After some musings it has become clear to me that I am arguing about the use of "public space" as a word. Everything that is not private we label as public. In reality the space inbetween the buildings - the so called public space - is a mixture of interwoven socio-spatial processes in everyday use. Not only do I find the term "public space" too abstract, I also disagree with its ideology. In most cases the public space doesn´t belong to public and its use is regulated by higher authorities. So instead of calling it simply "public" we could define new words, segregate functions and meanings of these spaces. I have so far come up with 3 concepts - public space, open space and social space... If you have better words or examples in mind, or you agree/ disagree with me, post your opinion in the comments!
Hi Monika. Good point. Of course, the higher authorities who regulate our "public" spaces should, in a theoretical democracy, be answerable to us, the public, and therefore we theoretically own the space. Note that this argument does not work on riot police.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, your definitions use different criteria: public space (ownership), open space (topographical?) and social space (function). Consequently these definitions can overlap: an open or public space can also be a social space. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and is food for thought. How *should* we define spaces?
Best
Envirobitch
I think I am looking at these terms (public, social, open) from the social processes side, where public means common shared territory/ functions by crowd; social means common shared territory with a group or community; and open is something about inbetweeness or placelessness where every member of the place determines its belonging. This interest started from my master thesis where I took tourists as space users and tried to investigate their behaviour in the place affected by time, knowledge, local community and design.
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