ARC465 Border Index Final

The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Between the Lines: Borders, Territory & Space Border Index

Chloe Wang Declan Roberts

Between the Lines: Borders, Territory and Space

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Border Index

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Border Index 1

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Introduction

Digital Borderlands

Border Index 2

A Not-So-Public Space

Border Index 3

Automotive Isolation

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

The Banality of Exclusion Over the course of the semester we explored infrastructures of exclusion at three distinct scales. Firstly, at the personal scale, we examined the use of digital verifications systems within Chinese shopping centers. Secondly, at the architectural scale, we explored the exclusionary politics of privately-owned-public spaces. And lastly, at the urban scale, we have documented ways in which a history of inequitable urban planning and design has left certain neighbourhoods hostile to their inhabitants.

All three case studies are predicated on the same idea - exclusionary infrastructure is created by an assumption of universal access.

When covid screening systems are designed with the assumption of technological ubiquity, those without access are excluded. When public space is designed with the assumption of capital ubiquity, those without capital are excluded. When neighbourhoods are designed with an assumption of automotive ubiquity, those without cars are excluded. By critically examining the seemingly banal we can begin to become aware of how naturalized infrastructures of exclusion are in the contemporary city.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Digital Borderlands The COVID-19 checkpoint at the entrance of the Olympia 66 mall in Dalian, China is an exemplary and expository instance of urban spatial regulation. The space of the mall, which typically (pre-COVID) behaved as unrestricted public space, has become a site of selective participation.1 In an attempt to control the spread of COVID-19 much of China has implemented a digital screening protocol that employs an application installed on the user’s smartphone to produce a code that functions as a verification of health. This code then becomes a digital passport, allowing one access to many public and private spaces. The underlying assumption of technological ubiquity on which this system is predicated, however, serves as a highly exclusionary practice. Wherein, those who can either not afford or are unable to operate these devices, namely lower-income and elderly individuals, are systemically pushed out of public spaces and rendered illegitimate inhabitants. Such acts of selective bordering represent a manifestation of political ideologies that aim to control the definition of the ‘desired public’.2

1

Storey, David. “Introduction” in Territories: The Claiming of Space.

Abingdon: Routledge, 2012, 1-30 2

Ramirez, Margaret M. City as borderland: Gentrification and the policing of Black and

Latinx geographies in Oakland. Society and Space, 38. 1 (2020), pp. 147-166..

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

A Not-So-Public Space Designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1967, the Toronto-Dominion Center is a corporate office complex located in the heart of the business district of Toronto. The project occupies almost an entire city block and is comprised of four nearly identical towers situated on a continuous granite plinth. The project was developed in a 50/50 partnership between Cadillac Fairview, the current owner, and Toronto-Dominion Bank. This form of partnership was novel in Canada and served as a precedent for financial institutions to venture into large-scale urban space-making.

Now a ubiquitous urban form, the plaza connecting the four towers was also novel for its time, serving as the first example of a privately owned public space (POPS) in Toronto. Allowing for the construction of publicly accessible spaces in dense urban areas where land would otherwise be too expensive, POPS have become a common phenomenon in many cities including Toronto.

However, while these spaces are technically open to the public, they are often designed and securitized in ways that are highly exclusionary in their determination of the desired public.

Namely, those deemed undesirable in these spaces are youth, racialized groups or the homeless.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

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According to the City of Toronto’s design guidelines for POPS, the spaces “should be located and designed to be clearly understood by the users as “public” open space, and be welcoming, accessible and comfortable”1. Through the series of design elements detailed below, we argue that the design of the TD Plaza falls short of these guidelines, and serves as a form of anti participatory design, deterring the potential user of the space.

These elements work actively as thresholds as well as passively through the successive naturalization of control and order.2

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Urban Design Guidelines for Privately Owned Publicly-Accessible

Space. City of Toronto. June 2014.

2

Stalder, L. (2009). Turning Architecture Inside Out: Revolving Doors and Other Thresh-

old Devices. Journal of Design History 22(1). pp. 69-77.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

The small pockets of landscape included in the design are framed by a perimeter gutter, isolating them as objects to be view from a distance. The lawn on the West features a sculpture titled The Pasture, by Joe Fafard. The inclusion of this piece reinforced the notion that the lawns are stages not to be walked on.

The plaza is elevated from the ground level of the sidewalk on this side of the block, restricting pedestrians access to the podium both physically and visually.

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We use location of your phone to track foot-traffic and improve our services

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We use this information for analytics, communication and to provide servies.

We use CCTV for security purposes.

There are signs on entrance to the buildings explaining that the company will track users location and monitor internet usage while on the “public” wifi, as well as use CCTV to monitor the space.

Stairs and the wide platform pushes back the plaza from the sidewalk.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

The inclusion of the mall space allowed the designers to push the messiness of human life underground, preserving the plaza as a clean and orderly pedestal.

This underground concourse as a perfered mode of circulation is reinforce by the fact that this is the only section of the block with no pedestrian barriers.

The lack of amenities of the podium creates an unwelcoming environment for people to stay, thus turning this public square into an exclusion zone where only desired population would want to enter.

On this corner of the block sits the TD bank branch, asides from the benches that create a soft border, the heavy use of corporate signages is used to reinforced private ownership of the space.

Here, a series of objects are placed to block smooth entrance into the public plaza. Though, the plaza and the sidewalk look the same formally as the material used for padding is kept the same, these benches separate the plaza from the sidewalk spatially. As well, the benches are used to funnel people into the underground from the entrance concourse

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

As a work of corporate modernism, the TD Center employs order and formality to impress the power of the institution on the public. The stark nature of the resultant public space is desolate and incompatible with the human scale. In contrast, the shopping concourse located under the plaza is a space specifically designed for the pedestrian experience. Now integrated into the larger PATH network, the underground mall originally served as an alternative circulation system for those who worked in the towers.

Entrances to the concourse located around the block allow users to circumvent the plaza altogether. This argument is strengthened by the fact that Google Maps chooses to show the plan of the concourse instead of the surface level plaza.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

References Urban Design Guidelines for Privately Owned Publicly-Accessible Space. City of Toronto. June 2014.

Peterson, M. (2006). Patrolling The Plaza: Privatized Public Space And The Neoliberal State In Downtown Los Angeles. Urban Anthropology 35(4). pp. 355-386.

R. Van Deusen Jr. (2002). Public space design as class warfare: Urban design, the ‘right to the city’ and the production of Clinton Square, Syracuse, NY. Geojournal 58. pp. 149-158.

Stalder, L. (2009). Turning Architecture Inside Out: Revolving Doors and Other Threshold Devices. Journal of Design History 22(1). pp. 6977.

Wood, N. (January 17, 2018). Planning for Privately Owned Public Spaces in the Greater Toronto Area. York University.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Automotive Isolation The typology of the post-war tower in the park is a ubiquitous feature of Toronto’s urban fabric. Between the 1950s and 1980s, almost 1,200 apartment buildings were constructed in this model, which still account for more than 30% of Toronto’s total housing stock and over half of the city’s rental units. At the time of building, planners believed that apartments should “be developed under controls which protect neighbouring single-family dwellings against unfavourable influences”. As a result, developers were often prohibited from connecting high-rise complexes to subdivision streets and were even required to erect fences between their developments and single-family houses.

The site we have focused on is a collection of apartment buildings located in Don Valley Village. This site represents these common neighbourhood characteristics in a very transparent fashion. The towers front onto Don Mills Road, a major arterial throughfare with an extremely hostile pedestrian environment.

Located immediately behind the towers is a typically low-rise suburban neighbourhood with quiet streets, cul-de-sacs, and parks.

Separating the apartment buildings from this neighbourhood and its amenities is a clearly delineated border of trees and fences.

1

Farrow, J., & Hess, P. M. (2010). Walkability in Toronto’s High-Rise

Neighbourhoods. Cities Center Press, University of Toronto.

2

Campbell, M., Chapman, J., Chirrey, S., & Perrotta, K. (2012) The Walkable City: Neigh-

bourhood Design and Preferences, Travel Choices and Health. Toronto Public Health.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Designed with the assumption of universal car ownership, these high-rise towers were most often placed along major arterial roads or highways, offering high levels of automotive access but very limited public transit and low levels of walkability. When cities are designed with these kinds of assumptions it becomes very evident who they were designed for. At the time, as a result of white flight, the suburbs were primarily populated by affluent white families for whom this assumption of universal car ownership was quite accurate.

However, due to the recent wave of urban migration and gentrification-caused displacement these inner suburbs have become some of the lowest income and most racialized neighbourhoods in the city.

According to a walkability study, the majority (56%) [of residents] reported that they do not have a driver’s licence and 42% reported their household does not own a car. Another 43% of respondents rely on one vehicle shared among several adults in their household” (Farrow & Hess, 2011, p.2). This discrepancy in car ownership is also highly gendered, with only 36% of women in the study reporting having a driver’s license.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Median Household Income

other map here

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

axo goes here

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

A Border by Lack of Design Disconnections in pedestrian infrastructure force residents to navigate parking lots or driveways, scale curbs without cuts and traverse roads without markings.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

A Border by Design High-rise complexes are purposefully disconnected from surrounding streets, schools, and shopping areas by tall fences that line property boundaries.

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

Catalog of Infrastructure

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The Banality of Exclusion Chloe Wang + Declan Roberts

ARC465 Between the Lines: Borders, Territory & Space Winter 2021 - Daniels Faculty

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