Speaker
Description
The importance of temporality, flexible adaptation and resilience in response to changing requirements within the built environment has never been greater. A cumulation of crises around changes in geopolitics, economic austerity and perhaps most significantly, the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have given rise to changing demands for temporary, ad hoc, DIY, and occasional urban space interventions (Oswell & Varna, 2024). There are many examples ranging from guerilla interventions, street closures, temporary signage, pop-up street vendors, external activities, and reprioritization of public space for social activities. Stewart Brand (1994) famously provided a framework for considering change, both as obsolesce and permanency within buildings with his idea of ‘shearing layers’, itself based on earlier ideas from Duffy (& Henney 1989, 1990). In each case, a loose hierarchy from relative permanency of the site, the building structure / shell and to a lesser extend the skin, to the more temporary building services, space plan and ultimately the scenery / stuff that fills the buildings. This paper transposes this method of analysis from buildings and structures to public urban space. It achieves this by adding a time-dimension in the form of ‘rate of change’ or renewal to the different layers of site, services, surfaces, signs, and surroundings within the public space. While it was initially intended as a thought experiment relating to society, the idea of long-term thinking is a beneficial tool for urban designers and planners. Demonstrated using a city centre case study, we present the object-orientated approach to recording and mapping the ‘rates of change’ ranging from constant, hourly, daily, monthly, yearly through to renewal over decades and centuries. We recognise that the boundary between public spaces and the built environment around them is porous and that public life spills out into the surrounding areas, and we attempted to work with this ambiguity when looking at our case study, the Bigg market, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Therefore, our aim through this research is to highlight and contribute to bridging the gap existing in relation to longitudinal, temporal studies of public space, and provide several recommendations for both the scholarship and practice of urban planning and design. The output is presented dynamically, as a chronological map progression supported by mixed archival secondary sources and primary data gathered using remote sensing and other photographic evidence. The object-orientated framework provides the basis for analysis and identification of the specific agents responsible for governance and change within the built environment and public realm.
| Keywords | Urban design; public realm; temporary urbanism; experimental urbanism; chronological mapping |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
