Public space for street-scape theatrics : guerrilla spatial tactics and methods of urban hacking in Brisbane, Australia

It could be argued that architecture has an inherent social responsibility to enrich the urban and spatial environments for the city’s occupants. However how we define quality, and how ‘places’ can be designed to be fair and equitable, catering for individuals on a humanistic and psychological level, is often not clearly addressed. Lefebvre discusses the idea of the ‘right to the city’; the belief that public space design should facilitate freedom of expression and incite a sense of spatial ownership for its occupants in public/commercial precincts. Lefebvre also points out the importance of sensory experience in the urban environment. “Street-scape theatrics” are performative activities that summarise these two concepts, advocating the ‘right to the city’ by way of art as well as providing sensual engagement for city users. Literature discusses the importance of Street-scape Theatrics however few sources attempt to discuss this topic in terms of how to design these spaces/places to enhance the city on both a sensory and political level. This research, grounded in political theory, investigates the case of street music, in particular busking, in the city of Brisbane, Australia. Street culture is a notion that already exists in Brisbane, but it is heavily controlled especially in central locations. The study discusses how sensory experience of the urban environment in Brisbane can be enriched through the design for busking; multiple case studies, interviews, observations and thematic mappings provide data to gather an understanding of how street performers see and understand the built form. Results are sometime surprisingly incongruous with general assumptions in regards to street artist as well as the established political and ideological framework, supporting the idea that the best and most effective way of urban hacking is working within the system. Ultimately, it was found that the Central Business District in Brisbane, Australia, could adopt certain political and design tactics which attempt to reconcile systematic quality control with freedom of expression into the public/commercial sphere, realism upheld. This can bridge the gap between the micro scale of the body and the macro of the political economy through freedom of expression, thus celebrating the idiosyncratic nature of the city.

Urban public space and the marginalisation of children and young people

In the 21st century city, public space for a range of users, but especially children and young people, has come under threat. Watson proposed that “public space itself has come under attack from several directions-thematisation, enclosure into malls and other controlled spaces, and privatisation, or from urban planning and design interventions to erase its uniqueness”. Largely as a result of these trends, Scott observed that “young urbanites form a marginalised age class movement is restricted, out of fear and distrust, within aims to protect, monitored by city surveillance methods within the security-obsessed fabric”. The use of public space by children and young people is a contentious issue in a number of countries and a range of measures deployed to control public space curtail the rights of children and young people to claim the space for their use through curfews, oppressive camera surveillance and at times, the unwarranted attentions of police and private security personnel.

Urban growth and development of contemporary neighbourhood public space in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Rapid and unplanned growth of Kathmandu Valley towns over the past decades has resulted in the haphazard development of new neighbourhoods with significant consequences on their public space. This paper examines the development of public space in the valley’s new neighbourhoods in the context of the current urban growth. A case study approach of three new neighbourhoods was developed to examine the provision of public space with data collected from site observations, interviews with neighbourhood residents and other secondary sources. The cases studies consist of both planned and unplanned new neighbourhoods. Findings reveal a severe loss of public space in the unplanned new neighbourhoods. In planned new neighbourhoods, the provision of public space remains poor in terms of physical features, and thus, does not support community activities and needs. Several factors, which are an outcome of the lack of proper urban growth initiatives and control measures, such as an overall drawback in the formation of new neighbourhoods, the poor capacity of local community-based organisations and the encroachment of public land are responsible for the present development of neighbourhood public space. The problems with ongoing management of public spaces are a significant issue in both unplanned and planned new neighbourhoods.

Young people, participation and public space

Young people are major users of public space, White (1990,1998) Loader (1996). * Young people are constructed as ‘problem’ and ‘non citizens’, Brown (1998). * Young people report feeling unconsulted, not part of community life, Measor & Squires (2000), Article 12 (2000), Tyler et al (1998). * Young people and citizenship/participation is a major issue. * Public Space issues affect others also such as the homeless, aged, women, Indigenous people and people of middle eastern appearance.

Young people, citizenship and public space : a work in progress on issues and consequences

Tensions frequently occur when children and young people seek to make use of a multitude of public spaces (Loader 1996; White 1999).In Australia over a number of years, various strategies have been adopted by local councils, police and other stakeholders such as business groups, to respond to such tensions and disputes. However, rarely are children and young people involved in meaningful ways in the design and control of public space that reflects their needs and aspirations (White 1999; Freeman and Riordan 2002). This paper argues for a broader conceptualisation of the rights of citizenhip to include rights to use public space by children and young people.

Young people and urban public space in Australia-creating pathways to community, belonging and inclusion

Cities and urban spaces around the world are changing rapidly from their origins in the industrialising world to a post-industrial, hard wired surveillance landscape. This kind of monitoring and surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to rebrand urban public spaces into governable and predictable arenas of consumption. In this context of control, a number of groups are excluded from public space, such as some children and young people. This article discusses the surveillance, governance and control of public space environments used by children and young people in particular, and the capacity for their ongoing displacement and marginality, as well as possible greater inclusion.

Edge of Danger: electric light and the negotiation of public and private domestic space in Philip Johnson's Glass and Guest House

In the first half of the twentieth century the dematerializing of boundaries between enclosure and exposure problematized traditional expectations of the domestic environment. At the same time, as a space of escalating technological control, the modern domestic interior also offered new potential to redefine the meaning and means of habitation. The inherent tension between these opposing forces is particularly evident in the introduction of new electric lighting technology and applications into the modern domestic interior in the mid-twentieth century. Addressing this nexus of technology and domestic psychology, this article examines the critical role of electric lighting in regulating and framing both the public and private occupation of Philip Johnson's New Canaan estate. Exploring the dialectically paired transparent Glass House and opaque Guest House, this study illustrates how Johnson employed electric light to negotiate the visual environment of the estate as well as to help sustain a highly aestheticized domestic lifestyle. Contextualized within the existing literature, this analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of the New Canaan estate as an expression of Johnson's interests as a designer as well as a subversion of traditional suburban conventions.

Rejuvenating lost and disused space within Fortitude Valley : a study into the effectiveness of urban greenery in subtropical public space

An issue gaining prominence in our urban environments in the notion of lost space, the undesirable urban areas that are in need of redesign, commonly caused by a focus on development as individual architectural entities, without a greater view of the urban environment as a holistic entity. Within the context of South East Queensland, the suburb of Fortitude Valley has been earmarked for development as an extension of the current CBD. With lost and disused spaces already existing throughout the suburb due to rapid growth and mismatched developments, recent planning regimes have proposed rejuvenation in the form of proposals that echo typologies from other Australian regions, such as the laneway typology from Melbourne. Opportunities exist in these spaces for design approaches that relate specifically to the individual and unique subtropical character of the area. This research explores the relationship between innovative approaches towards urban greenery as a means to rejuvenate lost and disused public space, and its suitability within a subtropical climate, specifically focused within the suburb of Fortitude Valley. A trend gaining prominence is the notion of biophilic cities; cities that integrate urban greenery as a means to provide vibrant public spaces, and meet the growing aesthetic, social, cultural and economic needs of our cities. Through analysis of case studies showcasing greenery in an inventive way, observations of public using subtropical public space, and a discussion of the current policy frameworks at place within Fortitude Valley, innovative uses of urban greenery is proposed as viable placemaking technique in subtropical urban environments.

Public space design of knowledge and innovation spaces: Learnings from Kelvin Grove Urban Village, Brisbane

The era of knowledge-based urban development has led to an unprecedented increase in mobility of people and the subsequent growth in new typologies of agglomerated enclaves of knowledge such as knowledge and innovation spaces. Within this context, a new role has been assigned to contemporary public spaces to attract and retain the mobile knowledge workforce by creating a sense of place. This paper investigates place making in the globalized knowledge economy, which develops a sense of permanence spatio-temporally to knowledge workers displaying a set of particular characteristics and simultaneously is process-dependent getting developed by the internal and external flows and contributing substantially in the development of the broader context it stands in relation with. The paper reviews the literature and highlights observations from Kelvin Grove Urban Village, located in Australia’s new world city Brisbane, to understand the application of urban design as a vehicle to create and sustain place making in knowledge and innovation spaces. This research seeks to analyze the modified permeable typology of public spaces that makes knowledge and innovation spaces more viable and adaptive as per the changing needs of the contemporary globalized knowledge society.

Reengaging, reenacting and reenvisaging discourses of disaster through public space performance: Austerity, art, and the art of protest

This paper offers a mediation on disaster, recovery, resilience, and restoration of balance, in both a material and a metaphorical sense, when ‘disaster’ befalls not the body politic of the nation but the body personal. In the past few decades, of course, artists, activists and scholars have deliberately tried to avoid describing personal, physical and phenomenological experiences of the disabled body in terms of difficulty and disaster. This has been part of a political move, from a medical model, in which disability, disease and illness are positioned as personal catastrophes, to a social model, in which disability is positioned as a social construct that comes from systems, institutions and infrastructure designed to exclude different bodies. It is a move that is responsible for a certain discomfort people with disabilities, and artists with disabilities, today feel towards performances that deploy disability as a metaphor for disaster, from Hijikata, to Theatre Hora. In the past five years, though, this particular discourse has begun rising again, particularly as people with disabilities fact their own anything but natural disasters as a result of the austerity measures now widespread across the US, UK, Europe and elsewhere. Measures that threaten people’s ability to live, and take part in social and institutional life, in any meaningful way. Measures that, as artist Katherine Araniello notes, also bring additional difficulty, danger, and potential for disaster as they ripple outwards across the tides of familial ties, threatening family, friends, and careers who become bound up in the struggle to do more with less. In this paper, I consider how people with disabilities use performance, particularly public space interventionalist performance, to reengage, renact and reenvisage the discourse of national, economic, environmental or other forms of disaster, the need for austerity, the need to avoid providing people with support for desires and interests as well as basic daily needs, particularly when fraud and corruption is so right, and other such ideas that have become an all too unpleasant reality for many people. Performances, for instance, like Liz Crow’s Bedding Out, where she invited people into her bed – for people with disabilities a symbolic space, which necessarily becomes more a public living room restaurant, office and so forth than a private space when poor mobility means they spend much time it in – to talk about their lives, their difficulties, and dealing with austerity. Or, for instance, like the Bolshy Divas, who mimic public and political policy, reports and advertising paranoia to undermine their discourses about austerity. I examine the effects, politics and ethics of such interventions, including examination of the comparative effect of highly bodied interventions (like Crow’s) and highly disembodied interventions (like the Bolshy Diva’s) in discourses of difficulty, disaster and austerity on a range of target spectator communities.

The meaning of home for Karen and Chin refugees from Burma: An interpretative phenomenological approach

Loss of home is common to all people from a refugee background yet we have little understanding of the diversity of meaning associated with this important concept. A phenomenological approach was used to explore experiences of home amongst Karen and Chin refugees residing in Brisbane. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants from Karen and Chin backgrounds. The participants comprised five females and four males (mean age 40 years, median length of time in Australia 1.33 years). Participants described their migration stories, including pre- and post-migration history. Analysis was conducted using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three superordinate themes, explicating the meaning of home for participants, were identified: home as the experience of a psychological space of safety and retreat; home as the socio-emotional space of relatedness to family; and home as geographical-emotional landscape. Loss of home was experienced as a multidimensional loss associated with emotional and physical disturbances. These findings, based upon a phenomenological paradigm, enhance understanding of the experience of being a refugee and of the suffering engendered by loss of home. They open up the possibility for conceptualizing refugee responses in terms of human suffering and meaning making.

Challenges facing sustainable housing in Saudi Arabia : a current study showing the level of public awareness

Sustainable housing implementation requires strong support from the public, government and the housing industry. Lack of public awareness and understanding of the language and the meaning of sustainable housing may cause lack of public support. Salama stated that "sustainability or sustainable design is simply a rephrasing of some of the forgotten values of traditional architecture and urbanism"(Salama 2007). This exploratory paper examines public awareness of sustainable housing in Saudi Arabia. In developing countries, like Saudi Arabia, which have been experiencing a rapid rate of urbanisation, sustainable concept intervention is essential due to the scarcity of resources (Reffat 2004a). Sustainable building methods include the full use of the site design, passive solar design, natural light and ventilation. This paper reports on an exploratory survey on understanding the potential of the implementation of sustainable housing in Saudi Arabia. The main problem is that more than half of respondents were not aware of sustainable housing. Thus, one of the recommendations from the survey is to educate the public by using local media to inform people of the benefits of sustainable implementation to both new and existing housing stock.

Redland city youth and public space report : provisions for good practice

Written for Redland City Council in collaboration with the Capalaba Stakeholders Group. The provisions detailed in this report constitute a protocol agreement developed through the Capalaba Stakeholders Group between 2009 and 2011 around young people and public spaces in Redland City, Queensland. These provisions include agreed principles, standards and responses to tensions or unacceptable behaviour, how various tensions and problems can be resolved in constructive ways and how people, including young people can work together to make a public or community accessed space safe and accessible. It is based on the recognition that young people are part of the community and that strategies to resolve tensions that arise should be inclusive and employ a mixed methods approach.