scholarly journals New Agoraphobia: Reclaiming Controllability in a Society of Total Surveillance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Aleksei Sergueevich Tchernov
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Surveillance Networks ◽  
Individual Control ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
Surveillance Society

<p>Increasingly ubiquitous forms of surveillance networks and methods are becoming commonplace in today’s societies. While their application is rational and for the most part beneficial their presence effects the perception of space, eroding margins of privacy, increasing pressure on public space, and in some cases perpetuating unjustifiable feelings of persecution and mental unrest. These consequences reduce individual control over one’s environment and furthermore represent an instance of a type of space itself creating anxieties, similarly to the onset of agoraphobia in the 1860’s. Applying a tripartite design approach of three different scales to a hypothetical scenario of an escalated total surveillance society in an urban setting leads to an exploration of physical space and the spatialisations of power and emotion in the issues of overexposure, crowding, and loss of control. Through the resulting designs it is demonstrated how an informed application of thresholds, materiality, and physically reconfigurable environments in built form can allow for instances of relief and grounding, the gesture such a relief provides itself also embodies intent and reaction, furthering the physical with a symbolic and psychosocial response.</p>

scholarly journals New Agoraphobia: Reclaiming Controllability in a Society of Total Surveillance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Aleksei Sergueevich Tchernov
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Surveillance Networks ◽  
Individual Control ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
Surveillance Society

<p>Increasingly ubiquitous forms of surveillance networks and methods are becoming commonplace in today’s societies. While their application is rational and for the most part beneficial their presence effects the perception of space, eroding margins of privacy, increasing pressure on public space, and in some cases perpetuating unjustifiable feelings of persecution and mental unrest. These consequences reduce individual control over one’s environment and furthermore represent an instance of a type of space itself creating anxieties, similarly to the onset of agoraphobia in the 1860’s. Applying a tripartite design approach of three different scales to a hypothetical scenario of an escalated total surveillance society in an urban setting leads to an exploration of physical space and the spatialisations of power and emotion in the issues of overexposure, crowding, and loss of control. Through the resulting designs it is demonstrated how an informed application of thresholds, materiality, and physically reconfigurable environments in built form can allow for instances of relief and grounding, the gesture such a relief provides itself also embodies intent and reaction, furthering the physical with a symbolic and psychosocial response.</p>

scholarly journals Raumaneignungen, Regeln und Profite in Dhakas Feld des Straßenhandels – Sozialgeographische Erklärungsversuche auf Grundlage von Bourdieus Theorie der Praxis

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Etzold
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
The State ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Urban South ◽  
Spatial Appropriation

Abstract. The paper discusses street vendors' spatial appropriations and the governance of public space in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The much debated question in social geography how people's position in social space relates to their position in physical space (and vice versa) stands at the centre of the analysis. I use Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to discuss this dialectic relation at two analytical levels. On a micro-political level it is shown that the street vendors' social positions and the informal rules of the street structure their access to public space and thus determine their "spatial profits". At a macro-political level, it is not only the conditions inside the "field of street vending" that matter for the hawkers, but also their relation to the state-controlled "field of power". The paper demonstrates that Bourdieu's key ideas can be linked to current debates about spatial appropriation and informality. Moreover, I argue that Bourdieu's theory builds an appropriate basis for a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography in the Urban South.

scholarly journals Engaging the Senses: The Potential of Emotional Data for Participation in Urban Planning

Urban Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afif Fathullah ◽  
Katharine Willis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Information Layer ◽  
Stress Levels ◽  
Planning Decision

This paper presents an exploratory study on the potential for sharing urban data; one where citizens create their own data and use it to understand and influence urban planning decisions. The aim of the study is to explore new models of participation through the sharing of emotional data and focuses on the relationship between the physical space and emotions through identifying the links between stress levels and specific features of the urban environment. It addresses the problem in urban planning that, while people’s emotional connection with the physical urban setting is often valued, it is rarely recognised or used as a source of data to understand future decision making. The method involved participants using a (GSR) device linked to location data to measure participant’s emotional responses along a walking route in a city centre environment. Results show correlations between characteristics of the urban environment and stress levels, as well as how specific features of the city spaces create stress ‘peaks’. In the discussion we review how the data obtained could contribute to citizens creating their own information layer—an emotional layer—that could inform a shared approach to participation in urban planning decision-making. The future implications of the application of this method as an approach to public participation in urban planning are also considered.

Negotiating unfamiliar environments

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
Judith Phillips ◽  
Nigel Walford ◽  
Ann Hockey ◽  
Mike Lewis ◽  
Nigel Foreman
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Principal Factors ◽  
Sensory Overload

This chapter looks at the mechanisms and strategies used by older people to navigate unfamiliar spaces as pedestrians. Based on interviews with forty-two older people collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, a street audit and interviews with planners, three principal factors helped or deterred older people in navigating an unfamiliar urban setting – the use of landmarks, the availability and usability of signage and if a public space was associated with memories. Stressful areas were identified as those where there was a perception of sensory overload and shared and unclear spaces. The implications for planners are discussed with regard to creating spaces and places that assist older people to remain active and independent.

Confrontation and loss of control: Masculinity and men's fear in public space

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Day ◽  
Cheryl Stump ◽  
Daisy Carreon
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Loss Of Control

scholarly journals Mapping Gendered Spaces and Women’s Mobility: A Case Study of Mitathal Village, Haryana

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prerna Siwach
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Gender Stratification ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
The Village

The most explicit representation of gendering of space is the division between public and private space. Public space—the space of transcendence, production, politics, and power—is the sphere of men, whereas private productive space—the sphere of reproduction—is the women’s space. The spatial perspective developed here recognizes the complexities of a patriarchal society and how these define gender roles, which further help in sustaining gender stratification on the physical space. Whatever mobility women accrue is due to the nature of their work; thus, the nature of work and the gender roles a woman performs define her space of access. Age and caste are two major factors that affect mobility. The study also attempts to explore how “patriarchal bargain” takes place. They are a bargain, in that the “rules” which regulate gender relations in a region are constantly contested and renegotiated in daily life. Forms and expressions of patriarchy are undergoing changes; moreover, it can be said that the village is moving toward a kind of patriarchal bargain that allows women more mobility.

scholarly journals Design of Sound and Place - Recent Studios

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Paul MacDonald ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
The Public ◽  
Built Form

Urban public spaces and their associated architecture should be capable of eliciting responses from all of the human senses, yet traditionally urban and architectural designers rely primarily on visual display to persuade the public of the qualities of new proposals. As it becomes more common to use a variety of media to depict and simulate proposed urban spaces, designers and teachers of design look for ways to sensitize emerging designers to the full spectrum of sensations that inform potential users of a public space. The design studios discussed in this paper bring together the issues of the design of the experience of visual and aural settings, in an era of podcasts and ear-buds.In order to address issues of sound and public space, the author selected examples from two architectural design studios that took place in 2016 and 2018. Undergraduate students composed their own programs and projects to take into account the aural as well as visual qualities associated with their design intentions and ambitions. The process began with a programming phase to designate performing and listening as interactions that constitute primary activities happening in the context of the proposed public built form and related urban space. The research continued with an exploration of the tectonics and materials of the projects. Preliminary field research located and mapped small centralized urban organizations related to the sonic: collectives and small businesses working, for example, in the areas of sound recording, radio and musical performance.

scholarly journals Ruptured space and spatial estrangement: (Un)making of public space in Kathmandu

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (12) ◽  
pp. 2780-2800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urmi Sengupta
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
The Common ◽  
The City

Public space is increasingly recognised to be central to spatial discourse of cities. A city’s urbanism is displayed in public spaces, representing a myriad of complex socio-cultural, economic and democratic practices of everyday life. In cities of the Global South, especially those with nascent democracies, different values attached to a space by various actors – both material and symbolic – frame the contestation, making the physical space a normative instrument for contestation. Tundikhel, once believed to be the largest open space in Asia, is an important part of Kathmandu’s urbanism, which has witnessed two civil wars popularly known as Jana Andolans, and the subsequent political upheavals, to emerge as the symbolic meeting point of the city, democracy, and its people. The paper argues that the confluence of the three modalities of power – institutionalisation, militarisation and informalisation – has underpinned its historical transformation, resulting in what I call ‘urban rupturing’: a process of (un)making of public space, through physical and symbolic fragmentation and spatial estrangement. The paper contends that unlike the common notion that public spaces such as Tundikhel are quintessentially public, hypocrisy is inherent to the ‘publicness’ agenda of the state and the institutional machinery in Kathmandu. It is an urban condition that not only maligns the public space agenda but also creeps into other spheres of urban development.

Community gardening for integrated urban renewal in Copenhagen: securing or denying minorities’ right to the city?

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Parama Roy
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Community Gardening ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This chapter presents a case study from Copenhagen on a community-based, but state-initiated urban gardening effort to examine what such efforts mean for the minorities’ (the homeless and the ethnic minorities’) right to the city (Purcell, 2002; 2013) especially within the context of a traditionally welfare-driven, but increasingly neoliberalized urban context. David Harvey has described the right to the city as “not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart’s desire” (Harvey, 2003). As such, in this chapter the concept of “right to the city” is operationalized as a measure or proxy for social and spatial justice to explore how the state-initiated community gardening effort in the Sundholm District shapes/secures/denies the homeless and the ethnic minorities’ ability to, a) use and just be in the physical space of the garden (a public space) and b) to translate this into access to the political space of urban governance (and governance of the garden space) where they can voice their needs/concerns.

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