Urban Design: Transitional or Disused Space - Literature review Example

Urban design: transitional or disused space It is a fact around the world that people and cities alike use locations for activities not intended for those locations. These activities sometimes do occur alongside the primary intended purpose, the activities of people such as accessing the physical elements contribute to transitional spaces. Transitional spaces occur when people recognize the inherent possibilities in spaces and making use of those possibilities (Franck & Stevens 2007). The possibility of transitional spaces occurring differs with the location, culture and beliefs and building type. Transitional spaces may be imaginary and may even occur as a result of human manipulations such as construction. This explains the reason why they differ according to the type one is occupying (Franck & Stevens 2007). Some interrelated features may cause some places to be more restrictive of the behavior of individuals thus reducing the possibility of transitional spaces occurring. For example a sidewalk offers more freedom because it is physically more open. Prisons on the other hand are a strong constraint on the behavior and freedom due to the nature of their physical aspects (Franck & Stevens 2007). The actions of people are what determine whether a space is transitional or not. But the chances of transition may be limited by official constraint on an action such as restriction to loitering. Planned or impromptu actions may cause space transition which may take place on a regular basis or once and may be strange in the urban setting (Franck & Stevens 2007). When these actions are disruptive or temporary they may have long lasting impact if there is no long lasting official sanction. These official sanctions give provisions for purchase of licenses way in advance. However there are activities that require no official sanctioning because of uncertainty about what is legal or socially acceptable (Franck & Stevens 2007). Transitional spaces in urban areas give them vitality and new life because they encourage relaxing and celebration. This chance of being spontaneous creates diversity and the eagerness to explore new things (Franck & Stevens 2007). Evening out urban activities and placing people in the role of consumers rather than participants are a threat to the existence of transitional spaces. Cities are a perfect environment for transitional spaces to emerge. The physical conditions in cities encourage these transitions. Public open spaces access, diversity among persons and flowing conditions provide support to transitional spaces. City planning requires planning for facilities with assigned functions and is able to accommodate other functions as well. This is because these spaces posses certain features that invite people to use them for whatever purpose they want (Franklin 2010). The public spaces in cities are opened for use to everyone and this fashions these public spaces to any function. This freedom for use provides an escape which is a common feature for urban residents who barely know each other (Franklin 2010). City residents are able to pay attention to each other’s activities in public spaces that may be culturally and socially different. The sharing of public space leads to an inclusive relaxed behavior. Encountering people that naturally are different loosens and expands the diversity that exists in a way that allows building bridges that had been abandoned or were non-existent (Franck & Stevens 2007). Common features in the city such as piers, abandoned buildings and spaces that no longer serve the purpose for which they were created for have been converted to other use and have found new meaning in the urban neighborhoods. Homeless people have made these spaces to become their abode and which has continued to provide a safe haven for illegal activities (Franck & Stevens 2007). Completely abandoned buildings and ruined structures are unable to reflect their initial use and this provides room for imagination of what the place could actually have been. These building lie outside the control and watch of city officials who are mandated to keep watch over the city. These abandoned spaces may be appropriated to other uses that fit well with the urban public structures (Franck & Stevens 2007). Fixed elements intended for one use may be converted to serve other uses. Structures that have been constructed to minimize space may allow for other activities such as street lighting posts which can be leaned against while standing (Franck & Stevens 2007). Flexible elements provide exploration of new actions which frame out opportunities for social engagement. Transitional spaces sometimes lie in connection with other spaces which simply mean that they may be permeable and allow for movement between spaces which makes it easy for other activities. Urban spaces that offer more enclosure and are less open are an attractive option as compared to other spaces because they provide various options for users and this is mainly due to the building threshold used for urban spaces which make transitional spaces more visible in the public realm due to the spaces between them (Franck & Stevens 2007). Terrain vague Adoption of the term terrain vague by Spanish architect Sola Morales has redefined metropolitan cities to appropriate the so called empty and abandoned city spaces to productive use (Franklin 2010). These spaces which were described as voids have now become renewed to be an opportunity for designing a different type of architecture. This is explained when urban design and architecture project their desire into a vacant space they introduce aggressive changes in an effort to obliterate the practical efficiency (Franklin 2010). The conflicting looks of architecture and urban looks is different in that architecture is optical while urban city looks are more of forms than optical. This contention to reposition terrain vague into the urban fabric by not detracting from the infrastructural system needs to be continuous. This continuity is established by measuring forces and the rhythms of space. Terrain vague spaces are located in many urban areas associated with past economic and industrial status. These spaces such as vacant and abandoned properties may be ignored by the mainstream discussions of design because they are no longer centers of activity. These sites however, present an opportunity for architects to design (Franck & Stevens 2007). This is because these places are where the city no longer is and lie outside the city’s effective circuits and this makes them foreign to the urban system. Terrain vague provides a renaissance in dealing with these abandoned eyesores of the city that come in from of abandoned buildings and infrastructure (Franck & Stevens 2007). A majority of the world’s population lives in the city and so how cities go so the rest of the world. The world has therefore been organized into a connected but yet unstable urban system. Cities have the potential efficiency that acts as a catalyst for environmental, social and political change (Hou 2010). It is the characteristics of the cities today that are the character of the world. Cities reveal that nowadays problems are not localized in one particular locality but can be transported to any other city in the world. Every city has its own urban patches and because of immigration each city will take on the characteristics of other cities in the world. The different techniques that cities employ to merge up their urban patches and their success in creating shared advantages determines their contribution to making the world system better or worse (Hou 2010). Urban renewal After the Second World War most cities in the world lost their luster and became objects of ridicule (Hou 2010). The cities were suffering multiple ills which had been precipitated by poor plans. Urban renewals were meant to revive these cities to their former glory. For many post industrial cities riddled with politics these had to employ other efforts. Small and medium sized industrial cities were mostly held back by the economic outlook and this slowed down their renewal. Urban renewal has also been precipitated by protests and riots that halt reforms that aim at broadening and abandoning some facilities (Richman 2010). Urban renewal projects were built on the large spaces cleared and continue to house the poor and disadvantaged people. Urban renewal seems to work well in cases where communities are closely knit where work and leisure overlaps to provide support and a sense of belonging to everyone. Cities have been the hope for better futures which have frequently been exposes as a mix of freedom, enlightenment and democracy (Franklin 2010). They have also been focused as hellish places with the main focus being on fear and despair. These tensions are what run the urban culture. Recognizing cities as spaces that are socially productive and dynamic and not as buildings and physical forms is another approach of viewing cities. For urbanites, they attach importance to intervening in cities and urban spaces for social ends and political means. Their aim of changing society and space is articulated in their utopian visions. Radical transformation to urban spaces is at the heart of efforts to re-imagine cities and thinking of how their geographies can be changed and constructed by incorporating different desires and needs (Leach 2002). The transformation of urban consciousness does not appeal to the imaginations because it is haunted by old architecture which has continuously remained far behind the sophistication of machines (Leach 2002). A renewed understanding of the environment expands the senses of social and political options by bringing out what lies dormant in the hearts and imaginations of individuals and using this to create new ideas. Architectural expression finds urgency in such situations because of the inspiration it draws (Leach 2002). Ideal representations of the environment should be based on vision, time and space which are important elements in urban interactions in these present urban conditions. Experimenting on architectural forms in the city challenges the conceptions of the environment, which is a modification to life that gives rise to relativity in all spheres of life (Pinder 2005). Degrading urban life can be transformed through imaginative projection of what cities would be like. This follows the impatience that brings out a desire for spatial and radical change. The demand for new cites and urban environments has marked a new wave of social change and radical spatial change (Fyfe & Kenny 2010). The changes in urban space reflect the changes in urban life which is the transformation of society and how these two aspects are intertwined together (Cowan & Seward 2007). A new approach that is concerned with everyday lifestyles ensures mutual transformation which binds all these aspects together. Revolutionary changes approached through a commitment to urban spacing that attempt to go beyond narrow conceptions of design architecture and planning these critical aspects in conceptualized spaces shaped by experts (Ryker et al., 2004). Reducing urbanism to planning only without including the political aspect of spacing is therefore wrong. Producing space is a part of changing process of space and society relations. This then goes to assert that to change the lives of people and society in general it is vital to address the issue of space first and then transform it achieve more impact in society. The vision of cities were all driven by the desire to change urban spaces radically and this confronted issues that hinder the production of spaces that accommodate all lifestyles of living (Sales 2000). Transformation of cities is a process that begins with setting in motion certain changes that will eventually lead to the total transformation of society. Waste production provides challenges in designing architectural landscapes. Drosscape is a method devised to reprogramme waste to adaptive reuse (Berger 2008). Scavenging urbanized surfaces for interstitial landscape remains within urban areas has escaped controlled parameters. Dross emerges as a consequence of current rapid horizontal urbanization and as leftover of previous production and economic regimes that are catalyzed by drastic reductions in transport costs. The city is a manifestation of industrial processes and also a natural resource consumer. Urbanized regions then become waste products were formed and are linked to industrial and economic processes (Berger 2007). An understanding of regional urban landscape formation created by older cities that have stopped industrializing and the rapid growth of newer cities is important. The organic occurrences that that do not pay attention to the human and academic limitations that separate architectural and suburban issues in social structures is causes waste on urban landscapes. Linking practical issues to theoretical issues generates associations that contribute to urbanization and the formation of waste landscapes. Which are the results of consumption activity of the cities, economic and production activities present in cities. References Berger, A. (2007). Drosscape: wasting land in urban America. New York: Princeton architectural press. Berger, A. (2008). Designing the reclaimed landscape. New York: Routledge. Cowan, A. & Seward, J. (2007). The city and the senses: urban culture since 1500. London: Ashgate publishers. Franck, K.A & Stevens, Q. (2007). Loose space: possibility and diversity in urban life. New York: Taylor & Francis. Franklin, A. (2010). City life. New York: Sage publishers. Fyfe, N. & Kenny, J.T. (2010). The urban geography reader. New York: Routledge. Hou, J. (2010). Insurgent public space: guerilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities. New York: Taylor & Francis. Leach .N. (2002). The hieroglyphics of space, reading and experiencing the modern metropolis. New York: Routledge. Pinder, D.(2005). Visions of the city: utopianism, power and politics in the twentieth century urbanism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press. Richman, S.M. (2010). Reconsidering Trenton: the small city in the post industrial age. New York: McFarland. Ryker, P.A et al., (2004). 306090-06: shifting infrastructures. New York. Princeton architectural press. Sales, A. (2000). The international handbook on sociology. New York. Sage. Read More

Transitional spaces in urban areas give them vitality and new life because they encourage relaxing and celebration. This chance of being spontaneous creates diversity and the eagerness to explore new things (Franck & Stevens 2007). Evening out urban activities and placing people in the role of consumers rather than participants are a threat to the existence of transitional spaces. Cities are a perfect environment for transitional spaces to emerge. The physical conditions in cities encourage these transitions.

Public open spaces access, diversity among persons and flowing conditions provide support to transitional spaces. City planning requires planning for facilities with assigned functions and is able to accommodate other functions as well. This is because these spaces posses certain features that invite people to use them for whatever purpose they want (Franklin 2010). The public spaces in cities are opened for use to everyone and this fashions these public spaces to any function. This freedom for use provides an escape which is a common feature for urban residents who barely know each other (Franklin 2010).

City residents are able to pay attention to each other’s activities in public spaces that may be culturally and socially different. The sharing of public space leads to an inclusive relaxed behavior. Encountering people that naturally are different loosens and expands the diversity that exists in a way that allows building bridges that had been abandoned or were non-existent (Franck & Stevens 2007). Common features in the city such as piers, abandoned buildings and spaces that no longer serve the purpose for which they were created for have been converted to other use and have found new meaning in the urban neighborhoods.

Homeless people have made these spaces to become their abode and which has continued to provide a safe haven for illegal activities (Franck & Stevens 2007). Completely abandoned buildings and ruined structures are unable to reflect their initial use and this provides room for imagination of what the place could actually have been. These building lie outside the control and watch of city officials who are mandated to keep watch over the city. These abandoned spaces may be appropriated to other uses that fit well with the urban public structures (Franck & Stevens 2007).

Fixed elements intended for one use may be converted to serve other uses. Structures that have been constructed to minimize space may allow for other activities such as street lighting posts which can be leaned against while standing (Franck & Stevens 2007). Flexible elements provide exploration of new actions which frame out opportunities for social engagement. Transitional spaces sometimes lie in connection with other spaces which simply mean that they may be permeable and allow for movement between spaces which makes it easy for other activities.

Urban spaces that offer more enclosure and are less open are an attractive option as compared to other spaces because they provide various options for users and this is mainly due to the building threshold used for urban spaces which make transitional spaces more visible in the public realm due to the spaces between them (Franck & Stevens 2007). Terrain vague Adoption of the term terrain vague by Spanish architect Sola Morales has redefined metropolitan cities to appropriate the so called empty and abandoned city spaces to productive use (Franklin 2010).

These spaces which were described as voids have now become renewed to be an opportunity for designing a different type of architecture. This is explained when urban design and architecture project their desire into a vacant space they introduce aggressive changes in an effort to obliterate the practical efficiency (Franklin 2010). The conflicting looks of architecture and urban looks is different in that architecture is optical while urban city looks are more of forms than optical. This contention to reposition terrain vague into the urban fabric by not detracting from the infrastructural system needs to be continuous.

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