Fixed Feature Life?

Fixed feature space is one of the basic ways of organizing the activities of individuals and groups. It includes material manifestations as well as the hidden, internalized designs that govern behaviour of man. One common example of fixed feature space is spatially organised inside of the western house. Not only there are rooms for special functions - food, entertainment, socializing - even the artifacts associated with the activities are related to that specific space. In some standards people who live in a mess are those who fail to classify activities and artifacts according to a uniform, consistent and predictable spatial plan. The internal layout however is quite recent.

Philippe Aries points out in a book Centuries of Childhood that rooms had no fixed functions in European houses until the eighteenth century. Members of the family had no privacy as we know it today nor there were spaces that were sacred or specialized for one function only: "...strangers came at will, while beds and tables were set up and taken down according to the moods and appetites of the occupants". In the 18th century the house altered its form, rooms started to be arranged likely to street and named after its function - bedroom, living room, dining room etc.

Some aspects of the fixed-feature space however are not visible until one observes human behaviour. It is important to note that fixed feature space nowadays acts like a mold into which great deal of behaviour is cast. As Churchill has noted: "We shape our buildings and they shape us".

It has been discussed lately that people do not think of their relationships with other people by kinship or emotions any more, but they have also started to name people by functions.

Futuro house by Matti Kuusia, 1968

Temporarily Public?

In the beginning of this summer the Manifesto Club tested the limits of public space in London. They carried out few experiments with deckchairs and picnic basket in Trafalgar Square, Paternoster Square and "Scoop". More than once they were asked to leave as ... it´s health and safety... Park is just around the corner... GLA (Greater London Authority) owns this area or 50 CCTV cameras covering this area. Click to see the original post...

Just a short month later Trafalgar square has been turned into a 2000sqm green area where you can: "...Laze the days away this summer, take a seat on a specially designed deckchair and enjoy a special set of Magic Performances..." Trafalgar Square hosts 100 deckchairs - free to use from 10am-8pm.

Supermall vs local high street

It is found out by the LDC (Local Data Company) that Britain has the worst rate of shop closures this year, with one in four shops closing down. Three times more shops are now closing across the country´s town centres than did last year, with 19 000 shops shutting so far in 2009. Most of these were independent stores. While shopkeepers admit that the recession has not helped, the overwhelming feeling is that the town´s problems cannot be blamed on the financial crisis only. The impact of the new-out-of-town shopping complex is the principal gripe.

A stroll down the local high street currently might be a devastating view - clusters of empty shop facades outnumber the surviving businesses, an array of charity shops and pound stores that has filled some of the vacated units. Faint lettering leave the reminder of shops moved out. However there are attempts to try to counter the high street´s appearance. To lessen the visual impact of rows of vacant stores, some of the local councils have installed artworks in some windows and painted the shop fronts bright colours. It seems a temporary solution though.

A city, a local high street should be a living organism that contains more than one function. I admire the enthusiasm of local council workers in Margate who have come up with the idea "... to prepare the high street for an age in which it is not solely a shopping centre, but one in which former stores might be used as university classrooms, community centres or art installations..." The end of the retail-dominated high street looms in the horizon, finally...

Public - Private Paradox in Housing

The paradox of the new open space in housing ensembles is its ambiguity: it attempts to be both public and private. For what and for whom are these little squares intended? Who actually uses them and in what ways? Newcomers who stroll around these layouts feel slightly confused: Is this a public park? A private garden for the residents of the villas? Or is it other way around, and are passers-by invited to look at the residents on their terraces? Sometimes such paradoxical experiences are what makes these spaces so fascinating. The old meanings of private life and public domain shift and lose their unequivocalness. The new open space brings urban life into traditional housing block through visual links with the city and by permitting entry to other users.

At times private and public seem to seamlessly flow into one another. Crucial elements in the organization and experience of the public and private domains are the boundaries and transitions: entrances to the dwellings, back sides of the buildings, gardens and the place for cars. The logic of the perimeter block however gets reversed: the inner side becomes its formal side and front side to the entrances.

An important consequence in the reversal is that the "backs of the houses" are on the outer side and therefore eventually in a public area. The reversal of the block principle also means that the car cannot be parked right by the door and this in some opinions creates a feeling of belonging to the community. However the ambiguous status of the new open space is not a collective one: most of these kind of spaces created in the Netherlands for example are public property. These new ensembles can be seen as experiments. They are hybrids, the sense of public-private spaces is being sought anew.

Public is Claiming Space - Play

Lately I was intrigued by Quentin Stevens article on "Why Berlin´s Holocaust Memorial is such a popular playground?". In the article he highlights the people´s need for proactive role in exploring landscapes and appropriating spaces to suit their varied desires. He argues that individuals´ needs and interests for remembrance (or self presentation?) are more varied and less understood and therefore harder to support or control through design.

Four basic forms that play takes - competition, simulation, chance and vertigo - emphasise different ways in which play provides escape from the seriousness, conventions and limits of everyday behaviour. The public realm presents spontaneous and dynamic configurations of place, events and people. Through various kinds of play, people develop themselves as individuals, and they test the limits of what public space can offer rather than merely receiving spaces as designers intend.

Peter Eisenman´s Memorial to the Murdered Jews, opened 2005 in Berlin, is 2 hectare field of 2711 concrete pillars. There has been a lot talk about the politics of its creation, but less talk about how visitors have appropriated the setting for many unanticipated activities. The Memorial lacks clear symbolism and obvious function and therefore invites free interpretation.


The MMJE´s scale and omni-directionality reduces formality: unlike many memorials, there is no focal axis or "front". Its pillars provide a multiplicity of audience seating and stages where people can meet their needs to see and be seen. Security staff only patrol the perimeter and act only to prevent dangerous uses, not uses which are merely undesirable. Eisenman intended this memorial to induce clautrophobia, disorientation, isolation, confinemet and unsteadiness. Without moral guidance such direct sensory arousal often instead stimulates play.

It is interesting to find out that not having been designed to suit particular functions or bodily gestures, this memorial´s abstract simplicity maximises usefulness. The expansive, complex field of pillars enables wide range of secondary, unplanned, yet-to-be-discovered uses. The MMJE illustrates ways public spaces can promote freedom and variety of public action beyond any definitions of function or meaning.

Design cannot necessarily enable or prevent play. Encouragement to free, playful behaviour can never be coersive. It is probably partly because playfulness was not among Eisenman´s intentions that people´s behaviour around this memorial is so creative and diverse. Designer´s role is to establish possibilities for meaning and use.

source:Quentin Stevens article on MMJE, 2009

Studies - rhythms and movements 2

My vision for this design is a continuous line of light that is varied by the rhythm of the supporting posts. This light line would create a virtual roof above the street. Unequal and “choppy” in rhythmic character, the posts also serve as a distraction of traffic in the village. Lighting posts vary in angles and finishing.

With the design I invite people to interact with the street lighting by allowing them to change the angle of certain posts. This interaction could also be seen as an independent and playful guiding system, where people - locals and travellers alike - leave messages for one another.

Studies - rhythms and movements 1

Looking through the material collected in fieldtrips I realised that due to the constant rhythm of the village, it is hard to make a decision for car-stops. To create interaction (more close experience of local identity) one needs to be guided off the main road to smaller tracks. I became fascinated of the rhythm of electricity posts. It was almost meditating. I wonder if was able to change the rhythm and/or angle of these posts, would I be able to create a surprise in visitors? Would it be enough to guidance? What kind of image would such environment create for the village?

I imagine this environment as a stage where people can improvise with streetscape, highlight various places in different times, guide people or leave a message behind. Change, movement and interaction are main keywords for the design proposal.

VISITOR - rhythms of village?

rhythms of village
By looking at the video I am fascinated by the rhythm of posts.

Exploring rhythms, forms and enlosures of street lighting

VISITOR - narratives of the place

I realised that my previous experiences in the village were primitive and too personal. I was missing the important link with the locals. Therefore my aim this time was to discover the village as it is described and presented by local inhabitants.

To find out more details about the place, I decided to narrow my research area to a section of kilometres long village. My chosen part of the village is the south end of the street village. It is named Varnja. It is approximately 1/10th of the whole village. My memories about this part of the village before the third trip were vague. I remembered only a few redbrick buildings that stood out from the wooden houses.

During this visit I interviewed 6 local persons from different age groups and with different backgrounds. I divided my interview into 2 parts: semi-structured interview indoors that was followed by a walk in the neighbourhood. For the first part I had prepared a list of questions while the walk in the village was more improvisational and guided by the interviewees themselves. We spent approximately 30minutes on thefirst part of the interview. The walks lasted from 20 to 45minutes. These interviews were recorded in full length and partly transcribed.

Most of the interviewees had a difficult time answering the questions about journeys and routes in the village during the first part of the interview. Some questions from the semi-structured interview were answered in more detail during the walk. I noticed that all their narratives were closely linked to a specific place (such as bus-stop, street, coastline of the lake etc).

2ND TERM PRESENTATION

I remember that in the movie American Beauty identity was satirized as ´sold´ and reduced to prepackaged lifestyle. Life was something shallowly constructed on the ´I am what I consume´. If it is about consuming goods, services and places that generate pleasurable experiences then could the concept of identity be reduced to ´I am what I experience´? Could a place in that case provide the basis for individual identity as always embodied, housing the possibilities of seeing, feeling and smelling the surroundings?

According to John Urry people will gain less satisfaction from continuing to do what they have always done. Their daily life will become less to do with collective memories and experiences and they will look more for immediate pleasure. Being a tourist is an exception of time, a period of (self)explorations and differences. The tourist is kind of pilgrim, seeking authenticity in other ´times´ and other ´places´ away from everyday life.

A place depends first and foremost on information about the way people perceive, remember and talk about surroundings. The relationship that people develop with their home surrounding is intensely personal and relational to the passage of time. It is not the question of right or wrong, or better or more valuable, more significant, more important. Ask ten trained and experienced urban/spatial professionals to record their space perception of a particular setting and you will get ten different results. This also applies when you ask the same thing from ten inhabitants of the same neighbourhood.

Lacan has described identity as “[...] something that is not always already present but comes into being ´from the place of Other”. To describe local identity one needs to know something about what aspects of the lives and surroundings of people lead them to identify and perhaps come to value particular objects, features or locations in their daily routes, both consciously and subconsciously.
Or how do people experience, remember and communicate about identity? Does the spatial setting and timing affect narratives of identity? How can planners/ designers identify local narratives of place identity and use them in urban design? What is the importance of a public space and urban design in small communities? Could designer give form to objects/ public spaces that bring out locality?

The design of the environment is a physical and three-dimensional manifestation of place identity. It is the relationship between all these individual elements - site, space or building - that gives places their character and identity. In my opinion the purpose of spatial design is to create, reproduce or mould identities of places through manipulation of activities, feelings, meanings into place identity. It is a selective way of imagining, acting and communicating about the place.

TRAVELER - the place revisited

I revisited Lake Peipsi district second time in November 2007. My aim was to find out and document how the place is currently perceived by travellers - how much information about local area is available? how do local people receive outsiders?

During the trip I was constantly aware of my behaviour. Instead of just being a gazing tourist as last time, I tried to engage myself with different aspects of being a traveller. Research on identity, cultural tourism and methods of cognitive mapping became handy. To my surprise the village had gone through an enormous change. The memory of the dark, old and grey village of wooden houses and narrow street was replaced with the image of a lively and colourful place. As if it was not the same place any more. Or maybe my expectations were different.

I was observing, sensing and documenting the place by using image and sound recording. I made almost no contact with locals during 4 days. It was not a deliberate decision, but rather a realistic nature of the village. During the field studies I realised that the structure and character of the village is more easily perceived with the speed of 30km per hour (slow car driving) and hard to accomplish by walking. One experiences surroundings on foot with more senses than travelling in a car. At the same time long distances and changing weather cut down the feeling of continuous place. Documentation of the fieldtrip (especially the video) became my irreplaceable source of inspiration for design proposals. The constant review of the material often revealed new insights and understandings that may have been missed at first sight. It allowed me to experience the place time and time again.

1ST TERM PRESENTATION

This thesis project focuses on the questions of identity and tourism.
In my research question: how to reproduce identity through public space?, I would like to emphasize the words reproduce and through. Because I believe that identity is not something fixed, but rather placing itself among the variety of behavioural patterns; and it must be played out (lived).

Everywhere throughout the world local people in response to the opportunities afforded by the global tourism industry (mostly moneywise) are putting their culture on display. Instead of talking, living it out and starting the dialogue with tourist, the host population is actually trying to fulfil the expectations of a traveler. Tourist is kind of a pilgrim, who is seeking authenticity in other times and other places away from home. He shows particular fascination in the real lives of others.

Traditionally people have traveled away from their residence and work in order to participate in tourism. The tourism however does not start nor end with the physical departure and return. Anticipation and daydreaming, remembering and reminiscing are equally part of tourism experience. But if one does not need to leave the place of residence to become a tourist, then tourism and therefore also search for identity or comparison with others, cannot be described as a quality of place and time only. It is rather quality in the minds of people. Or the relationship between person and a place/ environment that makes the identity. The ways in which people experience that environment (and themselves), is not merely instrumental, but often exploratory, unsystematic, wasteful of energy and fun. They do not want to use only their vision; they need to hear, to touch, to taste and gather these five perceptions in a world.

My context is based on a village in eastern border of Estonia, known as a settlement of russian old believers. This one of the places where villagers gain mostly from tourism, but that only for up to 4 months a year. This village is extraordinary from its layout compared to historical estonian villages. It is 7km long one streetvillage. Houses are built very close to each other, there is no pavement to differentiate car area from pedestrians, and people tend interact just on the doorsteps.The citizens of the village are mostly old people; therefore it is believed that in less than 20years there will no longer be authentic village as such for tourism industry.