scholarly journals Critical Spatial Practices: A Trans-scalar Study of Chinese Hutongs and American Alleyways

Interiority ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Gregory Marinic ◽  
Rebekah Radtke ◽  
Gregory Luhan
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Design Practices ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Sustainable Futures

Across time and cultures, the built environment has been fundamentally shaped by forces of occupancy, obsolescence, and change. In an era of increasing political uncertainty and ecological decline, contemporary design practices must respond with critical actions that envision more collaborative and sustainable futures. The concept of critical spatial practice, introduced by architectural historian Jane Rendell, builds on Walter Benjamin and the late 20th century theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau to propose multi-disciplinary design practices that more effectively address contemporary spatial complexities. These theoretical frameworks operate through trans-scalar means to resituate the built environment as a nexus of flows, atmospheres, and narratives (Rendell, 2010). Assuming an analogous relationship to the contemporary city, critical spatial practices traverse space and time to engage issues of migration, informality, globalisation, heterotopia, and ecology. This essay documents an interdisciplinary academic design studio that employed critical spatial practices to study correspondences between Chinese and American cities. Here, the notions of urban and interior are relational. Urbanism and interior spaces are viewed as intertwined aspects in the historical development of Beijing hutongs and Cincinnati alleyways. These hybrid exterior-interior civic spaces create sheltered public worlds and socio-spatial conditions that nurture people and culture.

Narrative, Cognition, and the Flow of Mirror’s Edge

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ciccoricco
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Main Stage ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Narrative Design ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Third Person ◽  
First Person Perspective

Faith, the protagonist of Mirror’s Edge, marks an empowered female character that is not hypersexualized, and the decision to employ a first-person perspective (thereby subverting any gaze offered by a third-person view) supports this design objective through gameplay. But despite Faith’s welcome debut on the main stage of commercial gaming, the game raises more significant questions through its engagement with the multifarious concept of “fluidity” or “flow,” which is integral to both the gameplay of Mirror’s Edge and the themes in it. Is Faith’s flow—in line with radical critical moves in literary history and cultural theory of the late 20th century to gender this trope—essentially or inevitably feminine, or for that matter, feminist? Does the game ultimately avoid, perpetuate, or contest the gendered discourses that it evokes? What can its simulations of a fictional mind in action tell us about our own? This article draws on cognitive, feminist, and narrative theoretical frameworks to question what the concept of fluidity means for a video game that mobilizes it through both narrative design and gameplay.

scholarly journals The Nourishing Art

IDEA JOURNAL ◽  
1969 ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Jane Lawrence ◽  
Rachel Hurst
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Domestic Architecture ◽  
First Year ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Detailed Application

Cooking is regarded as one of the most basic characteristics of civilised existence, almost as critical as shelter in defining and reading the human condition. Frascari (2002) used cooking as an analogy for design suggesting that ‘to build and cook are a necessity, but to build and cook intelligently is the chief obligation of architecture and cuisine’ (p. 3). What is it about this ordinary activity that invites comparison? Is it that the everyday acts of cooking are primary generators of spatial practices and material culture? Or is it that the production of food bears numerous parallels with the production of built space – each following a recipe or plan to manipulate elements into an entity definitively judged by the physical senses? This paper builds upon a companion work titled, ‘Eating Australian Architecture’ (Hurst & Lawrence, 2003), which investigated a pedagogical approach based on parallels between food and design for teaching first year architectural students. In this paper, the focus is on a detailed application of this method to typological analyses of contemporary domestic architecture. It uses three examples of influential Australian design practices, selecting from each a paradigm with which they are associated. Food metaphors of raw, medium and well- done are used to explore emergent characteristics and experiential qualities within the current architectural climate. The apparent extremes between raw and cooked, like those between excess and austerity, are re-evaluated not as simple oppositions or measures of success, but as equally rich modes of approach to design. The argument is made for gastronomy as a persuasive interrogatory tool for the sensory and holistic examination of the built environment.

scholarly journals Making Home(s) in Displacement

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilde Heynen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Place Making ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interdisciplinary Scholarship ◽  
Architectural Perspective ◽  
The Relationship

Making Home(s) in Displacement critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material, and architectural perspective. Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, one which intrinsically relates to the fabrication of the built environment worldwide. Conceptually the book is divided along four spatial sites, referred to as camp, shelter, city, and house, which are approached with a multitude of perspectives ranging from urban planning and architecture to anthropology, geography, philosophy, gender studies, and urban history, all with a common focus on space and spatiality. By articulating everyday homemaking experiences of migrants and refugees as spatial practices in a variety of geopolitical and historical contexts, this edited volume adds a novel perspective to the existing interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of home and displacement. It equally intends to broaden the canon of architectural histories and theories by including migrants' and refugees' spatial agencies and place-making practices to its annals. By highlighting the political in the spatial, and vice versa, this volume sets out to decentralise and decolonise current definitions of home and displacement, striving for a more pluralistic outlook on the idea of home.

Privatization of Public Space: Spatial Practice in the Umbrella Movement

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-459
Author(s):  
Kin-Ling Tang
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Representational Space ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
Temporal Dimensions

This article argues that in order to understand the resistance potentials of taking space movements, the temporal dimensions and spatial practices implied cannot be neglected, or else there would be a tendency to be overoptimistic about resistance in these movements. Using the Umbrella Movement that took place in Hong Kong in 2014 as a case study, this article notes that representational space and spatial practice by protesters were guided by a dualistic view of the public and the private, which in turn is the dominant ideology in neoliberalism, and that their acts of resistance were not able to go beyond the confines of conceived space. In the movement, protesters reclaimed public spaces through privatizing them. Based on the work of Lefebvre, this article argues that only with a radical critique of neoliberal values embedded in capitalism including the public-private dualism can any real transformations of everyday life and hence revolution be possible.

scholarly journals Dutch-Moroccan Girls Navigating Public Space: Wandering as an Everyday Spatial Practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Wijntuin ◽  
Martijn Koster
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Social Navigation ◽  
Appropriate Behavior ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
The City

Based on qualitative research among female Dutch-Moroccan teenagers in two underprivileged neighborhoods in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, this article focuses on the spatial practices of young Muslim women in public space. Compared to their male counterparts, who “hang around” in groups, female teens spend less time in public space. We focus on girls’ “wandering practices” through the neighborhood, a spatial practice structured by their search for freedom (to spend time outside the home, to talk to friends in private) and by social control (to avoid the presence of young men, to avoid being gossiped about). Our research shows that wandering both decreases their visibility and pushes against gendered cultural norms about women in public space. By analyzing their wandering as a form of social navigation, we show how these teenagers maneuver through both the physical neighborhood and the gendered cultural norms regarding appropriate behavior in public space.

scholarly journals Construct-it: A board game to enhance built environment students’ understanding of the property life cycle

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hayhow ◽  
E.A. Parn ◽  
D.J. Edwards ◽  
M. Reza Hosseini ◽  
C. Aigbavboa
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Board Game ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Industry Practice ◽  
Traditional Classroom Teaching ◽  
Future Work

This article investigates the development of a board game entitled ‘Construct-it’ as an innovative pedagogical approach (as proof of concept) to augmenting the applied knowledge and understanding of built environment students studying property life cycle analysis. A largely qualitative and inductive methodological approach is conducted to identify and investigate the various pertinent theoretical frameworks that could be adopted; conduct a critical synthesis of extant literature; and develop Construct-it, a game intuitively grounded in practice-based knowledge. The study reveals that games provide a fun, engaging and challenging means of educating students at higher education institutions. It also notes a significant dearth of literature in terms of applying games to students enrolled on built environment programmes. Construct-it can enhance the student’s learning experience and knowledge of pertinent industry practice and standards and can complement traditional classroom teaching approaches. The study concludes with directions for the future work required to enhance the development of the novel pedagogical proof of concept presented. Such work will require robust testing and validation of the game to measure its impact on the student learning experience.

scholarly journals Material Atmospheres: Theorising Recent Shifts in Interior Visualisation

Interiority ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Gregory Marinic
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Dynamic Conditions ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
Political Economic

Much like Walter Benjamin's analysis of the Parisian arcades during the interwar years of the early 20th century, emerging methods of seeing interior spaces reveal a deeper gaze into the contextual, material, and phenomenological conditions that produce more nuanced visions of interiority. A collective consciousness surrounding these constructed narratives is reflected in charged associations with the most salient imperatives of our time—globalisation, resource depletion, ecological degradation, and political instability—as well as their corresponding effects on the built environment. These visual provocations have incrementally percolated up to embody an expanding field of design activism for educators, theorists, practitioners, and students. How do these avant-garde techniques operate?  What do they reveal about socio-political, economic, and consumptive forces shaping the global built environment?  How do these speculative methods offer more critical ways to communicate dynamic conditions? 

scholarly journals Meaningful Transfer: Tech-Knowlogical Interdependencies in the Digital Built Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Muldoon-Smith ◽  
Leo Moreton ◽  
Richard Kotter
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Digital Innovation ◽  
Sustainable Futures ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
Design Construction

This paper engages with ideas of tacit and explicit knowledge, how it is created, transferred, and ultimately translated in contemporary discourses of the digital built environment. The aim is to open a more critical and original dialogue in the digital built environment by (a) interrogating digital innovation as it strives to utilise relatively distilled information to enhance the sustainable design, construction and operation of the built environment and wider urban areas, (b) representing the rights of those whose knowledge is created and transferred in the digital built environment and (c) by further understanding the context of knowledge creation, and thus maximising its potential for scaling up sustainability objectives. The paper considers the conceptual and methodological tools that may help to focus more novel analysis of knowledge production and transfer in the digital built environment. The paper considers three conceptual positions that have hitherto been considered either in isolation or only tangentially connected to each other: (1) Science and Technology Studies (STS), in order to understand how society and technology is intertwined and importantly to form a meaningful backdrop for engagement with knowledge; (2) Organisational Theory (OT) and the concept of “pipelines,” in order to understand how organisations—and more broadly cities—can meaningfully capture and utilise knowledge when transitioning to digitally enabled sustainable futures; (3) Aspects of Actor Network Theory (ANT), in order to understand how knowledge travels and gets translated and institutionalised in new domains. Furthermore, we also use the same conceptual positions to argue how following knowledge can help individuals and society navigate the digital built environment. Our findings suggest that smart technology is a “social prosthesis,” and only works because humans make up for its deficiencies.

The Fall and Rise of Eutychus: The Church of Paul and the Spatial Habitus of Luke

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-245
Author(s):  
Eric C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Community Meeting ◽  
The Church

Abstract The story of Eutychus in Acts 20 seems to narrate a scene of a Pauline community, meeting for a communal meal and instruction in an insula building in Alexandria Troas. Some scholars have argued, however, that this tale was borrowed by Luke and appropriated to tell the story of Paul. When read through combined theoretical lenses from Michel de Certeau and Pierre Bourdieu, the story of Eutychus provides a window not into one of Paul’s communities, but into Luke’s own spatial practice, and the habitus of community that he knew from his own late-first-century context. Luke therefore repurposed the framework of the story, but also filled the story with his own experience and expectations of space and practice in his creative reconstruction of a Pauline vignette. The tale of Eutychus provides evidence of late-first-century or early-second-century urban Christianity in Asia Minor, not of a community from the life of Paul.

The Construction of Equality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mack
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Research Site ◽  
Immigrant Experience

In The Construction of Equality, Jennifer Mack shows how Syriac-instigated architectural projects and spatial practices have altered the Swedish city’s built environment “from below.” Combining architectural, urban, and ethnographic tools through archival research, site work, participant observation, and interviews, Mack provides a unique take on urban development, social change, and the immigrant experience in Europe over a fifty-year period.

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