the Common Border

by fionn byrne, diana guo, jiahui huang

land measured by chains, but not all chains were created equal.

This design essay presents a work of speculative fiction, an alternative history: a survey team takes stock of open and common fields, common meadows, common grounds, heaths and wastelands surrounding a village. They survey existing buildings, paths and carriageways. The team brings their field books and chain. At sixty-six feet long, the chain subdivides into four rods or one hundred links. Ten square chains neatly equals an acre. The chain was the standard unit of measure used not only to survey England but also to map and organise land in the colonies, especially in North America.

We will imagine that the survey team made an error. In their work, they used an Irish chain, a variant of the English chain that measured eighty-four feet long. Without realising the discrepancy in dimensions, the surveyors mapped the entire parish. Individuals subsequently claimed title to the newly divided common land, dispossessing many and forcing the landless from where they had lived. The new landowners set about marking their properties by planting perimeter hedgerows, using the enclosure map as a guide to determine the edges of their land. Oddly, the boundaries of their properties never seemed to match what was mapped.

In our cities, property lines are contiguous. Where one use of land stops, another starts. In most cases, this also means that where one claim of ownership ends, so too does another begin. The sidewalk, then, is a publicly owned circulation route that enables free movement between independently owned parcels of land. It allows for unbroken movement without crossing through private property. When we step off the sidewalk, we are either on land that is dedicated to some other use, such as for car traffic, or claimed by a private owner. Cities around the world are an amalgamation of land that is owned, either publicly or privately, governed by laws and controlled by force. Yet even in the wilderness, we find signs that oblige us to stay on the trail. Wherever we go, we are constantly following predefined paths. Given this contemporary situation of being unable to pass through any city, suburb or even rural land, without following pre-established circulation routes, it seems worth exploring alternative models of land organisation and ownership.

Read the whole essay, and see all the drawings: what happens with historic survey errors and what good things might result? It is found in On Site review 38: borders, pp 14-21