start is the identity: to create a place is to create something which tells us where we are (in particular, which country we are in) and, by extension, much about ourself as a society. Disorder, chaos, isolation, segregation undermine the interaction and encounter which sustain good quality community life and corrodes the characters of neighborhoods. People stop walking because everything needs a car journey, causing pollution and congestion. Physical and social disintegration is almost inevitable in these circumstance. Above all, we should build with a sense of rev-
erence for the landscape and for the natural features contained in it. There is also a pressing need to make best use of what we already have: many empty or underused buildings are perfectly able of being put to use for new aims. Today we live with the legacy of a cultural period devoted to utilitarian concerns, which reduced architecture to its purely pratical functions. The unfortunate result of this movement is all to plainly exemplified in the omnipresent hulking blocks of concrete, almost unworth of being called architecture. Anything which man builds should give credit not only to his rational nature but also to his aesthetic sensibility. Why are we seeing so many ugly buildings? It is sad that such elementary aspirations have been undermined by planning, property and financial ortodoxy. Land use zoning, single purpose developments, relentless road building and economic dispersal have all played a role in degrading the character and quality of urban development. It is easy to be pessimistic, even cynical, when one considers the long-term trends and powerful forces which underlie these frustrations. It would seem appropriate to conclude with the wise words of the great American philantropist James Rouse, who said that “We must believe, because it is true, that people are affected by their environment, by space and scale, by colour and texture, by nature and beauty; that they can be uplifted, made comfortable and made important.�
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Public Space by Sigrid Rossebø Hansen
The word culture is often used when we talk about human activity in the community. Culture, as we understands it, can be the results and the achievements of a period, a community or a group’s collective spiritual and material activity. When we discuss what kind of public space we need in a community today and in the future it is important to look at the culture of the people that lives in the community. The conception of culture can have many shapes and sizes. Culture can be something that combines people in a larger group, for instance a country, or it can segregate a small group of people from the crowd, like the people living in a small, defined area of a larger city. It also varies a lot if look at culture in a global scale. You can also divide a community into different cultures based on interests, for instance sports, taste in music, fashion, education and work. I would say that all the people studying architecture at KTH have their common culture that the rest of the students at KTH or the rest of Stockholms population are not a part of. Each person can off course be a part of several different cultures at the same time. I think that this network of cultures is part of the reason why the communities in larger cities are so diverse and interesting.
What is a puplic space and what kind of puplic space do people need today and in the future? A place to meet other people or a place where you can be alone? Somewhere to meet people you already know or a place where you can get to know new people? Is it a place where you are waiting for someone or something? Are you taking part of any activities or are you just observing? Is a public space a place where people with the same background and culture meet or is it a place where you can meet people from different cultures? Are you actively visiting this public space or do you just walk by or pass through? A public space can among other things be a park, an object/sculpture/monument, a plaza, a beach, a busstop, a trainstation, a cinema, a concert hall, a theatre, shops, nature, a market, an exhibition hall, a public bath, a stadium, a parking lot, a gym, a café and a restaurant. The social aspect of public spaces is very important. Maybe you observe something together, receive the same information, meet friends or people that you don’t know, you can observe people, nature or maybe an object, or you can take part in activities with other people. A public space would be different in the centre of a large city than in a small town or a small area of a
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large city. We need to think about who is gonging to use this public space? Just a certain type of people or all the people in a defined area? Not all the sites that we think of as public are really public. In many situations the space is accessible for everyone just as long as you pay the fee to get in, like for instance the cinema, the theatre, concerts or sports arrangements. Other public spaces like the train station, the shopping mall, shops, cafés, restaurants and even some parks, are closed at night. And in many of these places you will not get the full benefit if you don’t buy something. Urban Culture Today The urban communities of today is among other things characterized by all the people trying to efficiently make use of their time. You can see people reading the newspaper, drinking their morning coffee or eating breakfast while they’re on their way to work. There are people reading a book while their walking down the stairs on their way to the subway. I think it seems interesting to look at how the use of architecture in public space can contribute and influence people’s life in this particular timeframe between home and workplace. A public space can be a place that takes part in this hectic life in the city. You pass through it on your way somewhere, you use the space when you wait for your bus or you can meet your friends there. Something I also think characterizes our community in the larger cities today is that the home is very private. It is like our own little cave where we can retreat from the busy life in the city. In opposite to this many people have a need to be seen and to be exposed both in the physical public space and on the Internet. This exposure might contribute to the increased privatisation of the home. Communication and Interaction Today, we have many new ways of communicating, exchanging information and to convey art. The demands of efficiency when it comes to these subjects have also increased in the resent years. Most information today is very easy accessible for people connected to the Internet. In urban areas today most people have access to Internet of some sort and now that many people have got a Smartphone they will have Internet access wherever they are. The Kunsthaus in Graz is an example where
architecture has been used actively to express art in forms of images, animation or pictures. In 2000 the London-based architects Spacelab won the competition for a new museum for contemporary art in Graz, Austria. They proposed a transparent, bluish, organic shell that looked like a hovering piece of jelly. The building was finished in 2003. Located on the banks of the Murvorstadt, between the red brick roofs of neighbouring historic buildings, the new architectural symbol is locally referred to as the “friendly alien”. Like a bubble of air, the bluish, shimmering skin of the Kunsthaus floats above its glass-walled ground floor. BIX is a matrix of 930 fluorescent lamps integrated into the eastern Plexiglas facade of the Kunsthaus. Through the possibility to individually adjust the lamp¹s brightness at an infinite variability with 20 frames/second images, films and animations can be displayed. The façade works like a lowresolution computer display, a “communicative display skin”, fusing architecture, technology and information. You can also find contamporary ways of using communication and interaction in the design of smaller constructions like for instance the Sociomedia Garden. The ‘Urban Botanical Garden’ is an application for a situated display embedded in a bus stop. It is designed as part of the smart mobilities project initiated by the MIT
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Design Lab and RATP (French transit authority for public transportation). The bus stop was presented in Paris as a part of the “Le bus, 100 ans de mouvement� exhibition. The garden application provides a context for a variety of services grouped around the garden metaphor. The application offers two different interaction modalities. Users waiting inside the bus stop engage via a touch screen interface while pedestrians waiting outside interact with a 6ft. custom LED display. An other aspect of communication in our community is the use of the mobile phone that makes people accessible at all time. You are never completely alone. In the future people might need a place free of information and impressions, a place where you are not accessible but a place where you can be all by your self. Maybe a good public space for our community today and for the future is a place where you can hide away from all the expressions and impressions of our urban culture? A place where the only thing you have to do is to be. The Japanese teahouse is a concept of space that inspires me. These small constructions with simple interior and a calm atmosphere are designed for holding Japanese tea ceremonies, which involves the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. The Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori designed a tea house constructed on stilts from two old chestnut trees. The way he lift the house from the ground, the calm interior and the scale of the construction makes me think that this is a very nice space to be in if you want an escape from the busy life in the city. Guests must climb a freestanding ladder, which leans against one of the trees, in order to reach the little house. Midway up the ladder, guests must remove their shoes and leave them on the platform. The interior of the tea house is constructed from simple materials such as plaster and bamboo. Once inside, you can almost forget that you are in a tree house high above the ground due to the serene and calm interior. Sustainability Today the amount of energy used in buildings is a very important subject. In the warmer countries it’s important to use architecture as a tool for limiting the need for using energy to cool down buildings. We have the opposite challenge in the
colder countries like for instance Norway and Sweden. In these places we have to try and keep the warmth inside and to utilize the potential in the energy from the sun, the earth and the wind among other things. The pollution we get from using non-renewable energy sources is one of the main reasons why we need to reduce our energy use. In the future there will be a need for alternative ways of producing energy, and maybe architecture can contribute to that. There are also a lot of architects and architecture students that work with reuse of building materials and other wastes. The world today produces a huge amount of garbage and we can
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be much more creative when it comes to finding new ways of recycling the different materials and substances. Below there are some examples where reuse of materials in architecture is in focus. S(ch)austall by FNP Architekten is a project where the architects used the strategy of a “house within a house”. They devised an infill for the existing structure, that enhanced the existing structure. For instance, the existing holes in the old structure (that used to be windows) now look rather modern. Michael Reynolds is an architect based in New Mexico and a proponent of “radically sustainable
living”. He has been a forceful and controversial critic of the profession of architecture for its failure to deal with the amount of waste that building design creates. The structures built under his direction utilize everyday trash items like aluminum cans, plastic bottles and used tires. Instead of using conventional (and energyconsuming) recycling methods, however, Reynolds takes the discarded item and recycles them as-is. His Thumb House, built in 1972, used beer cans wired together into “bricks,” which were mortared together and then plastered over. Winner of the Gaudi European Student competition, the “Pallet House” by Schnetzer Andreas Claus and Pils Gregor, students from the University of Vienna, is an energy efficient house that allows sustainable lifestyle at a low price. Finished in reused pallets, the eco-friendly house features minimal construction while accommodating modern luxuries. Seeking the 21st century housing on sustainable architecture, the 60 square meter pallet house just requires 800 recycled pallets. Easy to construct as well as collapse, the sustainable housing allows great flexibility and can easily be transported to different location as well. An example of a buildingmaterial made of reused materials is Stavneblokka, developed by Stavne rebygg and NTNU in Trondheim. Stavneblokka is a building material based on reused wooden panelling from old houses. The materials are locally available, the production uses very little energy, they are highly flexible and you can build a construction your self.
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Circus Maximus 329 BC in ancient Rome
Sports /Stadiums & Playgrounds Sheng Sun
History of sports(from Wikipedia): “There are artifacts and structures that suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting activities as early as 4000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been a popular sport in China’s ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to the warfare skills. Among other sports that originate in ancient Persia are polo and jousting. A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sports in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sports became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia. Sports have been increasingly organized and regulated from the time of the Ancient Olympics up to
the present century. Industrialization has brought increased leisure time to the citizens of developed and developing countries, leading to more time for citizens to attend and follow spectator sports, greater participation in athletic activities, and increased accessibility. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport’s popularity, as sports fans began following the exploits of professional athletes through radio, television, and the internet—all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. In the New Millennium, new sports have been going further from the physical aspect to the mental or psychological aspect of competing. Electronic sports organizations are becoming more and more popular.” For sports activities, we usually see two main kinds of territories, stadiums, where all the spectators gathering around to see the athletes competing, and the other is playgrounds, where often merely are filled in with parcitipants. And both of these two places are connected with society, and essential for people living in the society. As one of the first stadiums appeared in the his-
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tory, the Circus Maximus was the main source of entertainment for the citizens of Rome along with the Colosseum. Construction started around 329 BC and was rebuilt by many emperors for the over 1000 years it was in use. It mainly held chariot races, but also held gladiatorial fights, animal hunts, athletic games, and processions. Being the biggest building in ancient Rome, it was able to hold over 250,000 people and hold many events every day. Like most events in ancient Rome, it was of a political advantage to sponsor a race at the Circus Maximus, and the Emperors were expected to appear for each race. The last recorded race in Circus Maximus was held in 550 AD. Another example of stadiums in the modern time is the Bird’s Nest for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing. The stadium’s design originally called for a capacity of 100,000 people; however 9,000 were removed during a simplification of the design. The new total of 91,000 would be shaved further when 11,000 temporary seats were removed after the 2008 Olympics; bringing the stadium’s capacity to 80,000. Beijing National Stadium hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, athletic events, and football final of the 2008 Summer Olympics. From these two stadiums, it is interesting that the function and defination of stadium haven’t really changed since it appeared in Rome. So the stadiums became a symbolic territory for societal and sometimes international events. With its capacity of hosting a great number of people, at the same time, the stadiums host a strong group identity shared by all the spectators. Not like stadiums, playgrounds means totally different things to the society, and somehow it has a stronger relationship with the city space and people’s life in the city. Within playgrounds, sports as a whole is becoming more accessible. And diversity of the sport participants reflects the diversity within the general population. Sport is a highly desirable and effective way of achieving key government objectives, in the fields of prevention and health, youth policy education, values and standards, integration, communities, safety and international policy. Over the past ten years there has been an increasing interest from policy-makers in sport. The social value of sport has been widely recognized, up to the point that sport is now considered as a major instrument in social issues, including to social in-
Bird’s nest in Beijing for Olympic 2008
tegration and participation, to reducing anti-social behaviour of youths, to restraining violence and enhancing security in urban areas and to reducing gender inequality. And in playgrounds, all these activities, such as sports, hanging around, for talking, for eating, for fighting, could be seen as acts of identity, as ways for youths to express, emphasize and work out their self and their belongingness to a group. Playgrounds, their location and free accessibility define them as part of the neighbourhood and the street. The users of the playgrounds, together with their way of using the playgrounds, define the place.And participation in sport at playgrounds always is explicitly and visibly concerned with making distinctions between those who belong and those who do not. Albeit in many times temporarily during the activities of sporting. Sport has potential in meeting others and crossing structural boundaries of groups. The social potential of sport lies rather in the opportunities that sport activities(both organized and spontaneous, although both in different ways) provide to individuals to construct their identities and find out their positions towards others in the processes of both inclusion and exclusion. And participants in activities of sport seem to prefer bonding relations. Because to most people, it is more fun and it feels safer and more familiar to spend one’s leisure time with people that one knows and feels comfortable
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with. However, at playgrounds sometimes you have to share the space with people you don’t know. And then there comes the opportunity to bridge a new relationship with strangers. Because of the same interest shared by people at the playgrounds, the boundaries between strangers could be easily broken by the identity given by the place. Compared with stadiums, playgrounds changed a lot during different period of times. And the forms of playgrounds have always been impacted by the culture, the climate, the geography, and the group of people who are using them, it is always easy to
find the differences between those playgrounds in different areas and different times. A good example is Parkour, the newly born urban activity. ‘Parkour is a utilitarian discipline based upon the successful, swift and energy-efficient traversing of one’s surrounding environment via the practical application of techniques, based around the concept of self-preservation and the ability to help others. It is a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, using only their bodies. Skills such as jumping, climbing, vaulting, rolling and swinging are employed. Parkour can be practiced anywhere, but areas dense with obstacles are preferable, and it is most commonly practiced in urban areas. The usage and employment of flips into the named route does not constitute parkour.’ So with the invention of the urban movement in 1997, Parkour gives the city space a new identity. Basically anywhere in the city could be the playground as long as you can a way to challenge the regular movement in the place.
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Public Bath Houses by Ulrike Tinnacher
Ancient Roman Culture Bathing played a major part in ancient Roman culture and society. Public baths fulďƒžlled many of the needs and desires of Roman citizens in classical times and were the center of Roman social life. These extravagant structures were places where one could relax, enjoy art, discuss politics, and converse with others about the issues of the day. These palaces of entertainment served all tastes and admitted almost anyone, both rich and poor. During the 2nd century BCE, the Greek custom of regular bathing reached Rome. It gradually became a daily practice for Roman citizens, regardless of their ďƒžnancial standing, to frequent public baths. Roman thermae, large bathhouses, were owned by the state and sometimes covered several city blocks. Many used their time in the baths to get together and discuss politics. One might discuss anything from candidates of an upcoming council election to new land laws. Public baths were places where emperors could come to gain public support and the interest of the commoners. Politicians, as well
as others interested in governmental procedures, would go the public halls of the baths to debate on the relevancy of different laws and to criticize the tactics of other politicians. In these public halls, pressing issues of the day were discussed, rulers were plotted against, and war and peace were debated. This was also the place where unknown politicians would go to gain fame and to take note on the various political tactics of their elders. Problems of the Roman society were also discussed and improvements were contemplated upon. Reasons for attending Roman Baths: - to relax by taking a bath and receiving a massage - amateur poets came and persistently recited their creations in the hopes of receiving dinner invitations - Musicians, minstrels, acrobats, and jugglers came seeking personal fame - prostitutes came seeking business amongst the many potential customers of the baths - Getting drunk was another (though quite unrespectable) reason for attending public baths - individuals who were obsessed with social standing utilized the thermae as places where they could see and be seen by top society - others came to chat and spread gossip - men and women came from all over to engage in their favorite sports or exercises
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- some just admired and took note of the magnicent architecture, statues, and paintings within the thermae - some came to hear philosophers and their ideas on life, god(s), and other moral issues - still others simply came for the task of cleaning themselves. To conclude, public baths enabled Roman citizens of classical times to develop good hygiene, physical tness, and culture. Resembling modern day spas and healthclubs, the thermae housed a multiplicity of diverse activities. With their inexpensive admission costs, Roman citizens both rich and poor could bathe side by side in luxury. The thermae of Rome marked an alliance between physical culture and intellectual curosity. As one bather commented, “baths, wine, and women corrupt our bodies . . . but these things make life itself”
Eastern Bath Culture - Hammam Roman-type baths were continued and re-established in Islamic countries through the medieval and Renaissance periods. The hammam, referred to in modern times as the ‚Turkish Bath,‘ was a major feature of Islamic culture, and preserved the Roman traditions of cleaning the body rst, then soaking and socializing. A person taking a Turkish bath rst relaxes in a room (known as the warm room) that is heated by a continuous ow of hot, dry air allowing the bather to perspire freely. Bathers may then move to an even hotter room (known as the hot room) before splashing themselves with cold water. After performing a full body wash and receiving a massage, bathers nally retire to the cooling-room for a period of relaxation. The hammam was (and still is) a place not only to have a bath but rather a meeting place and social occasion for all Turkish people. It is open and accessible to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. Hammams in Turkey are open from very early times in the morning until late at nights.
terms of art and architecture. The Turkish Bath has the same architectural features of the mosque. The architectural style of Turkish hammam has not changed for thousands of years. Eastern Bath Culture - Sentō In the past, many homes in Japan were not equipped with a bathtub. To ll this void, the neighborhood sento, or public bath was a place where the locals could go to wash themselves, soak in a tub and socialize with neighbors. The origins of the Japanese sentō and the Japanese bathing culture in general can be traced to the Buddhist temples in India, from where it spread to China, and nally to Japan during the Nara period Some sento, typically in hot spring resort towns, utilize natural hot spring water for their baths. In this case they are considered an onsen bath. Public baths that are not supplied by hot spring water, use heated tap water instead.
For centuries Turkish bath continues to exist as one of the major components of the Ottoman and Turkish culture. Historical Turkish hammams that surrounded by embroidered walls on all sides are architectural wonders. Turkish Hammam is of great importance in
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Situation today Bathing was, in acient times, a public entertainment in a public building. But during the last centuries it turned more and more into a private and intimate activity. Nowadays, as most households have their own bathrooms, the number of traditional public bathing has decreased. However, new types of public baths and bath complexes, which feature a
range of different pools, saunas, tness centers, etc. have been emerging, some of which more resemble theme parks than simple bath houses. One of the most famous modern bathing buildings is Peter Zumthors Therme Vals in Switzerland. He tried to go back to the original aspects of bathing houses. Zumtor planed small rooms lled with water of different temperature to give the visitors different feelings to their bodies. Bathing in Stockholm As far as I know, there is no free and public bath house in Stockholm. There are several day-spa center, though it is needed to pay a daily fee between 300 and 600 SEK and so you can not see them as a public space. Is there place for a new public bath house in Stockholm? Could it be a place to go in your freetime; with friends, family or even alone? Is it possible to take a leaf out of the ancient Roman culture and go back to the spring of bathing? Stockholm doesn’t need another spa or wellness center, but rather a free and public space to go and spend freetime, to relax, to socialize and have interesting discussions with people of different age, social classes, family background aso. Probably this place isn’t necessary a bathing house, but who knows...
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Interventions in public spaces by Jonas Westberg
A public private dinner “In the action A public private dinner, I make a specific, performative intervention to examine what parochialization as domestication could mean and what affects the conditions for its execution. By claiming the street space outside my own home (an apartment block in central Stockholm) for a private dinner, the strictly official nature of the street is temporarily suspended. The given context’s (especially the housing typology’s) impact on the conditions of domestication is illustrated when tables, chairs, china, food, and dinner guests are gradually transferred from the kitchen and the apartment’s private zone, through the semiprivate staircase and out into the public street environment. The dinner table was set up on the sidewalk outside the house and a group of invited dinner guests had dinner together while interact-
ing with the surroundings.” Adriana Seserin What happens when the division between public and private becomes less clear? How is the public space affected when gaps and slippages between these realms appear? In her text “The Publicly Private And The Privately Public”, swedish architect Adriana Seserin discusses the need for a new terminology in relation to the public sphere. “The terminology surrounding the public sphere seems to me to be quite limited and therefore impede the understanding of urban space. Often because the dichotomy of public vs. private is limping in its ability to describe the complexity of today’s society.”
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Adriana writes that we need a new vocabulary to define and find new forms of public space. Instead of using the term public space, she introduces the term public domain as defined by Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp: “We define ’public domain’ as those places where an exchange between different social groups is possible and also actually occurs. (...) Public space is in essence a space that is freely accessible for everyone: public is the opposite of private. That is not to say that every public space is a public domain. Public domain entails additional requirements. We are interested in the question of which spaces are positively valued as places of shared experience by people from different backgrounds or with dissimilar interests.” Adriana states that in discussions surrounding urban planning we often speak of a desire to create ‘meetings’ between people in the public realm, without further justification of how and why these meetings are important. But she thinks that it´s more interesting to talk about an ‘exchange’ between different people. A public space, which meets the criteria of public domain and thus allows this exchange could involve: - Different groups with different needs are using the same physical space for various purposes - Conflict / cooperation in regards to how the space should be used - Friction that challenges one to respond to the ‘other’ - Overlap and exchange between different social groups This may in turn allow for: - Confrontation with other people and other views - Social interaction outside ones own sphere - New experiences, surprise and reflection - Challenge / change in perspective - Social intelligence, counter stereotyping and stigmatization Further on, Adriana discusses the term parochialization, a term with wich to describe various social groups claiming parts of the public space. She asks whether perhaps parochialization can become an input into and support of a well-functioning public domain? She quotes the text below by Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp:
Ted Dewan, a British children's author and traffic campaigner is spearheading "DIY-traffic calming." The purpose of his campaign, done through whole living room sets on the street, down to the carpet, is to challenge drivers' entitlement to speed and urban space.
“Anyone reflecting on personal ’public-domain experiences’ will notice on closer inspection that the key experiences with shared use of space often involve entering the parochial domains of ’others’. Public domain is thus not so much a place as an experience. One experiences this space as public domain because one does not belong to that specific dominant group. (...) This entails an interesting paradox: the dominance of a certain group does not preclude the experience of public domain, but rather produces it. (...) Successful public domain therefore requires a relatively strong group, without the position of that group leading to exclusion and repression.” (sid 88 ff In Search of New Public Domain, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 2001) In relating this to the context of Stockholm Adriana states that “... it is difficult to identify any significant elements of parochialization in the public space. The streets are not characterized by any specific groups in attendance, but its neutral character is maintained and rarely challenged. The public realm works more as a space for friction-free flows than as places for interaction and exchange. The structure of Stockholm as a segregated enclave city, with separated satellites populated by relatively homogeneous groups, counteracts the experience of different but overlapping and connected parochial domains. Although there may be some parochial domains, it is lacking the mixture between / proximity to other groups that characterize public domain.
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Adriana writes that there are Swedish examples where a temporary expansion of the private domain creates new conditions for the public environment. It´s a kind of parochialization operating at micro level, which implies a kind of domestication of street environment or neighborhood.
and overlaps between the different ‘meanings’ we will perhaps approach a greater understanding of what urban, public life today could mean and can perhaps find new opportunities for this, which the absolute, fully programmed city is unable to create.”
“One example is people using the space in front of their terrace house or villa for private activities such as eating dinner, but with the possibility of contact with neighbors or passers-by in the public street space. However, such a temporary domestication of public space in central Stockholm, or its large scale housing suburbs, is rare. Perhaps this is due to the fact that here there are few zones in connection with the home that are in direct contact with the public and perceived as ‘allowed’ to claim?”
Plant the City
“Although A public private dinner was primarily meant as a‘statement’, it inevitably raises further questions. It would be interesting to move the action to other contexts to see if the surroundings were just as tolerant / uninterested. What are the limits of domestication? To what extent is it reasonable to domesticate? How important is the feeling of temporariness in order for thisdomestication to be accepted and to function?I believe that more or less temporary private interventions in public space, in the form of parochialization at different scale levels, may contribute to the crossing and overlapping of different social spheres, and an exchange among themselves. When different groups are allowed to imprint the public, a multitude of subjective ‘meanings’ are created, with architecture as a surface of projection, thus parochialization can also help to recharge a public space with ‘meaningfulness’. By allowing more slippages
The first action of Plant the City in 2008 where they built a green oasis in the “meningless” space outside the Museum of world culture in Gothenburg
“Guerrilla gardening is gardening on another person’s land without permission. It encompasses a very diverse range of people and motivations, from the enthusiastic gardener who spills over their legal boundaries to the highly political gardener who seeks to provoke change through direct action. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.” Wikipedia The network Plant the City was formed in Gothenburg in 2008. Their aim is to make the city more pleasant and alive. This is their take on how public spaces can be utilized and planned: Within the cities there are lots of undefined spaces thats been left over during planning at the expense of other more defined spaces. These spaces often raise negative associations among the citizens as they are commonly percieved as ugly or unsafe. Urban spaces are created and reshaped through utilization and for that to happen there is a need for involvment by the people who lives and dwell in the city. Through participation peoples bond to the city and to the other people living there can be reenforced. It can also help to reduce vandalism and give places new roles and new functions. To take part of the public space and meet others is also a way to counteract the feelings of alienation that can follow retirement, unemployment, sickness and immigraton. A new orientation in the planing of urban living spaces where people can be creative is necessary. This orientation should create possibilities that favors the development of constructive creation. There is a big need to be able to express oneself and make an imprint in the city. With allowing spaces for private initiatives these needs can be met. The personal imprints gives the cities varied, characteristic and interesting urban spaces. Spaces that mirrors the unpredictability and dynamics that the cities are made up of.
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REBAR is a San Francisco based interdisciplinary studio operating at the intersection of art, design and activism. Here are three of their projects: PARK(ing) “PARK(ing) is an investigation into reprogramming a typical unit of private vehicular space by leasing a metered parking spot for public recreational activity. Feeding the meter of a parking space enables one to rent precious downtown real estate, typically on a 1/2 hour to 2 hour basis. What is the range of possible occupancy activities for this short-term lease? We identified a site in an area of downtown San Francisco that is underserved by public outdoor space and is in an ideal, sunny location between the hours of noon and 2 p.m. There we installed a small, temporary public park that provided nature, seating, and shade. Our goal was to transform a parking spot into a PARK(ing) space, thereby temporarily expanding the public realm and improving the quality of urban human habitat, at least until the meter ran out. By our calculations, we provided an additional 24,000 square-foot-minutes of public open space that Wednesday afternoon.” Walklet: Modular Public Park “Inspired by PARK(ing) and other efforts to convert parking spaces into people places, cities around the United States are transforming excess roadway into public plazas, pocket parks and experimental sites for new forms of urban infrastructure. To help support this growing trend, Rebar has created “Walklet”—a modular, flexible sidewalk extension system designed to create new public spaces for people by extending the pedestrian realm into the parking lane. Each three-foot wide Walklet module provides a single, specific program that can
Walklet
PARK(ing)
be mixed and matched with other Walklet modules to create the right design combination for each unique site. Walklet extends the sidewalk surface into the street but provides much more than just a place to walk—it creates an adjustable, flexible, full-scale laboratory for developing and refining the perfect combination of user programs.” The PARKcycle “The PARKcycle is a human-powered open space distribution system designed for agile movement within the existing auto-centric urban infrastructure. While its physical dimensions synchronize with the automotive “softscape” of lane stripes and metered stalls, the PARKcycle effectively re-programs the urban hardscape by delivering massive quantities of green open space—up to 4,320 squarefoot-minutes of park per stop—thus temporarily reframing the right-of-way as green space, not just a car space.Using a plug-and-play approach, the PARKcycle provides open space benefits to neighborhoods that need it, when they need it, as soon as it is parked.”
The PARKcycle
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Design Process Studio • School of Architecture • Royal Institute of Technology • Stockholm • Spring 2011 31