Territory

Territory INCLUDING AN INTERVIEW WITH

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MORAG ROSE

PRESENTS

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES PART 2

FREE CHAT

PUBLIC, PRIVATE OR COMMONS? GATED PUBLIC SPACES

DO CITIZENS OWN THE CITY?

NEIGHBOURHOOD POTENTIAL

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CURATING SPACE

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OPEN EVENTS

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FREE SPACE

MSA Prints EDITORIAL Welcome to the MSA Prints special edition four-part series ‘Manufacturing Communities: Designing Real Places’. This series explores the social technologies in which architects need to become experts in order to design and develop socially relevant architecture in a world of rising population, rapid urbanisation and increasing social and spatial inequalities. Responding to a debilitating disciplinary focus on the physical technologies of ‘sustainability’ this series instead examines the problems of commitment and engagement which ultimately determine their implementation and success.

CONTENTS

06 Opinion 22 Gated Public Spaces 34 Travel

In this series we tackle the relationship between the discipline of architecture and wider society in four steps, beginning with the role the architect plays as a citizen in that society; secondly, exploring how the design qualities of the city are defined by its citizens; third how the city includes or excludes its occupants through the granting of citizenship; and lastly in terms of the city as an occupant of the wider ecology of the planet.

36 Source: Public Commons

In the Territory edition, part two of the series, issues involving public space will be addressed. Public spaces have been at the forefront of human history for centuries. As places of exchange, areas of rest and unrest, they often form the focal point of human interactions. In the discussion on ‘what is public space?’ the nature of ‘ownership’ is prominent. Whilst the word ‘public’ is part of these spaces, they may often be controlled, monitored or altered without much direct public involvement.

44 Theory of Participation

38 Interview with Morag Rose 42 ENGAGE: 101 ways to change your city

46 Editorial team & Collaborators

The treatment of what counts as public space is an issue prevalent in urban design. The creation of nominal public space is often mentioned in briefs for large architectural projects, but this may be limited to creation of an empty canvas of open plains and designed public areas. Major high streets presented as public have privately driven concerns just below the surface, and will control or remove citizens not conforming to the actions considered acceptable within the space. In response some citizens are opting to claim territories as their own, sometimes at a transgressive level, in order to express themselves publicly. Is it possible to mediate the contemporary design process to develop public spaces that are truly ‘owned’ by citizens?

The overarching theme of this issue is how to create a sense of ownership by designing spaces around people through public engagements. MSA Prints will investigate whether the public, are truly capable of ‘owning’ the public spaces around us and will look at existing groups of people who are already taking the claiming of urban territories into their own hands. This issue shall examine how architects can influence this sense of ownership through design work, and shall explore ways in which engagement and community led design can be used to approach the formation of public spaces.

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08 Free Chat FEATURE

Claiming territories on Market Street

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WAN SYAFIQAH

Neighbourhood Space to Affect Change

Engaged design of neighbourhood spaces

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ALEXANDER WATTS

Art & Spatial Ownership

Making your mark: freedom of artist expression in urban environments.

24 Open Events AMAOBI IKE

Exploring creative ownership through the narrative of cinema.

28 Free Space

STEPHEN LOVEJOY

Intrigued by the limiting ways public space is used in the city, free space investigates and analyses the reasons and implications of this spatial control.

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BULLETIN

This typical facade of 5 pointz displays the rich tapestry of creativity that has transformed the space over the years.

5 Pointz about creative ownership November 2013, Long Island City Jeff Wolkoff, a private Long Island City in Queens New York. At the edge developer bought the warehouse some of the area sat a 200,000 square-foot forty years ago, already a bubbling complex, a sprawl of graffiti and street haven for graffiti artists called Phun art adorned on its facades. 5pointz was Factory. The building attracted a global a mecca for graffiti community of artists from all five “When you have nothing and artists as they were boroughs of New all you have is your name, that free York and beyond, a train is going to travel into to express their public space that was Manhattan, it is going to travel identity and visually a hub of imagination, to people who would never construct their creativity and come into your neighbour- interpretation of democratic identity. hood. And they are going to their society.

However this was see it”. (BBC, 2011) dramatically defaced However there came with white paint. attempts to remove Decades of creativity the artistry from the was destroyed last year with the warehouse. This became apparent in famed walls of the building painted 2013 when Jeff Wolkoff received the overnight. This marked the end of greenlight by the government to replace creative ownership. This article will 5pointz with two 40 storey residential explore whether 5pointz is one of the buildings. Despite the outcry from the many degradations of public creative art community, ownership? What does this tell us about our right to a creatively owned city?

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Wolkoff maintains that there will still be room for graffiti artists; promising to dedicate the ground floor space to graffiti artist to create exhibitionist work. However, these promises are somewhat controlling, akin to creating a miniscule canvas for an artist instead of freeing up entire walls and floors for creative use and exploration.This proves that productive creative spaces are cast in the ever longer shadow of private consumption. Graffiti artists are criminalised and are robbed of the opportunity to express their talents and the world around them. Not only is graffiti a form of art that lets one express creative ownership of a space, it is a form of identity that has been ingrained in the New York Culture; particularly the culture of Hip hop.

Hip hop is a result of communities transposing their culture, attitudes and form of entertainment within the streets of the city. Bronx New York was one of these communities.

By the 1970’s, economic sparsity and crime had made the Bronx a no-go zone. However, the youth culture living within the Bronx brought new creativity to the community through graffiti, rap and break dancing.

By creatively taking a wall, floor, room or other original forms and making it their own unique design, it was a way to make their own mark on their city.

For creative ownership such as 5pointz to be so easily snatched away by the elite group of consumers within the city, bears a foreboding of increasing contention between our freedom and ownership of space and our increasingly divisive and closed spaces; only reserved for those with dollars.

The frightening question remains, what is the future of our open spaces?

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LIBRARY WALK

Auctioning Banksy An auction of one of graffiti artist Banky’s works has been re-igniting debates regarding ownership of street artworks. The 555 Non-Profit Gallery and Studios in Detroit seized the artwork from the building onto which it was stencilled in 2010. Originally the piece, taken from the abandoned Packard plant in Detroit within days of discovery, was a centrepiece in the gallery before the announcement of auctioning off the artwork in March 2014.

Whilst the gallery stated that proceeds from the potentially lucrative auction of the Banksy work would help fund further programming by the gallery, it has brought up issues of ownership of artworks situated on public or private property, with some members of the public questioning the legitimacy of the gallery making money this way.

These images have been illegally placed on the walls of other buildings. Even in a situation where the artist cannot

claim his artwork, then to whom does the remaining artwork belong?

In one previous instance involving another Banksy artwork, the new owner of a building then adorned with a Banksy piece was ordered to remove the artwork and to hand it in to the local Council as it was not deemed part of the transaction. This implies that it was the Council who were the legal owners of artworks placed in such spaces and not private owners of the buildings upon which the art was placed. Amidst these legal issues of who owns artworks, further criticism has fallen upon bodies removing the work claiming that the act of displacing them from their initial context removes an element of the artist’s intent.

The Manchester City Council has received a strong opposition regarding their plans to block Library Walk, a curving passageway that runs between the Manchester Central Library and the Town Hall, with a glazed passageway to connect the two buildings. The extension was designed

by Ian Simpson. Simpson was one the key designers in the development of Manchester after the IRA bombing and designed much of Manchester’s recent architecture, including the infamous Beetham Tower.

The planning application was made in 2012 and was approved by the city councillors, despite a 1,300 signature petition opposing the plans. The group ‘Friends of Library Walk’ has been set up to continue to oppose the proposed construction and recently encouraged people to oppose the Stopping Up Order for Library Walk, issued to start construction. They argue that blocking up the walk is against the desires of city residents to whom the Council is supposed to serve and the scheme privatises a much loved area of public space.

Above Right: The proposed design for Library Walk. http:// friendsoflibrarywalk.wordpress.com/

Above left: Original image from Banksy. co.uk

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OPINION We own our cities Ownership is a heavily contested subject in the urban context of the city.

We are surrounded by privatisation of spaces, and a leaning towards consumption rather than creativity.

In our present culture, it is all too natural to simply consume rather than produce; leading to a view that we have lost control over our city. However, we still retain control and ownership of the city. History shows that our actions and reactions to spatial control, have revealed a unified power citizens hold in defining the future of the city.

Our ownership of the city has been facilitated by the global connectivity we share in the form of the internet. The internet has placed a powerful network of knowledge in the hands of citizens.

One of the most prominent examples is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that contains what one could perceive as almost limitless amount of information on various topics. But what makes it all the more powerful is how current the information is. Wikipedia is unique because the articles are controlled by the public. At times the article may appear inconsistent and biased, but it is a form of instantaneous truth that enables people to have a in depth knowledge and control of their surroundings and environment.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia believes that access to information is a human right; defining it as the state having no role to play in preventing people from communicating with each other. For better or for worse, this human right brought about a call for action in the public. For example, the Occupy movement. Initially begun in New York City in September 2011, the protest movement became a worldwide response to the economic inequality citizens faced, and the influence corporations had on this process. Activists, organisations and fellow believers occupied Zuccotti Park (a symbol of open freedom) to demonstrate and regain control of citizenship in society. The spatial action of occupying expanded worldwide, creating a rippling effect over politics; questioning whether governmental decisions benefitted the capitalist system, or whether it

considered citizens and their place in society. Similarly, the London Riots that occurred only a month prior presented a frightening perspective to the lengths citizens will take to regain a sense of control and ownership within the city. The belief of control spurred people to take ownership of the streets through violence and destruction. To attain and consume without the constraints of money and privatisation. The country was left asking whether the sudden widespread riots was a result of built up frustration with economic inequality, or was it an opportunistic move to collectively live and act without consequence.

2010 film, Fair Game states:

“We are strong, and we are free from tyranny as long as each of us remembers his or her duty as a citizen�- Fair Game So do people really own the city? Yes. For as long as people have knowledge we have action, and as long as we have action, we will gain truth, and as long as we continue to gain truth, we will always have control.

Thus, wikipedia has been right at the frontline of online activism; a ongoing shift towards freedom of information.

Above: Woman being rescued from the skewed violence and control that occured that night. www.google.com 06

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We do not own our cities In the contemporary city, space has been surrendered to capital. Under the gaze of unregulated capitalism, the potential of space is seen in terms of increasing revenue. Even where space is designed as a pleasant environment for the lives of the residents and visitors who use it, this is viewed through the lens of raising property prices or increasing basket spend in retail districts. A wealthy city is considered a successful city and vice versa. Thus the mechanisms of capital gain dictate the design and planning of space.

It does not matter if the scrubland at the end of your road is your dog’s favourite place to go for a walk or the preferred location for the young people in the area to play football.

There is little you can do to prevent the construction of a retail or business district. Of course, you will be told that such decisions are made for ‘your own good’ and that such a development will ‘revitalise’ the neighbourhood. You are assured with an air of condescension that the powers-that-be are acting with your own interests at heart. But rarely are the residents of a city consulted in the manipulation of the urban fabric, and rarely are they heeded when they protest.

Protesting might work, as perhaps many petitions and parliamentary appeals. But there is no guarantee.

A fierce community campaign has been taking place in Manchester over the past few years to prevent a small passageway between the Central

Library and the town hall being blocked by a £3.5 million glazed walkway. Most discussions regarding the passageway have focused on its aesthetic and experiential qualities. But this seems irrelevant. A large number of city residents have voiced their opposition to the construction of this walkway and over 1,400 people, have signed a petition but their action has not prevented their glass structure being lowered into place on the construction site.

Whilst the voices of city residents do not appear to be often heard, their actions are definitely watched. The cities of the UK are covered with surveillance cameras. The UK has the most extensive CCTV network in the world, with more cameras than the rest of Europe combined. There is an ever-decreasing amount of space that we can inhabit without being watched to ensure that our behaviour is deemed acceptable. In London it is estimated that the average resident is recorded on camera 300 times a day. We are told that such cameras are there for own safety, but there has never been any tangible evidence to support the claim that CCTV decreases crime.

We also cannot walk through our cities without being bombarded by advertisements, implying that our lives could and would be far better if we would only spend our money in a certain way. It is estimated that each of us now see more advertisements in one year that people fifty years ago saw in

their entire lifetimes.

The centres of our cities, once conceived as places for the discussion of views and the debate of ideas, are now seen as the primary shopping districts. We have begun so used to this definition of the city centre that we no longer question it. Whilst in past times, marketplaces would operate as both the primary retail area and a place for gossip and debate, our current form of consumerism in increasingly developing to remove the people from the systems of manufacture. As our cities are increasingly taken over by capital the dominant social scripts that write people’s lives are written. We are reduced from citizens to consumers and watched to make sure we comply.

We no longer own our cities, we merely inhabit them. Decisions are made for us, purportedly for our own benefit and in the words of Noam Chomsky, all there is left for us to do is to “ratify [these] decisions and consume”.

Above: Starbucks advertisement phonebox in Manchester

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FREE CHAT At the start of the Master of Architecture course a group of 5 students partook in a series of streetlevels exercises. Blankets were used to mark out a territory on Market Street, and the space taken off for an extended period. The aim was simple: to encourage members of the public to talk and join the newly reclaimed Market Street space.

The five Architecture Student participants reflect on their experiences:

the second Free Chat event we initially used a computer printed sign, which noted a topic of conversation of “Gender, Politics and the City”, which appeared to be off-putting to many members of the public. Interestingly some of these topics came up with relatively easy steering once the sign was switched with a simpler hand-made sign. This showed the importance of making engagement events open and welcoming and reducing the prominence of specific agendas.

Stephen Dammy Orchestrating engagement activities which involve other uncontrollable elements such as the weather and the potential participants was initially daunting.

I was able to realise that when engaging with people, the most important thing is to be open to listen and hear what they have to say. I also found that, although the initial process of setting up the free chat engagement activity was daunting due to the looks we received from passers-by, these soon changed to looks of interest and fascination; this showed me that when attempting to engage, it is important to not be discouraged from the initial reactions but to continue to persevere as this usually results in fruitful outcomes.

Alexander Topics of conversation during the two main Free Chat events varied throughout, though they mostly revolved around subjects regarding the city, homelessness and politics. In 08

When I started the Masters of Architecture course, sitting in the centre of Manchester is not something I ever expected to be doing. However, why sit at the top of the tower that houses the architecture studios discussing the city of Manchester, when we could sit in the very heart of the city and let the residents and visitors join us?

The first thing of interest was the reaction that occurred when we marked out our territory. Some of those passing by completely ignored us, whilst others looked at us like we were quite mad and most regarded us with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

Despite being completely exposed to the street, the use of a sheet gave us a distinct territory and transformed the whole affair into something resembling a rather bizarre picnic. I was surprised in how swiftly people joined us, and how open and easy it was to get people talking about the city. I can honestly say that some of the conversations I had on that thin damp sheet were the most interesting I’ve had in my entire year of study. I learnt more about the city of Manchester and the people that live in it then I would have from any academic text and the whole experience went on to drive my entire year’s project.

Aneta As a foreigner and as a person with not a lot of experience in engaging social activities I found the Free Chat experiment quite challenging. It definitely wasn’t easy to put myself out there, not knowing how people were going to react to our little, awkward group doing its best to look friendly. The outcome, however, was truly surprising.

It didn’t take much to attract their attention, and what’s more important, it wasn’t that difficult to actually engage in small talk. I was honestly amazed at how open and genuine strangers can be. I think this experience helped me realise that streets are full of a flow of people just waiting for an opportunity to stop for a second and share some of their thoughts. You don’t need to be somebody’s friend to be able to have a meaningful conversation with them.

Wan Through the learning process in architecture, I know that designers need to consider about the end user in their design, but I never fully applied it.

Most designers stop engaging with the potential user after the site analysis in the design process. By being involved in the free chat it allowed me to be openminded, re-thinking design approaches and valuing engagements. We knew that Market Street was a busy street, and we anticipated that people would not want to stop and talk to us. However many people did talk to us. As an architect I think we need to approach people in order to understand how architecture affects their daily lives.

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“I spend a lot of time out here on the streets and one of the conversations that comes up a lot is the world is run by a select group of individuals that run the major commerce. The common thing is, most people start to know this now, most people have accepted this as truth.”

“Can an architect be ethical? Is it possible?”

“… and unfortunately some people are still very single minded, only help themselves and don’t look at the bigger picture and that’s what holds us back as a humanity – that’s the reptilian way of thinking essentially”

“I get ignored a lot”

“If we have decentralisation of power and if we bring it back down to the community, it’s got to start with chats just like this.”

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FEATURES

Neighbourhood Potential Neighbourhood spaces can lure people from their home, encourage them to linger together outdoor and engage with neighbours in ways that support and builds community. This shared space is a medium for interaction. The project continues with focusing on the public space in Cheetham Hill. A series of engagements will be shown through the project progress in order to encourage the social interaction.

Curating Space ‘Art & Spatial Ownership’ will look at ways in which creative interventions are being used as a form of expression in public spaces. The ways in which gallery spaces range from formal to transgressive influences how work is displayed, and how small-scale interventions can form ad-hoc gallery spaces.

This progresses further to develop into an architectural project derived from interweaving narratives based upon existing creative groups.

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Open Events The impact of architecture has never been so apparent in the creative ownership of our spaces. The article Open events will explore the relationship between the citizen and the urban context through the medium of open events. What is open events? How did it come to fruition? And what impact has it had on modern society?

Free Space ‘Free Space’ begins as an examination of the implications of spatial control on the city and the individual. Using the case study of Manchester, the article will review the primary reasons behind this exertion of control. The effects of commercialisation and the privatisation of city centre management will be analysed, to understand the impact it has on the public space in the city and those that inhabit it. A series of architectural interventions will be shown that propose to counter the implications of overly-controlled space and work towards a city that belongs to everyone, not just those with money to spend.

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NEIGHBOURHOOD SPACES A Potential of Social Change

By Wan Syafiqah

Top : Arial view of the temporary public space (Place of the Giant) in theSaintEtienne Below: Climbing modules

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What makes neighbourhood space transformation of culture and social vital? What are the characteristics of organization/structure over time. neighbourhood spaces that lure people As society is never static, the social, from their homes, encourage them to political, economic and cultural change be together in a way that supports and soccurs constantly. The provision builds community? The expression of of public space and services aims the neighbourhood is seen as being a to decrease the social exclusion and local area with common boundaries to make people feel belong to their and shared ties (Schoenberg S. 1979). neighbourhood.

This shared space is a medium for interaction. The places and spaces being Unfortunately, neighbourhood design created must produce an environment is often neglected. It needs to have real that people can thrive in and take pride identity, and architects and designers in for generations to come (CABE should strive to become a key part in 2006). This spaces include parks, green the design process. This corresponds spaces, playgrounds, public buildings to CABE objectives that good design and transitional should not be “What exactly is the mode of spaces between confined to iconic buildings. existence of social relation- buildings in big ships?... The study of space cities. High quality Neighbourhood public buildings public space should offers an answer according to and open spaces, be designed around which the social relations of where local supporting healthy resident can meet production have a social excommunities and socialize, give by encouraging istence to the extent that they communities a physical activities have a spatial existence; they sense of pride and and community belonging (CABE i n t e r a c t i o n . project themselves into a space, 2006). Even a People’s daily becoming inscribed there, and small space, a space e x p e r i e n c e in the process producing that between buildings of their local can potentially space itself ” neighbourhood be a space for and local green interaction.

An – Henri Lefebvre. spaces can affect intervention their physical, mental and social project by Collectif Parenthese for health. These three facets of health Public Establishment of Development can be influenced by complex issues of Saint- Etienne (EPSAE) in March including neighbourhood satisfaction, 2011, transformed a wasteland into perception, use of and engagement in temporary public space for the “Place neighbourhood spaces. of the Giant” event. The purpose of the project was to allow greater When they become highly populated ownership of this space to residents. spaces, neighbourhoods may affect social change. Social change is the To achieve a good design of the MSA Prints

neighbourhood space, the government, client and architect should involve the end user in design process. An example of this process is that of the student-led Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab. This event was organised in order to engage with the people of Manchester’s Cheetham Hill district. Through multiple forms of engagement, including focus groups, audit questionnaires and mapping exercises the community was given a platform to express their opinions and needs. This engagement approach can help the design dicipline understand local needs.

Development in technology can simultaneously connect more people, but can also alienate them. To understand what people need from built neighbourhood spaces they do not need to be architects. Interactions with designers and with other members of the community both enriches the design process, but also can increase well-being and sense of the community in itself.

Top: Focus Group of the Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab Middle: Interactive Mapping of the Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab Below: Community Audit group of the Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab

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Convivial Public Space communication between the members of the community is still weak. The higher anti-social behavior impact on the people’s satisfaction of an area and ability to attract investment.

Public spaces are places of gather and should form social hubs. A public space can promote human contact and wide range of social activities.

The presence of effective public space can become vital business and marketing tool, thus can be a tool to attract investments into an area. The users of the public space can vary in age. Cheetham Hill is comprised of many family groups, and these spaces are essential for children and young people as it provide opportunities for fun, exercise and learning.

Unfortunately many public spaces in Cheetham Hill have been resigned to spaces for transgressional activities such as drugs. These have become forgotten spaces, and detract members of the public from using nominally public spaces.

In 2009, the population in Cheetham Hill increased 30.5% since 2001. For the last 200 years, Cheetham Hill has been a key arrival point for immigrants entering the City, including Irish migrants in the mid nineteenth century, Jewish migrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; and migrants from Commonwealth countries in the mid 20th century.

Cheetham Hill remains an extremely diverse area today. Despite the cultural diversity in Cheetham Hill, the 14

In October 2013, MSAp and Buddleia conducted the Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab -attended by residents of the district - an engagement event designed to assist in gaining knowledge of the local people and their desires for the neighbourhood. Participants described how they feel living in Cheetham Hill and gave opinions on how it can be improved. An addtional engagement was conducted to get to know more about Cheetham Hill, a desk-study and site visit to the existing public facilities and public spaces was conducted. Interviews with the staff of the local social groups such as The BigLife group and Zest aided in development of the project.

Lack of investments over a number of years led to physical decline and did little to help issues with crime.

Cheetham Hill lost many community assets like the library, swimming baths, hospital, cinema these were not replaced. This has created a sense of neglect and decline and resulted in a reduction in commonly shared public space. This contributes to the poor communication in Cheetham Hill.

It could be proposed that reinvesting in these forms of public facility, and the rejuvination of public spaces would overcome issues in the area. A community engaged design process, linked in with a rigorous approach to design, could be used to redesign a more communicative Cheetham Hill.

Above: The people of Piccadilly Gardens Top Left: Drawing of Piccadilly Gardens

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NEIGHBOURHOOD SPACES

Top: Finding from Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab Middle: Proposed open air libary Below: Proposed open air theatre MSA Prints

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ART & SPATIAL OWNERSHIP Legal and illegal displays in public spaces

by Alexander Watts

Top: Alte Fleischfabrik Bottom: Rijksmuseum On Opposite Page: The display of sketches at the end of an Urban Sketching session

A large number of cities worldwide host large scale art galleries as major cultural institutions. In Manchester there is the Manchester City Art Gallery and Whitworth Gallery, in London there are the Tate Britain and Tate Modern and in Amsterdam there are three art galleries in one museum district alone, including the recently renovated Rijksmuseum.

These collections of artworks, old or new, form the backbone to an international tourist industry, and host some of the most well-known paintings in popular consciousness.

Alongside these grand displays of art, there are frequently an array of smallscale galleries which can be found within cities, often focusing far more upon local art exhibitions. Sometimes these small galleries can find themselves possessing more popular artworks.

Recently, a Detroit-based gallery claimed a section of wall hosting a piece by renowned street-artist Banksy.

The Bristol-born artist, whose true identity is still unknown, has recently been finding his artworks displayed and even sold from art galleries. Given the transgressive nature of graffiti and street-art, more recent acceptance of the street-art movement’s figureheads by art galleries displays a meeting between two different levels of gallery and public art.

The question of ‘what is art?’ is something which is hard to answer, and even when focusing just upon the visual arts, the different levels of acceptance in public displays and public spaces vary greatly. Whilst paintings are often the most accepted form of art in major institutions, this is not the only way in which visual art is displayed.

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The Rijksmuseum, closed between late-2003 and early-2013 for intense refurbishment, is in the top 100 most visited galleries in the world. Featuring popular artworks such as Rembrandt’s Nightwatch, it draws great crowds of tourists nationally and internationally.

Whilst open to the public, it is by no means a public space for displaying art.

The gallery security is intensive, with a need for bags to be removed and stored before entry and constant surveillance by security guards. Photography of displays is viewed with a degree of concern, with security guards wary of over use of photography in many spaces. Public only in the sense that the general public are capable of entering the building at a price, the gallery is heavily curated, and focuses far more on classic paintings than elements of public expression.

On the opposite end of the ‘gallery’ scale would be the transient displays of illegal public expression in graffiti and street art. Self-curated (or curated to some extent by the police) street art and graffiti can vary between more lavish and colourful artworks right through to the gang-related nature of ‘tagging’. The varying styles of graffiti and street-art do share some things in common though. Even when hidden in back-alleys these examples of transgressive expression are very public in nature. They provide an example of the public claiming a territory in the city as their own and utilising it for expression, counter to any concerns of legality. Many of these larger collections of graffiti-covered spaces almost function as galleries in their own right. Banksy artworks on walls can rouse great interest from people MSA Prints

previously uninterested in a space, and some people have even covered the artworks and charged the public to view the infamous artist’s wall-based work.

Whilst at opposing ends of legality and control of spaces, graffiti works and major institutional galleries do have a similarity in their distancing between author and viewer. The creator of an artwork will not be present in its display and the graffiti artist may operate under cover of night to adorn a wall with their, sometimes temporary, mark. Whilst the process of creation can be viewed in some instances, such as graffiti and street-art workshops and visits to famous artists’ studios, these

two galleries are often related mostly to the result of the artwork.

An interesting comparison to these is the temporary displays formed

by Urban Sketching groups. Urban Sketching is the act of an organised group of people, not necessarily with an artistic or creative background, temporarily inhabiting a public space, drawing what they wish within that space, and then finally regrouping to display their creations at the end of a session. Over the space of 2-3 hours, these groups claim a public space as a subject of artistic expression and proceed to express themselves on paper. The act of doing this has varying effects for different people,

sometimes it’s for practice, sometimes for therapeutic and relaxing effects and sometimes just for fun.

Whilst the process is important, the collection of images formed at the end of each session provides an example of a highly temporary gallery. Anyone can put their artwork in the collection, and members of the group may discuss with each other the way in which others created their work. After 10-15 minutes of displaying the work to the group or held-up for group photographs the gallery is gone. At each event the gallery is different, but each is a form of fully public expression in a claimed public space.

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Narrative design and public space

Spaces for public expression are a challenge to design, adding to public spaces a more personal narrative. A multitude of different factors need to be considered. As a highly personal subject, freedom of expression can range between very informal encounters to highly organised displays, and in public the narratives behind these vary.

As an early exercise for public art expression in particular, people were engaged through informal drawing events, titled ‘Free Draw’. Encouraging members of the public to draw onto pieces of paper on the street was an exercise in presenting the city in a different way, however, alongside comments during earlier ‘Free Chat’ sessions, it would spur on what would later become an ‘art commons’ project.

“The penetration of a building from one side to the other and from the bottom to the top expresses the capability of architecture to function as spatial narrative. Crossing a boundary that separates the inside from the outside is like entering into a fictitious world”

For the design of an art commons, where visitors can display their own artworks and receive public viewership, spatial requirements were formed out of a series of existing narratives and new narratives which could occupy spaces were proposed.

Sophia Psarra ‘Architecture & Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning’, 2009

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Architectural narratives are formed in spaces navigated over time and through the meanings that these convey. Scene orders in buildings provide a structure for the ways in which individual people are capable of interpreting spaces and adding to them their own meaning.

PRINTS

The brief was formed out of criteria from existing gallery spaces. Looking at existing galleries; permanent and temporary, formal and transgressive, a brief was compiled. The creation of public spaces will often involve designing for multiple users. Where producing spaces for a smaller number of specific groups may lend itself well to questionnaires to find out information about users, what of situations where the user groups may be a bit more open to interpretation?

The project aimed to include appropriate spaces for a variety of existing creative groups, and so efforts were made to gather information on requirements for these users. Whilst textual and descriptive information could be found

for many of these groups, such as in web logs, articles and promotional materials, a different and more direct approach was taken. Over the course of a few months selected creative groups were engaged with by acting out their activities alongside them.

Through interactions with groups such as life-drawing groups, Manchester Urban Sketching and through attendance at other less frequent events such as Dr. Sketchy sessions, I was able to experience the activities as an actor in a narrative as opposed to an outsider looking into a group. By their very personal nature, a narrative in a space is formed not only through the arrangement of spaces in a building, but also through the interactions and mental

spaces formed by these. By acting out the actions of each group, by becoming a participant and not just a spectator, I was able to engage on a different level to that of handing out audits and questionnaires. More casual interactions, unburdened with more specific agendas revealed small details which could highlight otherwise unnoticed requirements for spaces, such as the tendency for both Dr. Sketchy sessions and Urban Sketching sessions to On Opposite Page: Photographs from the Free Draw event in November 2013 Below: Photographs taken at meetings with creative groups such as Culture Club, Dr Sketchy, and Manchester Urban Sketching.

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end with the sharing and discussion of produced works and the photography of these pieces.

specific user group, including both actively involved parties and those who may seek to ignore the space entirely.

Rather than using hard data, collage was used as a key tool for depicting the narratives of users of the proposed spaces. Taking images from events, existing galleries and photographs of spatial and aesthetic interest, a series of visual narratives were produced. Each string of narratives was dedicated to a

Creating these collages for the characters began to show links between different narratives which may then be overlaid and matched with other corresponding actor spaces. This process is an on-going one, and actors have been added or altered as appropriate as further interactions and events influence

Above: Nine of the drawn out narratives for proposed ‘characters’ of the art commons facility.

Opposite Page: The narrative collages for all the different proposed user groups were combined on the site plan. Key spaces shared by different users were matched up, and darker areas indicated spaces which had a great density of activity and may require more rigid structures compared to other more fluid areas of activity.

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the requirements for each narrative.

Overlaying of these narratives began to reveal where certain spatial requirements overlapped. Additionally, densities of people, activities and needs for fixed or more temporary spaces would become clearer as interwoven narrative strands were arranged together on site.

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ART & SPATIAL OWNERSHIP

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GATED PUBLIC SPACES

by Michelle Lim Crime, violence, and undesirable social groups in the last decade have justified the need for a more privatised, enclosed and monitored public space. Security has always been a part of building, evolving from doors to locked doors to locked windows, gates and fences, double-locked doors, alarms systems and CCTV. The experience of fear has never been absent from humanity, and town planning has always postulated on the need for protection from danger.

However, the last decade has seen a new evolution of security-conscious environments, boosted by the climate surrounding ‘War on Terror’ and London bombings in 2005. Public space, one of the crucial elements of cities for centuries, has become the focus of broad concern over the last two decades. Fortification, which was once the subject for property and privately owned space, is a theme encroaching into the management and design of public spaces.

The events of 9/11 show the potential of architecture to become a symbol, and therefore a target for crime and terrorism. Public spaces are supposed to represent the democratic and liberated society. Just as it was for iconic buildings, it is precisely because of the image it represents that public spaces are vulnerable to various threats and fear of crime, which necessitates fortification of public spaces in the United Kingdom. Open plazas and buildings which are now perceived as liabilities have become fortified with concrete barriers, private guards and police surveillance. Even in the face 22

of declining crime rates, the fear of terror has justified rigid control in urban spaces, especially those which are socially diverse.

streets, pavements and buildings. More and more places are becoming secured sanctuaries, detached and edited from the flows of open accessibility.

The template for British towns today is to create not only a safe environment, but one that is profitable. Thousands of British public buildings, streets and public spaces have been unknowingly removed from the public realm, and sold off to private corporations.

Encouragement from the government has allowed privatization of large parts of cities. Maintenance of public spaces became a burden to the government and the solution is to create proprietorship and ownership of these spaces, to sell these spaces to private corporations who are more well equipped financially to hire cleaners and security guards. Privatisation has become a consequence of defensible public space.

The trends for securing public space have formed ambiguity between the realms of public and private and is something that planners, designers and architects have to deal with in order to address the urbanscape of cities. There is a challenge for local authorities, planners, architects to take people into consideration to ensure a balance between society’s needs and interest s as well as genuine civic functions in public spaces. Ultimately, the question should be asked whether a city is a celebration of differences or an arena where difference is to be feared, and whether it is possible to reconcile the se conflicting images of the city.

Crime and safety has justified the need for fortification, and the exclusion of undesirable groups of people has undermined the notion of ‘public’ space. By infringing rights, access and activities, these pockets of democratic space within a city no longer allow for chance and spontaneity, diminishing public life and public culture.

Since terrorists struck London’s underground system in 2005, CCTV networks have greatly facilitated efforts in tracking the perpetrators, but only after the crime has taken place. Driven by militarisation of spaces, urban aesthetics of setbacks and bollards changes the relationship between

On Opposite Page: Public notice by Paternoster square, London.

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WHERE IS OUR OPEN CITY?

by Amaobi Ike

The conditions of our urban environment are changing. As more and more of the global population are living in cities, there is an increasing pressure to generate vast economic capital to support the urban infrastructure and public facilities. As a result, urban spaces within cities are hotly contested, with lucrative space being privatised and developed into retail or residential complexes. The little leeway that is given for the public art and design industries are almost as privatised and monopolised. Many arts and entertainment complexes are publicised as ‘for all’ and ‘public’ and yet are revealed to be tightly controlled and regulated.

So this brings to light the question of where is our open space? In this article, we will be looking at the true definition of open events and spaces, the types that exist and a final thought, on what does it mean to have a Open city?

Above: Who owns space? Article cover. www.mascontext.com

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The concept of open suggests having no restrains or control. A good example of this is in the concept of Liquid modernity as described by Polish Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.

In Liquid Modernity, a philosophical book that explores the perception of being in the world as a new evolution, forming a new kind of human being, the liquid man, living a liquid flexible life. The opening chapter explains the concept of ‘solid’ and ‘liquid’. ‘Solid’ is a static form, it remains permanent in time and in space. ‘Liquid’ however is flexible, light and able to travel through space freely with no constraint in time.

Open has no constraint of time, such spaces and events are flexible, and incorporate a wide array of outside influence. It is ownership for all.

Additionally, an event or space is the occurrence or construct which draws

of about nearly 50 people dancing along, creating their own space within a space, open for more people to join. An example of how one can take creative ownership even within a controlled paid space.

The Situationist International was a movement that advocated the relationship of human and space through urban wanderings. Urban wanderings encouraged us to relinquish our preconceptions of the city and deviate from our existing routes. Instead, we should explore our city, its hidden spaces and occurrences that give a richer identity to the city and its inhabitants. A popular method of output from these wanderings was a psychogeographical map, one that illustrates an alternative construct of the city that is open and free to wander and seek these hidden

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” - Toni morrison, beloved influence and context. Therefore open spaces are what generates an expressive and creative public ownership; everyone’s and yet no one’s.

Everywhere and yet localised.

Here is a flavour of some past open events. At the Sasquatch Music Festival in 2009, across the sweeping natural sprawl of the Gorge Ampitheatre, one man broke out into a dance. As he was dancing energetically to the concert music, another member of the audience joined him; there were two guys dancing profusely whilst some of the surrounding crowds began to take interest. Suddenly more and more people started joining, creating a scene

spaces. This example of a open event demonstrates the relationship between creative ownership of the city and our psyche, the more we own, the more imaginative and explorative we could potentially make our cities. Combining the two examples above would be the concept of pop-up cinemas. Pop-up cinemas are considerably more open compared to regular cinemas, they encourage people of the city to join, to explore and imagine through the medium of film. But, best of all, they retains a creative ownership because they continuously pop up in different contexts.

An example of this would be the Cannes in a Van. Dubbed ‘the four wheel film festival’, the yellow van each year drives to the Cannes film festival MSA Prints

parking up by the red carpet, it throws open its doors and people are invited to watch films from the van.

These examples show the powerful potential of open creativity that can exist in all of our cities. As the urban

population increases, what is needed, alongside the residential developments and seemingly closed off entertainment complexes, are creative attempts from designers, architects, artists and more, to reconnect the feeling, sights, smells and multiple identities of cities back to the human scale. Without that connection, instead of coexistence, all that remains is indifference. For the last three centuries, people have

“For power to be free to flow, the world must be free of fences, barriers, fortified borders and checkpoints. ” - Zygmunt Bauman explored the realm of the imaginary and narrative through film. Films have brought to light the context of our surroundings, multi-faceted characterisations of human nature, and glimpses into distant pasts and futures, and also a reinterpretation of society through the fantastical.

Project: City as a cinema

Film has the capacity to inspire and educate, to bring a whole new perspective to our surroundings.

Cinema acts as a vessel for films, a construct with which a film can be enhanced. Initial forms of cinema started in the 1890’s. A film was considered an open travelling exhibition that would be displayed on a temporary storefront to be viewed in passing.

Typically, many of these early cinemas would display a scene or comedy that was rooted in reality; often creating an alternative take on the reality of our lives. The freedom and flexibility that cinemas have enjoyed in the past has diminished in our modern era. The spectacle of cinema has transformed from a open event into a closed private event.

Today,

the

majority

of

modern

Above: Insight into the rigidtiy and control of multiplexes. www.amccinemas.co.uk Opposite: Cannes in a Van advert with the event in the background. www.cannesinavan.com

“Audio-visual entertainment and what we know as cinema – moving pictures conceived by individuals – appear to be headed in different directions.” - Martin Scorcese cinemas are vast multiplexes. Many of these multiplexes are tied to the commercial environment; shopping centres, entertainment districts, even casinos. It seems that our cinema of the modern age is as far removed from the city itself as the divisive spaces and privatisation of public spaces.

Additionally, the method of watching films has transformed. The relationship between film and architecture has separated, whilst the advancement of technology has brought alternative accessible ways to watch film. For example Netflix offers a substantial

library of films to be enjoyed from the comfort of home. Illegal downloads also enjoy a cut of the film pie.

In short, the communal origin of cinema is removed from our cities.

What exists is the temporality of pop up cinemas, but it does not withhold the strong identity and communal engagement that a cinema could potentially bring to surface within the context of the city. Following the research into the history of cinema, the studio project for the year intended to explore and address the relationship between cinema and the city.

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The aim was to design a cinema that challenges the notion of current secular multiplexes and is ‘open’ in program, space and visual for the community to experience.A cinema of the city.

The site for the cinema of the city is located within a series of viaducts running between Princess Street and Sackville street. The viaducts are adjacent to a carpark, creating an interstitial path running in between.

Thus the design offers a path that guides the user through a series of

thought provoking experiences, as well as live cinema events such as secret cinema, that recreate scenes from films and in which the audience actually participate within the scene. These are examples of participation that have long since been removed from cinema.

MSA_Prints joined the LRM, Loiterers Resistance Movement in New Islington, Manchester for their monthly meet up and experiential walk. The aim was to go on a experiential journey along the

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Admittedly it took some getting used to, but it became truly fascinating to reinterpret the surroundings of New Islington into a personal narrative.

That mill chimney suddenly wasn’t a mill chimney. It was a sweeping, monolithic portal linking to a far distant future, the government had fenced off the portal as it was used for top secret explorations to engage with future humans.

The afternoon of wandering with Loiterers Resistance Movement enabled me to explore within my design, how imagination and wandering through spaces can be tool that empowers people with a creative ownership of the city. Not only did the wandering bring out a childlike wonder and imagination for all the participants, we were also living out our own film, in our own creative cinema.

Above: Concept of a viewing portal;

interstitial paths running in between.

Thus the design offers a path that guides the user through a series of cinematic spaces, experiencing cinema and taking ownership of their own perspective, what they want to engage with. Today there are existing groups that are attempting to bring the spectacle back into our cities and streets. Urban and situationist exploration has created playful and 26

canals, capturing the routes and hidden spaces that would not otherwise have been apparent. The theme for this months walk was ‘encounters’ the narrative was that we were aliens from a distant land who had crash landed on an Earth that appears desolate and uninhabited and were seeking a way to go back home via ‘portals’. We were warned that whilst wandering through the ‘route’ and finding portals we would come across memories of human existence, benches, doors, graffiti.

There was nothing to pay, no popcorn or student card to fish out for a discount, the pure spectacle of the imagination a spectacle of creative participation. In order to achieve this, the journey through the cinema will be experiential- not just visuals but sound and touch. For example in one of the viaducts, there may be a film projected onto the walls, floor and ceiling of the viaducts whilst the floor will be made up of vibration pads that respond to the film. Thus the spectator not only visualises the film but feels it too. So imagine if this could be expanded MSA Prints

WHERE IS OUR OPEN CITY? beyond the design and to the rest of the city? To other places wherein routes exist to serve the imagination and induce participation? Perhaps then, alongside the conventional forms of multiplex cinema and instantaneous viewing, we could also step out, take ownership through our imagination and enjoy the city as a cinema.

Opposite page: Concept perspectives of a viewing portal.

Above: Further collages of the existing alleyway intersecting through the open spaces.

Top Right: The Loiterers Resistance Movement.

Right: Examples of open cinematic events. www.whereisthenomad. com MSA Prints

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FREE SPACE

by Stephen Lovejoy

“Architects speak of designing spaces that satisfy human needs, but it is actually human needs that are being shaped to satisfy space” - Michael Truscello, ‘The Architecture of Information: Open Source Software and Tactical Poststructuralist Anarchism’

Spatial Control Designers and city officials could be seen as having one key characteristic in common – an inherent preference for control. Ambiguity and disorder are perceived as the enemy. This is particularly prevalent within the United Kingdom, with our deep seated love of legislation, regulation, risk assessments and closed-circuit cameras. This translates to cities of greater and more stringent urban control.

Since the recession, greater emphasis has been put on the perceived economic success of a city. The geographer Dr Tim Edensor describes the pressure put upon cities to ‘signify prosperity’ in order to ‘attract tourists, new middle-class inhabitants, investors and shoppers’, asserting that this pressure comes not merely from ‘planners, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs’ but is “embedded in a wider consciousness where it shapes articulations of the public good” .

Top: Signs on entrance to All Saints Park, Manchester Middle: Pedestrian crossing on Oxford Road, Manchester Bottom: A ‘Designated Smoking Area’ on the Manchester Metropolitan University All Saints Campus 28

In order to present a prosperous front, urban space must be kept clean and safe, free from any mess, chaos or clutter. The pressure of achieving this is leading local councils to relinquish increasing amounts of control over public space to private bodies and Business Improvement Districts. Cities are becoming increasingly zoned and segregated, with distinct areas for particular activities. CCTV cameras

have spread like parasitic growths, increasing in frequency and all too often linked to private security firms.

The space within the city is designed to allow passage of people, whether pedestrian or in vehicles, as smoothly and effortlessly as possible in routine movement without active thought.

Whilst the increasing levels of regulation and control are purportedly for our own good, presented as a parental style of protection, they have consequences regarding personal responsibility and critical engagement within the city.

“For many, meeting friends and peers in local public spaces constitutes a fundamental aspect of developing their sense of identity and control, as well as providing space in which to forge their independent capability to manage risk and danger” - Rowntree Foundation

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By making spaces smooth and seamless, free of disorder and conflict, people become detached, running on automatic. In Flesh and Stone the sociologist Richard Sennett describes how the abolishing of obstacles and resistance anaesthetizes us, dulling the body and our senses.

Hans Monderman was a Dutch traffic engineer who experimented with the removal of barriers, railings, kerbs, and traffic lights that separated pedestrians from vehicles. He found that the removal of signage and physical barriers actually decreased the amount of traffic incidents, as people were forced to weigh up and assess the situation they were in and ultimately take responsibility for their own actions. Furthermore, it forced people to undertake small interactions with strangers, judging body language and exchanging signals in order to negotiate micro-conflicts.

These small-scale social interplays are often overlooked, but could be considered to play an important role within cities.

them. More security measures actually increase fear. People no longer feel responsible for ensuring their own safety within cities.

On the whole, excessive spatial control neuters citizens, erodes our curiosity and reduces our ability to relate to others. We are turned into docile creatures without a sense of ownership of our cities or a sense of entitlement to intervene within our own environments, other than by following dominant social scripts. Individuals are discouraged from feeling a sense of ownership over the spaces that they inhabit, and feeling that they have a say over the creation and design of the city.

‘A city isn’t just a place to live, to shop, to go out and have kids play. It’s a place that implicates how one derives one’s ethics, how one develops a sense of justice, how one learns to talk with and learn from people who are unlike oneself, which is how a human being becomes human’ - Richard Sennett, ‘The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life’

Below: A speed camera on Oxford Road, Manchester

By forcing us to resolve microconflicts, disorder and chaos actually encourages us to engage more with each other and with the city. When we socialise we tend to seek out those who are like ourselves, who share our interests. But as stated by Sennett, it is through interacting with those who are unlike ourselves that we learn and understand about others. A removal of this interaction could be seen as leading to increased intolerance and xenophobia, as we fear that which we do not understand. Furthermore increased security measures are addictive and people come to rely on MSA Prints

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Above: Map from Heart of Manchester BID Proposal showing the area included in the District

Manchester In the wake of every instance of chaos or destruction within Manchester, the gut instinct appears to be that of relinquishing greater levels of control over the city into private hands.

After the bombing of the Arndale shopping centre by the IRA in 1996, the management of Manchester city centre was predominately given over to CityCo, a newly founded membership organisation with the aim of improving the economic performance of the city.

Large swathes of public space and buildings were sold into private hands.

Piccadilly Gardens, the main green space in the heart of Manchester, was 30

reduced in size with the construction in 2003 of Piccadilly One and a privately owned concrete pavilion designed by Tadao Ando. The latter was recently voted the most hated building in Manchester.

The most recent manifestation of chaos within Manchester occurred in August 2011, as hundreds of rioters took to the streets of the city, resulting in looting and arson within retail units in the centre. The response from CityCo was twofold – the introduction of a Civil Exclusion Scheme, banning all any individuals

convicted of a civic order offence from the city centre for two years, and a proposal to introduce the ‘Heart of Manchester’ Business Improvement District. The instigation of a Business Improvement District (BID) involves the demarking of a distinct area, within which all the retail units must pay a levy to a central governing body. The central governing body then uses the money to manage the area. In the Heart of Manchester BID the body is composed of an elected chair and ten board members from retailers inside the area, two of which from business with a rateable value of, or above MSA Prints

“The BID is about generating even more reasons to visit the city centre. You will decide how we attract more spending shoppers, making sure BID activities fit with your own, and bringing about the best rate of return for your business.”

- Heart of Manchester BID Business Plan

£900,000. Representatives from the city council, transport authorities and local businesses sit on the board, but do not have any voting rights. The BID was launched in November 2012 after a successful legal ballot, with 78 votes in favour, 58 opposed and 244 ballots not returned.

The primary aim as outlined in the business plan for the BID is the increase of profits for the retailers within the centre. All other objectives, such as making the city centre safer, cleaner and a more pleasant environment for the people who use it, are presented as necessary objectives in order to achieve this primary aim of raising the bottomline. Journalist Anna Minton highlights that BIDs are based on the theory of a ‘trickle-down economy’, that increasing wealth in one area causes it to filter down into surrounding areas.

However, Minton highlights that there is no evidence to support such a theory .

The Heart of Manchester BID uses a series of different tactics in order to increase the basket-spend within the city:

City Hosts Individuals employed to act as the ‘friendly face of the city’, guiding and directing visitors and shoppers. The hosts are equipped with devices linking them to the stores are able to inform shoppers of the latest offers.

The role of the hosts is not just limited to directing visitors however, they also monitor footfall and log the interactions they have with visitors, feeding the information back into the BID’s consumer intelligence.

The hosts also regularly patrol the area of the BID, reporting any unwanted activity.

Surveillance There are a total of 281 cameras across Manchester city centre . Contrary to common opinion, the majority of these cameras are not linked up to the police and instead connected to the control room of the Business Crime Reduction Partnership, which acts as the security arm of CityCo .

Despite the extensive use of CCTV across the UK, there is no evidence that successfully supports the idea that it reduces crime.

MiGuide Boards A ‘world leading’ network of interactive touch screens, purportedly to give ‘residents and visitors a wealth of wayfinding information at their fingertips’ . In reality, the screens operate predominately as large advertising boards, with the city information located on the less obvious sides of the boards and predominately relating to the location of shops in the centre.

Street Cleaning £20,000 has been invested in a chewing gum removal machine.

CityCo oversees a £75,000 street washing programme.

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Effects of BID The large amount of effort put in to cleaning and maintaining certain spaces within the BID leads to a stark contrast between different spatial environments. With a focus on increasing the desirability of entering the shopping area within the stores, design of retail units involves an emphasis on the catchment space or ‘front of store’. This invariably invokes a neglect of the service spaces at the back of the store, often used for delivery of products and rubbish removal. With a lot of attention put upon improving the aesthetic qualities within the BID, there also develops a contrast between these areas within the BID and those outside, with the spaces within the BID receiving preferential treatment.

Along the boundary of the district

marked by the BID, there can be found a large number of homeless individuals begging in quiet areas with markedly low pedestrian traffic. According to these individuals, whenever they attempt to sit or beg on the main pedestrian routes within the BID they are promptly moved on by security officials and Police Community Support Officers, leaving them no choice b to occupy the areas outside the BID or the overlooked interstitial sites within the district. There are also a large number of vacant buildings around the age of the BID, which could be seen to question this notion of a ‘trickle-down’ economy.

The geographer Kevin Ward is a local expert on Business Improvement Districts. He is keen to emphasise that BIDs are just one system in a number of organisations that reflect the fragmented nature of governing public space. He asserts that certain people are always excluded or marginalised from space due to dominant social scripts, and that instead the primary

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effect of the Heart of Manchester Business Improvement District was the rewriting of public space ‘in the name of a particular form of capital accumulation’.

“It reduces certain forms of activity to a monetised relationship... forms of use of public space, public activity where it’s not always going to be about raising the bottom line, which for businesses is always the priority.”

- Kevin Ward Above: Map of Heart of Manchester BID. The markers display the locations of individuals begging observed over a 2-day period Left Top: An individual begging in an area of low pedestrian traffic Left Bottom: Two rough sleepers being moved on from Market Street by Community Support Officers MSA Prints

FREE SPACE Spatial Interventions The series of architectural interventions that form ‘Free Space’ act as a direct challenge to the singularisation of function within the city centre of Manchester to only that which will increase capital accumulation for the retail units.

These structures celebrate activity which is recorded as being vital to wellbeing, but which evoke no capital gain, such as mindfulness, play and expression.

Most architectural projects are designed with the mindset of final ‘finished’ product. This then allows the architectural production to be packaged and incorporated into the capital market. In contrast, these interventions evolve and change over time, with new elements added and removed.

In the case of MindFree, that of active mindfulness. These interventions transform neglected interstitial sites present within the BID, revealing the potential of these spaces and allowing them to encroach upon the areas dominated by these scripts of consumerism and capital gain.

Right: ‘MindFree’ is an intervention that exists in Barnes Street an alleyway off of Market Street, the main shopping street of Manchester. The design focuses around encouraging passers-by to stop and reflect.

A central spiralling raincatcher collects rain from the rooves of the adjacent buildings and channels it into a full stream that falls in the heart of the alleyway.

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TRAVEL Across the world there are a wide variety of differing attitudes to the use of public space. Different political systems and alternative laws will greatly influence the way in which people are able to use their space.

Interventions from groups, tourism and funding have created spaces which have a new attitude to public territory and the way in which people can claim elements of ‘public’ space.

BERLIN, GERMANY

NEW YORK, NY, USA

HAVANA, CUBA

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Havana, Cuba

New York, NY, USA

Berlin, Germany

Throughout urban Cuba, one of the most popular informal gathering places is the Coppelia. This tropical park features lush ground cover, a canopy of towering banyon trees that shade open air dining areas, and intricately designed paths that lead to a large, elevated, circular pavilion with indoor seating. Although it is a small urban place, Parque Coppelia conveys in microcosm two major public space traditions in contemporary Cuba.

Public space in the urban Cuba, is better maintained than private space.

Public spaces are better endowed in term of both financial and emotional commitments compared to the private sector that cater to individual concerns.

Parque Coppelia, illustrate the desire to bring order both the landscape and human behaviour.

If one were to pause for one second and freeze everything around you in New York City, it would show people going their separate ways with disparate intentions. NYC is a city that embraces and accommodates these variety of intentions.

Berlin is considered to be a cultural centre for many forms of media.

Whilst not just limited to the visual arts, the street-art culture of Berlin is very prominent in many districts of the city.

Across the city’s many s-Bahn railway arches are some of the more colourful examples of street-art and graffiti, however it is some of less transgressive spaces which can be of more interest when looking at public spaces. Detailed in an Alternative Berlin Tour session dedicated to examples of street art a few key spaces were viewed. Outside of the Otto Weidt museum is free-graffiti wall where the street-art is legal. Whilst lacking in the transgressive thrill which graffiti is applied elsewhere, particularly in more challenging to reach spaces, the space is visually rich and representative of creativity of the public. The Alte Fleischfabrik, an abandoned meat factory, on the outskirts of the main city centre also portrays another angle of the street-art culture. Rented out by a select few artists, the rundown building now hosts the finale to a 4 hour street-art tour, and also features a gradually progressing series of spraypainted artworks across one floor.

The space is owned by the artists and enables the freedom to both practice and teach methods of spray painting within legal means.

Who own the streets? Streets are vital in connecting people place to place. As public spaces go, streets can be seen as potentially dangerous, often due to risk of crime or accident. Havana has some of the liveliest streets. People use the streets as part of their everyday lives rather than just for transportation.

Children use them to play games with friends, adults chat to others and taxi drivers play chess. The amount of healthy social and physical activity in the streets with kids is extensive.

The drivers know that the streets are occupied by many people and they respect the users of the streets by slowing their vehicles. They engage with people, but do not dominate it.

There is a lot that can be learnt from Havana’s streets. The streets in many other cities are places solely for retail or transportation, rather than rich social hubs.

Yet, there appears to be a disparity between the individual consciousness and ownership of space. There have been successful attempts to create a democratic space such as Central park; envisioned as a natural, interstitial communal paradise; embedded within the fast flowing urban sprawl of the island. Besides Central Park, New York did not have infrastructure that was able to combine the urbanism of New York with the individuality of its inhabitants. That is until a proposal for a new elevated urban parkway was introduced in 2004, the High Line.

The High Line is an example of how a creative appropriation can open up sections of the city, giving people the opportunity to expand their perspective of what the city is. Amongst these include a urban theatre which consists of a large viewing window that frames a busy road cutting underneath the elevated park, and provides seating for participants to gaze out. The High Line has gone on to inspire similar projects around the city that attempt to bring spatial ownership back to the public. An example of this is the LowLine project. Located in the Lower East Side, the Lowline is a proposed subterranean urban park within the depths of the Williamsburg Trolley Terminal space. Projects such as the Highline and Lowline may mark the beginning of a successful inclusion of open and creative public networks across other cities.

Berlin, Germany: Free graffiti wall outside the ottweidt museum.

Havana, Cuba : Parque Coppella NYC, New York : The Highline

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PUBLIC, PRIVATE OR COMMONS?

By Stephen Lovejoy

On the 2nd April, the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) hosted a discussion on the distinction between Public, Private and the Commons.

Speaking in the discussion were: Dr Mick Byrne and Dr Patrick Bresnihan, the Provisional University, Dublin.

Activist researchers that are engaged with the establishment of autonomonous independentlymanaged spaces in Dublin

The commons are resources that with a shared set of keys available for are collectively owned by a group or anybody keen to arrange a gathering community. Byrne and Bresnihan or social event of any sort, Exchange posited the argument that the Dublin - an alcohol-free social space existence of commons exposes the for all ages, run on a completely nonarbitrary relationship between public hierarchical basis with all decisions and private space. regarding the use “A non-territorial nonDue to the nature of of the space made demographic community the state to act in the during weekly interest of capital [Exchange Dublin] received meetings and an asbo because they let in accumulation, Granby Park - a public space is people who would otherwise volunteer run popbe excluded” subject to the same up park, created to forces they dictate transform a vacant private space. They lot. position commons as spaces that exist outside of capitalism.

Of the three examples given, both Superfast and Exchange Dublin have The Provisional University shared been shut down due to complaints their research into the urban from residents and businesses commons present within Dublin. in the proximity of the spaces.

They displayed a series of self- Often the high level of inclusivity managed non-commercial spaces, present within the spaces would including Superfast - an empty unit attract people that the residents and

Orsalia Dimitriou, a Greek architect and PHD student at Goldsmiths College, London.

Following research into the disputes surrounding the management and use of public space in a particular area of Athens, Dimitriou produced the film ‘Avaton (Sanctuary)’.

Above: Exchange Dublin. Weekly all-inclusive meetings were held at the venue at which all decisions regarding the use and management of the space were made.

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businesses were not keen to have in the area. Communications between Dublin council and the spaces were fraught with difficulty due to the council struggling with the lack of hierarchy present within the spaces.

Byrne and Bresnihan emphasised that these examples demonstrated that the public institutions were still significantly more powerful than the commons, and highlighted that greater levels of organisation were needed for commons to be successful.

Orsalia Dimitrou shared her investigations into the existence of commons within Athens. She highlighted that in Athens it is possible for hierarchically statemanaged public space to coexist with horizontally local-managed commons, but explored the frictions that occur at such amalgamation.

Exarcheia is an area in Athens that has gained notoriety for the various social frictions present and frequent clashes between rioters and police.

One of the public spaces in the area was bulldozed by the council to enable the construction of an underground parking lot, but was promptly occupied by a mixture of activists and local residents. There are various competing groups that lay claim to the space, including drug dealers and alternative political groups, and conversations about the use of the space have been fraught with frictions due to these competing groups.

The talks were followed by a debate regarding the issues surrounding the commons. The speakers expanded on

Above: Central Square, Exarcheia. As well as the main area public space in the district, the square is also as symbolic centre for many alternative political groups and serves as territory for local drug dealers.

“Capital and the commons are practices in tension. They exist differently together...

The commons exist in the shadow of the market. A space can have a life in the market and a life in the commons� the relationship and tension between capital and the commons, theorising that the commons can exist in the shadow of the market. The importance of the role of the commons in social reproduction was highlighted, and the political nature of the commons was expounded upon, highlighting the ideological commitment within the commons to openness. The example of Exchange Dublin given by the Provisional University showed how a non-territorial and non-demographic community could be punished by the state for their high-level of openness, as they received an anti-social behaviour order and were shut down due to the behaviour of members of the community that had been allowed

into the space that would otherwise be excluded from such social areas.

On the whole, the commons were presented as playing an important role within urban space due to their ability to operate outside of the traditional constraints of the market and satisfy certain social needs of local communities. However emphasis was placed on the highly difficult nature of their existence due to the lack of responsibility and organisation often present within collectively owned spaces.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH MORAG ROSE

SL: How and when did you find out about the plans from the council to block up Library Walk?

MR: I think it was around 2002. We knew there were some plans looming.

SL: How did you find out originally?

by Stephen Lovejoy Manchester Council is undertaking plans to construct a glazed walkway linking the newly-reopened Central Library to the Town Hall. The plans involve the gating of Library Walk, a curved passageway that runs between the two buildings.

Morag Rose is the spokeperson for ‘Friends of Library Walk’, a campaign group dedicated to opposing the plans to blockup the passage. Morag is a Community Development Officer and founder of the Loiterers Resistance Movement, a group of pyschogeographers We spoke to her regarding the proposed plans for Library Walk and the issues surrounding the present lack of involvement of communities in decisions regarding public space 38

in the planning process, is one of the things that the campaign now can highlight and will learn from it and pass on to other groups, because if we hadn’t been so vigilant and leapt on it so quickly, we wouldn’t have been able to complain in such a coordinated way anyway.

MR: Originally, well the idea that SL: What were the reasons given by something was going to happen the council for blocking the walk? there had been on the grapevine for What was their argument? a while. People who were involved in the council had said there were plans. MR: There were several. The first one But we knew that none of the St. was that it was necessary to enable Peter’s Square consultations included all the flow between the library and it and various people I know went to the council. We always knew that was those consultations partly to find out spurious and I think that’s evident about the space and now because the it wasn’t included. library’s open and “how difficult it was to When the planning it isn’t needed. engage in the planning permission was They had some process, is one of the things finally sought for it hilarious pretend that the campaign now can journeys that you was when it became highlight” public knowledge. might need to We didn’t know make. Hypothetical before that, and I think that was one journeys about if you’re going from of the problems really, we had to the sixth floor of the council to do act really quickly. But it wasn’t very this and then you need to go there fair, it should have been included. to the library it would save you three You had that bizarre thing where the minutes. I’m paraphrasing, but it was hoardings advertising the new library like that. They also said, and this was showed the space as it was. None of the one that really angered me, that them included it. Which may have the space was dangerous and unloved been a cock-up, or may have been… and nobody used it. And they kind of cast dispersions on anyone who SL: Deliberate? might do, that there was something quite dodgy about anyone that might MR: I wouldn’t want to say. I’d like want to walk around Manchester at to be generous and think that it was night, which was weird because of added on, but there’s all kind of the 24-hour city rhetoric that they use questions about ‘why?’ that became everywhere else. It’s quite strange that permanent. And I think that process they said well what business have you actually, how difficult it was to engage got walking around here at two MSA Prints

o’clock in the morning, there was some kind of idea that that was a bad thing to do. And the safety stuff – they said it was dangerous because there was an assault there, which there was and which is clearly terrible. But statistically, compared to other bits of town is a ridiculous reaction. And equally, they’re kind of obsessed with people pissing in the street; it’s been used as a toilet loads. But again, if you wander around town, I’d suggest that lots of the Northern Quarter is much worse or down by the canal. It’s a problem. But that’s a problem around public conveniences and attitudes rather than anything attributed to the space.

SL: Have there been any alterations to the plans following the public opposition?

MR: Not as far as I’m aware. It’s occurred to me that one of the arguments they’ve never really made is how amazingly beautiful it is.

There have been few points about it. There was one point when they were talking about the gates being Peterloo memorial gates, but they did back down on that, which was a very small concession. The Peterloo memorial campaign are very focused, which is why they’re successful, and they campaigned against those gates being a memorial because it would be distasteful. So that was changed, but I don’t think anything else really. It is possible that the opening hours are a bit longer but I don’t know because we don’t know what they planned to begin with.

Above: Artist’s impression of the proposed glazed link for Library Walk http://friendsoflibrarywalk.wordpress.com

“If you are able to see the street as somewhere that you feel connected to, then you feel more a sense of belonging, more of a sense of ownership or engagement in where you live.”

SL: It raises a lot of questions over the very nature of ‘public space’. What is interesting is the lack of clarity to that definition. How would you define ‘public space’?

MR: Oh gosh, that’s a really difficult question. It’s the kind of thing I think about far too much actually. For me, public space should be where people can gather and cross-pollinate ideas.

I’m particularly interested in streets as a site for that. I know there’s an issue over whether a street is a public space. I’m more interested in them than public squares and things like that. I think public space should be somewhere people are able to

exercise their own free will, subject to not harming others.

SL: Why is it that streets interest you so much more than squares and parks?

MR: I’ve always been very interested in the everyday - the taken-forgranted things. I am interested in parks and those spaces as well. But I guess it comes to that Situationist idea where if you can integrate things into everyday life then things are much more fulfilling. If you are able to see the street as somewhere that you feel connected to, then you feel more a sense of belonging, more of a sense MSA Prints

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of ownership or engagement in where you live. And I think that probably adds to happiness. It may not be true for everyone, but I suspect, if you are engaged with the place, and say you know your neighbours and they’re not scary, you’re much more likely to not be scared of them or to not feel like harming then or to not feel threatened. It is that combatting alienation really, and I feel that the street is a good place to do that.

Because we all use them and they’re quite democratic places in the way that it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how poor you are, you will probably need to use a street at some point. So I think they’re places where all kind of things can happen. The

Above: CCTV camera on the outside of the Arndale Centre, Manchester Below: ‘Dig Your City’ festival is a topdown urban gardening intiative funded by the Heart of Manchester BID 40

Jane Jacobs idea – ‘the ballet of the sidewalk’. Which is a bit naïve and a bit twee, but I think there’s a lot in it.

than, it’s a bit of a clumsy example, but domestic violence figures? It’s much more dangerous as a woman to be in your house than it is to be SL: It’s interesting that you mention in Library Walk. But we see budgets about safety and a sense of safety, for domestic violence projects getting because that’s often the argument absolutely cut. Really they could do a used for changes made in public lot more good by looking at domestic space. Do you think it really is about violence programmes or information increasing safety? and welfare advice and all of those things that are MR: No, it’s not. “it doesn’t matter how rich actually quite breadBecause there’s no you are or how poor you are, and-butter but really logic. I think it’s would you will probably need to use probably about increasing actually make a a street at some point. So I much bigger impact. fear, in some ways.

This sounds like a think they’re places where all strange thing, but kind of things can happen” SL: At present, do I’m really worried you feel that the about fear. It just residents of the feels like it increases. This is why city have much influence over what I’m so fascinated by CCTV cameras. happens or what changes are made to Because I think the evidence of public space? them actually stopping crime is very contested. The case for displacement MR: No. I wish they did. But I also is quite strong. Again, there’s still think that at a very micro level, yes issues of isolated times when a CCTV they can and they do. I think there camera really does make a difference. is a bit of a movement recently with But I think what it does do is that things like greening initiatives that are sense of constantly being watched. led by people, by residents that might I don’t know what effect that has on change a little bit. But I think there’s people in terms of suspiciousness. a really complicated dynamic between But I guess, to come back to the whose responsibility it is. But I Jacobs idea of the eyes on the street. do worry that because the state is I feel like a busy street feels safer to receding from everything people will me than a deserted one. But actually be taking responsibility for things like people are increasingly alienated cleaning up the streets, just because and staying in because they fear the there’s no-one else to do it, not streets. You get this vicious cycle necessarily because they want to do it. of fearfulness. I don’t think that’s And I think some of the gardening helpful. To come back to the statistics, projects, to be quite cynical, aren’t somewhere like Library Walk it isn’t necessarily sustainable because there’s statistically dangerous. But why money available for a particular thing. are we more scared of an alleyway There’s a real difference between MSA Prints

AN INTERVIEW WITH a genuine citizen-led initiative and something that’s top-down. I think that’s an interesting area that we can’t really see yet. The thing I really hate would be for everywhere in the city to be the same. I think homogeneity is really a bad idea. I think we need those different zones of the city and I hope that they don’t get smoothed out.

SL: Do you think that it’s possible to achieve a city where each person has a fairly equal say over management and design of public space?

MR: That’s interesting. I don’t know, actually. I guess my utopian vision would be, yes. But I’m sure in reality that’d be an absolute nightmare. I work in consultations with community groups sometimes and trying to get them to agree on reaching a consensus over one field is bad enough. When you’ve got a city where someone might live in one area and somebody might use it… yeah, good luck with that one. But I hope it’s doable. But I think we’d need some dramatically different models. And actually, not everyone wants to be involved. But the thing that bothers me about a lot of participation at the moment is it is about who’s articulate and who’s able to go to a meeting. So I’d really like a system that does enable anyone who’s interested to have a say. But how you weight those different opinions, I find it difficult to say. I guess I don’t know.

I really hope somebody cleverer than me can figure that out because it’d be great.

SL: Do you know of any successful

models that manage to meet the conflicting needs and desires of different groups successfully?

MR: That’s a good question. I live near Alexandra Park and there was a really big and quite angry and heated debate last year because they got some lottery development money. At one point there was a protest camp in the park. I was, quite surprisingly for me, kind of neutral on that one, because I could hear both sides. Even though it was my local park I felt incredibly disengaged by that, because I could see that the improvements were

“the thing that bothers me about a lot of participation at the moment is it is about who’s articulate and who’s able to go to a meeting.” quite good, and I could see that the lottery plans… it’s quite hard to get that amount of money. But I think what they council did really badly was communicate it to people, so it looked like people were rushing in. I think there were some bits of that plan that were bad. Not sure they’d necessarily thought about the ecosystem enough.

But if they’d made more of an effort to engage with residents and communicate I don’t think it would have gotten as nasty. I did have a lot of sympathy with the protestors because I could totally see why they were so angry. Because, from where they were, it looked really terrible and they weren’t told and it feels like it is your park and if you’re not told what’s going on…

SL: Do you feel that the level of involvement within the design process is more important than the actual design changes being made?

MR: I think yes it is, actually, certainly with the park. I think the park could have done with a bit of work to it.

To me, it wasn’t the most amazing park in Manchester by a long shot. So some work could be done. I wasn’t involved so it may be that actually that they did everything right. But it feels very often that people are alienated.

I think across Manchester there’s a very pervasive feeling that it is such a strong seat, the council have been in place for such a long time, that there is not a viable alternative. So people are incredibly disengaged by the planning process and don’t feel in any way that there any concessions or that they are listened to. There’s a definite lack of any sense of engagement in the process. Everyone’s very cynical and think ‘what’s the point because no-one listens’. I was at an event quite recently and I was chairing it and actually asked ‘does anyone have any good experiences of engagement?’ because everyone was moaning, but it’s really easy at a meeting to moan because you’re with people who agree with you. So I asked ‘please can I have some positive stories?’ And everyone laughed because no-one had one.

We’re all professionals and talk about the importance of this process, but nobody could actually think of a time when it was followed and I found that incredibly depressing.

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ENGAGE

101 WAYS TO CHANGE YOUR CITY

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Engagement with the Manchester residents to express themselves by drawing in the air with torches in order to explore how people feel in spaces.

Express Yourself

Flash(y) Mob

Engagement with the participant to strengthen the idea to develop the Rochdale Canal as an alternative means of transport and leisure in the city.

From initial conversations with local residents, Joe Knowles identified that residents’ love for the Northern Quarter lies in the ‘counter mainstream’ local aesthetic.

Joe picked a well-trafficked but underused site in the Northern Quarter and at night projected a film about the recent commercialisation to provoke reactions from passers-by. The film looped throughout the night and attracted the attention of revellers using local bars and restaurants.

Exploring the perception of crime within Old Moat and the communities’ attitude towards the ginnels.

Ginnel Games

Projected Video

These are 12 examples show the diversity and depth of projects undertaken by previous MSAp students. Each of these is relevant to the Territory publication in relation to addressing ownership of public spaces.

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I Heart Ardwick Green

An event called the ‘Urban Fireplace’ to explore how beat and rhythm can used to express feeling of place.

Promoting the event through local radio, Kim Medley created a platform for a day, where residents could vocalise their feelings about the decline of Oldham Town Hall to passers-by. By encouraging vocal opinion making in public, Kim was able to start a debate and discussion about the future of Oldham’s Town Hall.

Get on Your Soapbox

A number of installations around Adrwick as a tool to encourage conversation and awareness about local history.

Tib Street Poetry

Ardwick Green

Postcards Explore the potential of Wythenshawe to be regenerated. Participants designed their own postcards to reflect their view of the town.

Using films, photography and drawings to chart specific issues for residents of Ardwick Green

Ping Pong Piccadilly

Exploring how circus can increase interest in the city, by engaging the public through install moveable ping pong table in Piccadilly Gardens.

Site Plan of Love

Exploring public opinions within Piccadilly Gardens in order to build a clear image of public preferences on what was desirable in the city.

Paint Your City

Rachel Bourne installed a number of large canvasses to the walls of underused buildings in the Northern Quarter and asked passers by to paint in a colour which they felt expressed their mood and draw or paint of what they would like to see more of in the area. This task broke down the barrier with the public and encouraged them to talk about what they liked or preferred as well as giving them an opportunity to react to the ideas of others.

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THEORY OF PARTICIPATION

Debates on the role of the architect may often lead to discussions about the role of users and citizens into the design process and participation in general.

The levels of citizenship participation are explored in ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’ by Sherry Arnstein.

Arnstein has assessed the varying degrees of social participation and the systems that make them possible.

The titular ‘ladder’ arranges a hierarchy of forms of participation in terms of the true nature of their involvement. Starting at the bottom there is manipulation and the fully non-participatory levels of citizen involvement. Moving further up

there are more tokenistic levels of involvement where people are consulted but do not have much of an ability to sway decisions. Towards the top are the rungs of citizen power; where citizens are partnered with those in charge or, at the very top, are in full control of a given process.

Whilst the implication may be that systems involving the top rungs are to be most representative of the opinions of all citizens, this is not necessarily the case. Participation will truly reflect the opinions of those citizens immediately involved, and there will be those who are not involved who are unrepresented. Equally so, there are situations where the opinions of different citizens may conflict or may

Left: The ladder of participation from ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’

by Sherry Arnstein Opposite: Assemble studios project in New Addington www.assemblestudio.co.uk

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be openly contradictory to others.

This raises questions of how the role of the architect and the participation of citizens can be mediated to create properly ‘public’ space that embodies the needs of communities.

There are often instances of citizen involvement being utilised as a ‘boxticking’ exercise, offered with limited options alongside the design process.

This level of involvement is the more tokenistic kind, and may only involve the users of spaces in a way which does not truly consider their needs.

Ideas of engagement of the public in the design process are discussed in ‘Open Kitchen or Cookery Architecture’ by Doina Petrescu. It is suggested that one of the best ways to engage people is by performing events which operate on their level and understanding. The example used in ‘Open Kitchen’ is that of the design process as the titular kitchen; engaging with people in the context of the home in order to gain better insight.

The process was designed both bring the designers from their position and interact with people on the same plane.

Looking more towards involving levels of participation there are examples of architectural practices producing public spaces that engage with communities.

Assemble Studios’ New Addington developments utilised a multitude of public engagement events in order to assist in their design work. The value of the architect lies in their ability to MSA Prints

undertake the design process, rather as infallible designers. Interaction with public user groups allowed the New Addington development to refine designs according to community desires, whilst still retaining control of the overall process.

The New Economics Foundation’s state in their 5 Ways to Well-Being that ‘engaging’ and ‘taking notice’ are two ways in which people are able to

achieve well-being. Alongside the better tailored and more appropriate designs that may lead from engagement based design processes, the act of engaging itself may be beneficial to the users of these public spaces. Additionally, the process of communities working with designers on projects at various stages may also add to the conceived ownership of the public space.

beyond the design process. The needs of users change over time, and the suitability of structures will be altered as a result. Use and aftercare of facilities is part of the RIBA stages of work, and part of this falls into the client feedback and continued development of projects.

The need for engagement extends

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Manchester Institute of Research in Art and Design

ZEST

The Loiterers Resistance Movement

The Big Life Group

Manchester Urban Sketching Group

Prof. Kevin Ward

Dr. Sketchy Manchester

Friends of Library Walk

http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/ Righton Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester, M15 6BG miriad@mmu.ac.uk

Morag Rose http://nowhere-fest.blogspot.co.uk/ morangopop@gmail.com

Simone Ridyard http://www.urbansketchers-manchester. blogspot.co.uk/ urbansketchersmanchester@ outlook.com

Melissa Dowell http://www.drsketchy.com/ melissa@drsketchy.com

http://zestactivities.blogspot.co.uk/ Abraham Moss Centre, Crescent Road, Crumpsall, M8 5UF zest@manchester.gov.uk

1st Floor, 463 Stretford Road, Manchester M16 9AB 0161 848 2420

Arthur Lewis Building-1.057, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL kevin.ward@manchester.ac.uk

Morag Rose http://friendsoflibrarywalk.wordpress.com/ savelibrarywalk@gmail.com

Whitworth Young Contemporaries

Aoife Larkin https://www.facebook.com/pages/WhitworthYoung-Contemporaries/678978702184211

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MSA Prints

MSA Prints Editor in Chief Stephen Lovejoy

Associate Editor Konrad Koltun

Design Editors

Madeleine Mooney, Will Priest, Tuan Viet Pham, Tim Spiller, Amaobi Ike

Content Editors

Dammy Fasoranti, Adrian Coelho, Matthew Shanley, Alexander Watts, Emma Naylor

Communications Team

Maliha Ramiza Ramlan, Nawal Nabila, Michele Lim, Wan Syafiqah, Nedelcu Adelina, Archontia Manolakelli

TERRITORY Edition Contributors

Alexander Watts Amaobi Ike Stephen Lovejoy Wan Syafiqah

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES A special edition four-part series from the students of the MSAp atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture.

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MSA Prints

Assemble MSA Prints PRESENTS

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES PART 1

Excess * tHe cHeetHam Hill issue *

includinG an interview witH

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ann tHorpe

presents

Manufacturing coMMunities: Designing real Places Part 3

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN IN SINGAPORE

a wasted space

HOW PARTICIPATORY DESIGN WAS USED IN BIRLEY FIELDS

closed-loop permaculture

LECTURE FROM TORANGE KHONSARI

GloBalised consumerism

How do we address consumerism in modern society?

HOW DOES ARCHITECTURE GET PEOPLE INVOLVED? THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT

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COMMUNITY MEETING PLACE

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Grow your own

SUBOPTIMAL DESIGN MSA Prints

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Citizens * prioritizing the uSerS *

including an interview with

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louiS woodhead

preSentS

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tesco town-ed

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retHink

Housing+ * SPECIAL EDITION *

MSA Prints PRESENTS

Manufacturing coMMunitieS: deSigning real placeS part 4

StudentS lead the way on food criSiS

THE GAME

favela riSing HOUSING CRISIS engaging the hoMeleSS LIFESTYLE + GENDER

PUBLIC / PRIVATE Should the deSign proceSS begin with the uSerS?

the triage centre

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youth wrecKreation

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the coop

RE- APPROPRIATION

PRAXIS | HOUSING | COMMUNITY | EVERYDAY | PARTICIPATION MSA Prints

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MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES A five-part series from the students of the MSA_Projects atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture, the final part being a special Housing edition.