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CityOpenSource is a collaborative mapping platform (SaaS) for digital storytelling projects by locating multimedia contents and data on interactive maps. The platform stimulates the sharing, reuse and personalization of the experience and plays on the possibility of integrating additional services of proximity marketing and AI-based analysis tools. It also allows the import and export of data and their re-use on a platform, also presenting itself as DaaS (Data as a Service) of digital commons and open data. https://www.cityopensource.com/

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Site-writing is a critical and ethical spatial practice that explores what happens when discussions concerning situatedness and site-specificity enter the writing of architectural and urban criticism, history and theory, and writers reflect on their own subject positions in relation to their particular objects and fields of study, and on how their writing can engage materially with their sites of inquiry and audiences. Drawing out the spatial qualities of these interactions between writers and readers on the one hand, places, artefacts, and texts on the other, includes sites – material, political and conceptual – as well as those remembered, dreamed and imagined.

Writers whose work is engaged with the concepts and processes of site-writing suggest a whole variety of ways for doing art, architectural and urban history, theory and criticism, making art and other spatial practices. Works combine image and text to produce variations in spatial relations; exploring the architectural and spatial qualities of storytelling; blending personal and academic writing styles to create different subject positions; investigating the interaction between material and psychic states; articulating the interactive relationship between writing and art/design practice; and showing how written responses to specific sites can propose innovative urban genres that hover between fact and fiction. By drawing on the emotional, as well as the political, qualities of interactions between subjects and sites, site-writings have the potential to reconfigure the relations between spatial theories, poetics, and practices, in ways that are ethical and aesthetic.

For a range of projects, see https://site-writing.co.uk/

See also Jane Rendell, Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism (London: IB Tauris, 2011) and for an introduction to the methodology

Jane Rendell, Professor of Critical Spatial Practice, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

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Scores are symbolisations of processes, which extend over time. They provide a narrative tool for both analysis and design, reading the urban landscape as a sequence of events, understood from the narrative, spatiotemporal perspective view of the experiencing subject moving through the city. Communicating processes over time and space to others in other places and other moments, such scores can objectively represent non-visual qualities of space.

In the 1960s and 1970s architects, urban designers and landscape architects such as Kevin Lynch, Edmund Bacon and many others,  experimented with alternative notation techniques for analysis and design, in order to approach the city from the perspective of the subject in a narrative way: serial views, interviews, sketches, mappings made by inhabitants, etc. Among them was American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916-2009).  Inspired by the close relationship he had to dance and theatre, the choreography of movement became a key notion for his designs. He invented a personalised ideographic system, using scores to choreograph the movement of elements in urban parks, plazas and cultural centres. He devised scores for all fields of human endeavour, amongst others, street scores, ecological scores, city scores and community scores.

Halprin called the type of score that represents motion “motation”. Its primary purpose was to create a notation for any movement in space. Whereas the scores Halprin created took the actor as the subject—similar to the scores used in music, dance and theatre—they can be pushed further by taking the physical urban landscape as the subject; a translation from how people act and perceive in space, to how space and place can determine action and perception. Such representations of movement, exposing not the movements themselves, but the qualities of the surroundings that change as we move through them, can communicate the experiential aspects of the design: exposing not what we perceive, but what is there to be perceived.

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Tattoo and its graphic representation (Susana Azevedo Cardal)

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Tattoo and its graphic representation (Susana Azevedo Cardal)

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The Graphic Expression Tattoo, is the central theme of the PhD research project in Design (ongoing, in final stage)

“Inspiration. From real life. I open my eyes and I travel and I look. And I read everything.”
Erik Spiekermann

Throughout the second chapter of this thesis, the use of tattooing is presented in different contexts of social groups and in different geographical points distributed over a space-time relationship. Because it is a universal visual manifestation, which has been accompanying man throughout its history, it is really on human skin, on the surface of the body, that these individuals personalize and differentiate themselves. To achieve the alteration of their own unique body image, the selection of criteria such as the design of various elements of graphic expression that support their own content and the anatomical location, as well as a symbolic representation inherent to the shape, are of high importance in the construction of the identity of each one, in view of the respective projection before the society in which he moves, that is, visibility of these body marks, marks the greater or lesser projection before the observers and, the way in which the bearer connects with the world. The ability to establish contact with others is enhanced by the differences and originality of each human being, through a deep understanding of the body. In each historical period, there were different conceptions, from the point of view, of identity construction, from technological advances (materials and instruments used) to design, in view of the initial drawing and on the human skin during the act of tattooing. As the body is one of the privileged supports of the ornament, it becomes a field of study and application of new concepts in the area of visual communication. The body has always been a support and vehicle for communication, for sharing visual narratives, a “space” that allows the other to observe the coded messages that presuppose an initiation to the reading of the symbolic discourse introduced into the skin through these body inscriptions. From this “visual sharing”, we can observe and point out the relevance of these interventions in the human body, as an intermediate instrument in the union and identification of small or large groups of individuals, inserted in indigenous tribes to more contemporary social groups. When observing the formation of these groups in the Portuguese urban environment, we are faced with particular characteristics of each era, such as tattoos designed in the first half of the 20th century, with the documentary collect and photographic capture of some fragments of human skin preserved in glass bottles , in formaldehyde, carried out at the (INMLCF) National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, in the South Delegation, in Lisbon, as well as, in the previous period, in the development of these body marks during of the Colonial War (1961-74), as well as the remarkable progress from April 25thuntil today.
The importance of this theme is so relevant today that there are several brands of products and services that explore tattooing as an integral and central element in visual communication, in order to achieve greater projection in proximity to potential consumers. Tattooing as a professional practice has, over time, focused on the primacy of technique, but not on formal construction. However, nowadays, it begins to show itself in the design field, in the formation of a “body-project”, which is being built based on the composition more aware of the relationship between tattooist and consumer, much in part by the academic training of tattooists in artistic areas , namely, in communication design. It is possible, therefore, today to establish a connection between design and tattooing, by understanding the history that characterizes the formal and symbolic components in its practice.

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Retrospective narration and storytelling connecting past and present

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Retrospective narration and storytelling connecting past and present

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Narration and storytelling as a cognitive and educational tool is implemented in many interdisciplinary areas, including those related to the writing urban places, and co-creating their physical and spiritual image. Using descriptions from the past (records from diaries, books, press articles, etc.) has not only historical value as a form of documentation. That kind of narrations contain information presenting places by showing their spiritual character – genius loci (based on impressions and feelings of the visitor) and various physical features (based on facts about the physically existing elements making up the place), which is a method of place’s retrospection from today's point of view. This tool can be used to write urban places in the context of present in two ways: on the one hand – as a material for comparative analyzes showing transformations of a place, changes of place physicality and functions; on the other hand – to show the spiritual context, the identity of a place uniqueness, including the lost and added values ​​in subsequent periods of the place's existence and development.

[sent by Kinga Kimic]

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Urbanarrative is a term about not only urban but also narrative or not only narrative but also urban. It describes a methodological procedure and use the tools (discourse analysis-DC, Rhetorical analysis-RA, Corpus linguistics-CL) to create methods for constructing, interpreting, and exploiting textual documents for urban places.

Urbanarrative focuses on the textual outputs of the city and gives literal messages and datas from the city. It can offer a set of possibilities to look at the city with the layers, to make sense of it, to think about its ground, and to reproduce it as a fiction.

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Exercises in Style (French: Exercices de style), written by Raymond Queneau, is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, a simple and anodyne ¨urban event¨, each in a different style. In each, the narrator gets on the "S" bus (now no. 84), witnesses an altercation between a man (a zazou) with a long neck and funny hat and another passenger, and then sees the same person two hours later at the Gare St-Lazare getting advice on adding a button to his overcoat.

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Stream of consciousness technique as a narrative device

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Stream of consciousness technique as a narrative device

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For the narratives of the city, my proposal is to use the stream of consciousness technique as a narrative device for exploring, analyzing and revealing the inner / subjective / personal / individualised / core city as well as the voices of the city.

It is through thoughts, words, associations, gestures and actions that characters project themselves unto the place they (wish to) inhabit. Spontaneous and flowing by nature, the technique conveys a sense of authenticity and simplicity while addressing such notions as substance, self, vision or originality.

Moreover, the above mentioned device can relate to the literary type of flaneur/flaneuse, an observer and a participant alike, developing relationships with the surrounding structures and landscapes; it may also involve elements of street photography and psychogeography.

For the time being, my ideas draw on the work of Romanian postmodern writer Adriana Bittel.

[sent by Alexandra Purnichescu]

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Methods and approaches to analyze, experience, capture and narrate the city

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Methods and approaches to analyze, experience, capture and narrate the city

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1. Narrating the city: memory construction/restoration and destruction of memory.

Reading the city through its buildings, squares, roads, houses, environment and history, literature, people.

Case study: Tirana - memory destruction

Comparison: Shkodra - memory construction

Tirana - Shkodra

2. City and their constructors: narrating the city by the history of constructors

Constructors are simple people, businessmen, architects, governors...

3. City writing: Narrating the city through their writers...

4. Multicultural city: narrating the city by their different cultural buildings.

Shkodra, Tirana, Durrës...

5. City symbols: semiotic of the city

[sent by Brikena Smajli]

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The Manhattan Transcripts (Bernard Tschumi)

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The Manhattan Transcripts (Bernard Tschumi)

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Already a classic, but always a useful device to narrate architecture  understood as the conjonction between the built object and the events that affect it,  through the use (and superposition) of multiple medias and supports : texts, photos, drawings and diagrams.

http://www.tschumi.com/projects/18/

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Architecture and Narrativity (Paul Ricoeur)

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Architecture and Narrativity (Paul Ricoeur)

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Through the concepts of Prefiguration, Configuration and Refiguration, Paul Ricoeur sets a tripartite device in order to grasp the complexity and multiplicity of the memory of places.

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 An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (Georges Perec)

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 An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (Georges Perec)

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http://escarbille.free.fr/vme/?txt=telp

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PlaceMaker is a method of urban analysis and design to describe the contemporary identity of the places and identify appropriate project interventions. PlaceMaker comprises eight phases – five of analysis and three of design (Sepe, 2013)

The five analysis phases are useful to describe and write places and will be illustrated in the following. Different types of database have to be created to contain the different types of data collected: there are data from anticipatory analysis (sketches, poems, collages, etc...); the denominative and perceptive (through words), the graphical (signs and symbols), the photographic (fixed images), video (moving images) surveys; the elements deduced from the study of traditional planimetries (graphic signs, symbols etc...); the questionnaire administered to visitors to the places in question (sketches, words, etc...). It is necessary to decide the categories of elements to analyze, which are particularly connected to the urban events identified above, and the corresponding measurement parameters. Moreover, it is necessary to establish which days are the most significant and the most appropriate time slices for surveys.
(...)
Full text in PDF below

[sent by Marichela Seppe]

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Magna Żmien set out to salvage Maltese memories that lay neglected and deteriorating on their original analogue carriers, freeing them from obsolete playback formats by converting them to digital files. By offering a free digitisation service to the public, we give individuals and communities access to previously lost images, sounds and narratives. This content is shared on our platforms and through our activities, preserving it for future generations, while being careful to credit and respect the wishes of the donor. We believe that all the material that we gather in our archive is part of our shared heritage, and that this heritage must be properly cared for.
http://www.magnazmien.com

[sent by Andrea Stegani, Valletta Cultural Agency]

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Music videos constitute a very pertinent and specific formula to illustrate and describe the city – or cities – of the 1980s. This device allowed us to have, in the same geography, a rock city, a pop city, a queer city, or a hip-hop city. The city represented through the music videos of the 1980s reflects and delineates the limits of its own (post-modern) contemporaneity: subjective, fragmented, plural and diffuse. The analysis of this device allows us to understand the postmodern subjectivity, and to notice a whole paradigm shift in the way the city is represented, and also in the way this city is experienced (written, narrated, interpreted, inhabited) from now on.

The Image of the City and its Represented-Space in music videos from the 80's: North-American Interferences in the Western Contemporary Architectural Culture

The present research will analyze the western city of the eighties of the twentieth century and its Represented-Space in the music videos of the same period. It aims at understanding how the city conveys and enforces a new image of itself through the music videos, as well as the impact of this audiovisual device on architecture and vice versa.

Postmodernity and the post-industrial city's evolution are accompanied by an increase in social diversity along new patterns of consumption, based on the search for the "more" and the "newer". The city analyzed here is the North American city because it is specifically illustrated in the light of the MTV music videos that first appeared in America in 1981. This was the moment when the video was instituted and was assumed as a device associated to a submersion in a pop and capitalizable formula that includes fashion, brand, sound, image, marketing, cinema and lifestyle. The mass media boom along with the proliferation of the image and of a specific type of hedonism typical of this decade have fostered a new form of representation of the city. Meaning, the city and the video were contaminated reciprocally. These contaminations shall be named interferences here.

The same way that the city immersed itself in the visuality of the music video implementing and conveying, from this moment onwards, a punk city, a queer city, a pop city, a city rap or hip-hop, to mention just a few, so will the music video interfere, afterwards, in the city. The consequences of these interferences in Western Architectural Culture will be addressed here. Special focus will be given to Portugal’s case, in the decades that followed the avalanche of Anglo-Saxon musical visuality provided by MTV's hatch.

The intention will be to ascertain and understand the consequences of these contaminations, influences and interferences. In what way did the City lend itself to the video? And how did the video assimilate, digest and return it to the public? And, simultaneously and later on, how did the music video lend itself to the City and Architecture? Taking into account the specific characteristics of this device, we will investigate its consequences in the City, its Image and its Space-Represented after its contact with the music videos of the eighties.

Luísa Sol's PhD thesis:
https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/17591

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Thick description was developed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1972) who argued that descriptions are inevitably interpretations, thus outlining the necessity to additionally provide readers with detailed accounts about the perceived, the local and the context; to go beyond scientific facts, surface appearances and symbolic gestures and insert details, events and history into explanations and experiences. Thick description is a method that works towards revealing the intricate and layered quality of situations, where Geertz argues that in order to know what was really going on, one has to look beyond the subject – or site – of study, and understand how it is a part of its circumstances and surroundings. However, it is not the exhaustiveness of coverage or the arranging of abstracted entities into unified patterns that makes a description thick – it is not a search for a singular and all-encompassing truth. Instead, thick description is intended to be a creative act of interpretation that brings together and shares the multiplicity of aspects, elements, perspectives and experiences that manifest themselves within the subject/site of analysis.
Thick description is a hermeneutical practice which produces knowledge from the act of clarifying and mediating the world; by grasping the unending and interrelated maze of contextual, historical and situational perspectives and expressing them anew. Thus, thick description an active engagement in making; a rendering or re-presentation created in the present; they are essentially ‘fictions’ in the sense that they are “something made”, “something fashioned” – the original meaning of ficti’. Within architectural studies thick description offers the possibility to broaden understandings of the often-generalized spaces by enabling diverse perspectives, insights and intentions to articulate the built environment and its spatial composition.

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays.

Joseph G Ponterotto, “Brief Note on the Origins, Evolution and Meaning of the Qualitative Research Concept Thick Description,” The Qualitative Report 11, no. 3 (2006): 541.

Dorothee Brantz, Sasha Disko, and Georg Wagner-Kyora, eds., Thick Space : Approaches to Metropolitanism (Bielefeld: Bielefeld Transcript – Urban Studies, 2012).

Catherine Dee, “Poetic-Critical Drawing in Landscape Architecture,” Topos: Landscape Architecture and Criticism 49 (2004).

Thaïsa Way, “Landscapes of Industrial Excess: A Thick Sections Approach to Gas Works Park,” Journal of Landscape Architecture 8, no. 1 (2013): 28–39.

Alison Hirsch, “Expanded ‘Thick Description’: The Landscape Architect as Critical Ethnographer,” in Innovations in Landscape Architecture, 2016.

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The Delphi method is a process for gathering information from a group of specialists (Jillson, 1979) to reach consensus of opinion about a certain subject (Fuller and Jones-Evans, 1994).

That method is used for formalization during a decision-analysis process in order that all the experts (panellists) reache identical opinions (Harmanthy, 1982) so that the final result is a consequence of the participation of several experts and not just one person (Shields et al., 1987). With Delphi, communications between geographically dispersed groups of experts are improved (Linstone and Turoff, 1975).

In the Delphi process a group of specialists, which represents a population of experts, answers several rounds of questionnaires about a certain subject in order to reach a common approach about it (Jillson, 1979). These rounds are repeated until the panel (group of specialists) reaches a consensus on that subject (Fuller and Jones-Evans, 1994).

Before beginning the rounds of questionnaires, a pilot questionnaire should be constructed so that issues like the number of panellists and number of rounds can be fine-tuned (Jillson, 1979).

The Delphi technique is based on three essential features (Dalkey 1969; Perez and Schuler, 1982):

1 - Anonymity. A face to face discussion between experts can lead to a distorted conclusion because experts with dominant personalities can impose their thoughts to others and misguide the process (Shields et al., 1987). Besides that anonymity prevents (Linstone and Turoff, 1975) the following aspects:

— The unwillingness of individuals to take a position on an issue before all facts are known.

— The difficulty of publicly contradicting individuals in higher positions.

— The unwillingness to abandon a position once it is publicly taken.

— The fear of bringing up an uncertain idea that may turns out to be misconstrued.

2 - Controlled feedback. The first questionnaire is analyzed, summarized and sent back to the panelists with the second questionnaire which was developed based on the results of the first (Linstone and Turoff, 1993). This process is repeated through two to five rounds (Linstone and Turoff, 1993).

3 - Statistical group response. The use of statistics attenuates the pressure for conformity once it is difficult to have a full consensus between the panellists (Harmanthy, 1982).

The Delphi method was created as a process to predict technological development by a group of specialists (Linstone and Turoff, 1993). Its initial aim was to forecast scenarios through obtaining reliable consensus of opinion of a group of experts by answering a series of intensive questionnaires with controlled opinion feedback (Linstone and Turoff, 1975).

Today, the Delphi technique is applied to issues other than the prediction of scenarios. In fact, this technique can be applied when information is not available or when evaluation models require subjective inputs to the point where they become dominant parameters (Linstone and Turoff, 1975).

Furthermore, Delphi can be used to analyze decisions on subjects that consist of extensive number of variables or on deficient or even unavailable information in a statistic form (Harmanthy, 1982). This technique is also applied when the subject cannot be approached in an analytical way (Fuller and Jones-Evans, 1982).

Nevertheless the Delphi technique presents several pitfalls that can restrict its field of application (Linstone, 1975):

Space-time discounting. By ignoring a longer time horizon it is hoped that additional options or solutions to currently unsolved problems will materialize.

The prediction urge can lead to the suppression of uncertainty which can mask the real significance of the Delphi results.

The simplification urge. Most human-beings exhibit a tenacious tendency to simplistic misjudgments.

Illusory expertise. The specialist is not necessarily the best forecaster.

Poor selection of participants.

Poor interaction between participant and analyst.

Superficial analysis.

Basic lack of imagination by the designer.

Over-pessimism in long-range forecasts and over-optimism in short-range forecasts.

Overselling the Delphi results.

The process is not immune to manipulation or propaganda.

Difficulty in generalizing results beyond the population of panel members.

Further detail about delphi methods can be explained in detail.

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I suggest to address THE CITY with a method that would develop from
RITUAL THEORY, also considering other related (inter)disciplinary
approaches.

MAIN BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE:
VAN GENNEP, Arnold
Les Rites de Passage. Étude Systématique des Rites de la Porte et du Seuil, de l'Hospitalité, de l'Adoption, de la Grossesse et de l'Acouchement, de la Naissance, de l'Enfance, de la Puberté, de l'Initiation, de l'Ordination, du Couronnement, des Fiançailles et du Mariage, des Funérailles, des Saisons
Paris: Émile Nourry, 1909

“Les procédés dont il a été parlé sont appliqués, non seulement quand il s'agit d'un pays ou d'un territoire, mais aussi d'un village, d'une ville, d'un quartier de ville, d'un temple, d'une maison. Mais alors la zone neutre se rétrécit progressivement, jusqu'à n'être (sauf pour le pronaos, le narthex, le vestibulum, etc.) qu'une simple pierre,
qu'une poutre, qu'un seuil. Le portique-tabou-de-passage devient ici la poterne des murailles, la porte des murs de quartier, la porte de la maison. Aussi voit-on le caractère sacré ne pas se localiser seulement dans le seuil; mais tout aussi sacrés sont les linteaux et
l'architrave.”
[VAN GENNEP, 1909, pp. 25-26]

“Aux rites d'entrée dans la maison, le temple, etc., correspondent des
rites de sortie, qui sont soit identiques, soit inverses.”
[VAN GENNEP, 1909, p. 32]

“Un troisième point, enfin, qui me paraît important, c'est l'identification du passage à travers les diverses situations sociales au passage matériel, à l'entrée dans un village ou une maison, au passage d'une chambre à l'autre, ou à travers des rues et des places. C'est pourquoi, si souvent, passer d'un âge, d'une classe, etc., à
d'autres, s'exprime rituellement par le passage sous un portique ou
par une ‘ouverture des portes’. Il ne s'agit là que rarement d'un ‘symbole’; le passage idéal est proprement pour les demi-civilisés un passage matériel.” [VAN GENNEP, 1909, pp. 275-276]

SOME OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES:
ABELIOVICH, Ruthie
“Reconsidering Arnold Van Gennep’s Les Rites de Passage from the
Perspective of ‘Performance Studies’”, Journal of Classical Sociology,
2018, Vol. 18(4) 283–298
https://www.academia.edu/37550868/Reconsidering_Arnold_Van_Gennep_s_Les_Rites_de_Passage_from_the_Perspective_of_Performance_Studies_ (accessed 28.12.2020)

BLUNDELL JONES, Peter
Architecture and Ritual. How Buildings Shape Society, London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2016

DA MATTA, Roberto
“Individualidade e Liminaridade: Considerações sobre os Ritos de
Passagem e a Modernidade”, Mana. Estudos de Antropologia Social, 2000,
Vol. 6(1) 7-29
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-93132000000100001
(accessed 28.12.2020)

GOFFMAN, Erving
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Doubleday, 1959

MARTINS, João Paulo
Os Espaços e as Práticas Arquitectura e Ciências Sociais: Habitus,
Estruturação e Ritual
[PhD Thesis in Architecture] Lisboa: Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 2006
https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/1614 (accessed 28.12.2020)

PARKIN, David
"Ritual as Spatial Direction and Bodily Division" in Daniel De Coppet (ed.), Understanding Rituals
London, New York: Routledge, 1992, pp. 11-25

SEGALEN, Martine
Rites et Rituels Contemporains, Paris: Nathan, 1998

ZHANG, Juwen
“Recovering Meanings Lost in Interpretations of ‘Les Rites de
Passage’", Western Folklore, 2012, Vol. 71(2) 119-147
https://www.academia.edu/4870631/Recovering_Meanings_Lost_in_Interpretations_of_Les_Rites_de_Passage (accessed 28.12.2020)

[sent by João Paulo Martins,
FAUL]

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“The queer methodology attempts to combine methods that are often cast as being at odds with each other, and it refuses the academic compulsion towards disciplinary coherence”.

Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

The accompanying image is a (deliberate) fragment of an essay in which I discuss this notion in the context of architecture - Jobst, M. (2021) 'Writing Architectural Affects'. In: Jobst and Frichot, Architectural Affects after Deleuze and Guattari. London and New York: Routledge.

[sent by Marko Jobst]

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A study conducted by Moore-Cherry, Crossa & O`Donnell (2014) proposed the inclusion of maps in visual-elicitation interviews with key planners and development stakeholders. In the map-elicitation, GIS analyses were used to create images that describe ways of growth in Dublin's urban areas and their patterns of urban governance, mixing quantitative and qualitative information. According to the authors, these types of stakeholders do not respond well to the use of photos as part of the research process. Using maps was a persuasive way to engage them and facilitated the production of deeper and more reflective knowledge.

Reference: Moore-Cherry, N., Crossa, V., & O’Donnell, G. (2015). Investigating urban transformations: GIS, map-elicitation and the role of the state in regeneration. Urban Studies, 52(12), 2134-2150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098014545520

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For a cartopologist, maps are research instruments to engage with the lived reality of the location about to be mapped. The Institute of Cartopology is founded in order to explain and explore the cartopological practice. It addresses the following two main concerns of a cartopologist: firstly, the place of ‘place’ in daily life and on maps and secondly, maps as research instruments. Cartopology investigates the extent to which places are appropriated and the daily interpretation of place. It is a search for knowledge that is not immediately written down or told, but rather hidden in obviousness, in habits and embodied in actions that define places. Cartopological maps allow to document and notate this knowledge in an embodied way. From the field and drawn on paper as direct as possible. Introducing maps as research instruments as opposed to their role in existing mapping practices, the map is not the territory but an instrument to understand the territory and with that the daily life of a place.

An example of a cartopological approach is the Border Encyclopedia conducted by the Institute of Cartopology in collaboration with Zuyd University and the Maastricht University. The Border Encyclopedia (http://www.borderencyclopedia.eu) aims to find more intimate and local ways to represent the inner borders of Europe and thus to do more justice to those borders then the simple black line that is representing the border mostly on maps is able to do.

- Marlies Vermeulen

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Analysing the building materials of towns/cities as they  give character and atmosphere to the places.

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Through mapping on different scales (regional, city/town, square) connections can be made through space and time, and extrapolated hidden information. Important travel routes, resources or landscapes can be detected and give valuable information on places.

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To understand the city/town, walking is an important tool. In every city the same starting point is used to have the opportunity to compare the towns/cities. Take for example the city square. The function of squares started to vary as cities started to grow. Some became places of encounter between the countryside and city, others adapted to host festive, sportive, residential or administrative activities (Memluk 2013; Wolfrum 2014, 17). Accordingly, squares have different functions and are distinct in their particular context (Wolfrum 2014, 18). What has remained a central ability of all squares is that they attract people (Lévy 2008). Therefore we used the square as the starting point of a foray through the city. From here we slowly moved a couple of streets away from the vocal point and investigated the layers the city/town encapsulates. Walking is an important tool as it is a slow movement enabling you to penetrate the city's fabric. According to Sennett, a professor in sociology and well known in the field of architecture, the loss of places has to do with the speed of the connection - the faster you move, the less aware you are of your environment (Sennett 2018).

Memluk, Murat Z. “Designing urban squares.” In Advances in Landscape Architecture. IntechOpen, 2013.

Lévy, Bertrand. “The European Town Square as an Ideal Place, or Camillo Sitte Revisited.” Environment, Land, Society Architectonics 1, no. 2 (2008): 24-37.

Sennett, Richard. Building and dwelling: ethics for the city. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

Wolfrum, Sophie, ed. Squares: Urban Spaces in Europe. Birkhäuser, 2014.

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Film captures the dynamics and movement of places. Another advantage is that sounds can be recorded on film as well, since different sounds impact perception of place (e.g. a busy road parallel to a square or street musicians construct different atmospheres). Additionally, the beauty of capturing specific sounds is that it can identify differences between places, but simultaneously present similarities such as the sound of ringing church bells.

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By photographing the architecture of the built environment the places can be deconstructed systematically  in the following elements: facade, windows, doors, ornaments and details, materials and public furniture. By deconstructing the built environment in this manner, an overview is created of the elements that articulates the physical language of the places.

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Street talking with people you meet accidently walking along to feel their feelings and senses towards different objects in the surrounding

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Analysis of photos describing changes along years which can teach us about variety of urban, social, economic, behavior, human phenomenon

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Reference(s):
Kozinets, R. (2017). Netnography: radical participative understanding for a networked communications society. In Willig, C., & Rogers, W. The SAGE Handbook of qualitative research in psychology (pp. 374-380). London: SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9781526405555

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Narrative criticism examines narratives and their components to better understand the storytellers.

Schechet, N., (2005). Narrative Fissures: Reading and Rhetoric, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

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Based on the framework of rhetorical analysis, narrative involves the analysis and description of a text in terms of rhetorical moves or rhetorical structures, which denote the functional parts or sections of narratives.

Further details: Manrique-Losada, B., Zapata-Jaramillo, C. M., & Venegas-Velásquez, R. (2019). Applying rhetorical analysis to processing technical documents. Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture, 41(1), e43382.

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"a use of the computer to collect a large sample of language both spoken and written for purposes of description" (p. 161)

"corpus linguistics is in some sense a linguistic formalisation of ideas about genre and different kinds of language text" (p. 84)

Davies, A., (2007). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics: From Practice to Theory, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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qualitative content analysis allows to extract a wide spectrum of important data from any image under analysis. G. Rose (2016) presents the methodology for the comprehensive analysis of images, where demonstrates diverse layers of information each image can contain.
Rose, G. 2016. Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (4th ed.). London: Sage.

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Stahle A. 2006. Sociotope mapping – exploring public open space and its multiple use values in urban and landscape planning practice. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 19(4), p. 59 – 71.

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Serious play, serious game exercizes can be applied in the analysis of urban photographs and narratives.
Vitkuvienė, Jurga; Gražulevičiūtė-Vileniškė, Indrė; Zaleckis, Kęstutis; Tranavičiūtė,
Brigita. Serious game and serious play concepts in the content analysis of urban spaces //
Architecture and urban planning = Arhitektūra un pilsetplānošana. Warsaw : Riga : De Gruyter;
RTU Press. ISSN 1691-4333. eISSN 2255-8764. 2019, vol. 15, iss. 1, p. 30-37. DOI: 10.2478/aup-
2019-0004.

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Content analysis can be broadly defined as the scientific study of content of communication. It is a set of procedures for transforming non-structured information into a format that allows analysis. The object of content analysis is communication.
Several trends of application of content analysis in urban studies and related fields can be distinguished:

- analysis of urban planning literature and graphical and text parts of planning documents;

- analysis of other types of media related to urban planning;

- content analysis of contemporary and historic maps;

- understanding of different environments and related aspects through content analysis of photographs; content analysis of interviews and surveys data.

Zaleckis, K., Grazuleviciute-Vileniske, I., Vitkuvienė, J., Tranaviciute, B., Dogan, H.
A., Sinkiene, J., & Grunskis, T. (2019). Integrating content analysis into urban research:
compatibility with sociotope method and multimodal graph. SAGE Open, 9(1), 1-13.
doi:10.1177/2158244019840115

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"emplotment is a narrative strategy that situates a specific
event (or events) within a larger narrative framework; a strategy that gives
sense, structure, coherency, and causality to what otherwise would remain
a mere enumeration of actions. Especially when considering non-fictional
texts that bear little resemblance to literary narratives, such as policy documents,
the analysis of a text’s emplotment strategies – in other words, of
how narrative elements direct the reader towards a coherent plot – can be
particularly beneficial. Unlike texts of literary fiction, few planning documents
have a strong authorial voice, explicit plot lines, or distinct character
dynamics. All planning narratives, however, will exhibit some thematic,
linguistic, and stylistic features that situate the planning area on a geographical
map and within a narrative intrigue." (Ameel 2020, 51)
Ameel, Lieven. The Narrative Turn in Urban Planning: Plotting the Helsinki Waterfront. London: Routledge, 2020.
Ameel, Lieven. “Emplotting urban regeneration: Narrative strategies in the case of Kalasatama, Helsinki.” DATUTOP 34. Re-City. Future City – combining disciplines. 2016, 222-240.

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"Narrative mapping is not only a mapping
of narratives, but also, and more specifically, an indexization of narratives in terms of their narrative form and structure, and of the way in which these
account for how a relationship with the surrounding environment is forged ... Analytical coherence is provided
by treating these different sources in terms of their narrative structure, and
by focusing on a key set of narrative elements: plot, character development,
metaphor, and genre. This enables a structured treatment of the material and
lays the ground for rigorous interpretation and comparison." (Ameel 2020 33-34)

Ameel, Lieven: The Narrative Turn in Urban Planning: Plotting the Helsinki Waterfront. London: Routledge, 2020.
“Narrative Mapping and Polyphony in Urban Planning.” Yhdyskuntasuunnittelu / Finnish Journal for Urban Studies 2016: 2, 2016, 20–40.

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Fieldwork techniques for dealing with the challenges of 'situated multiplicity' (Amin 2008) in urban public realm settings.

References:
Jones, A. (2020) Public realm ethnography: (Non-)participation, co-presence and the challenge of situated multiplicity. Urban Studies https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098020904261

Amin A (2008) Collective culture and urban public
space. City 12(1): 5–24 https://doi.org/10.1080/13604810801933495

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Dérive of Guy Debord and the derived investigation of the city through walking today

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Lynch, Kevin (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

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arcGIS story maps are a way to connect different media such as images, maps and text to create an urban narrative

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Only 3 URL’s can be saved at a time. You can remove a saved URL to remember another.

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Urban narratives through discourse analysis (DA)

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Urban narratives through discourse analysis (DA)

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DA emerged more than a half century ago as a discipline of linguistics attempting to analyse larger texts, i.e. everything that goes beyond one sentence, in its context. This method has been largely utilised to analyse texts not only from their morphology but mostly from the sociolinguistic viepoint, i.e how these narratives form (and are formed by) the external world. DA can be utilised to study various utterances and narratives that emerge when people meet, when they are creative and productive and can also reflect the implementation of these human language achievements in broder contexts, such as architecture, politics and human environment.

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A recognised and somehow radical  sport with a sense of rebellion. The city becomes the playground that allows for a different discovering of the urban space. Parkour is about freedom in exploring the urban spaces as opposed to ruled and established ways of moving around the city.

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Parkour, as we know it today, stems from the activities of nine young Parisian men. The Yamakasi group, as they were known, trained together in what they called "l'art du placement": a spectacular, regimented and controlled way of moving. But that was at the turn of the 21st century. Now, parkour is a global phenomenon, with traceurs - those who practice parkour - running, jumping, climbing and rolling their way through cities around the world, and in places such as Gaza.

Appearances in Hollywood films and TV documentaries have boosted the profile of parkour, impressed millions with its grace and dynamism and given rise to a global movement of like-minded people, all wanting to learn how to move in these incredible ways.

Charlie Scott, CC BY-NC-ND

Today, parkour is a recognised sport, with many institutions offering training camps and regular courses - some have even built specially-designed parkour " parks". In just over a decade, it has gone from a niche activity - which many city officials regarded as anti-social - to an internationally recognised (not to mention, highly lucrative) sport.

Playful politics

Of course, parkour has always contained a political element. Like other "anti-social" urban activities which have been widely adopted across the globe, such as skateboarding and graffiti, parkour can still offer traceurs a sense of rebellion against "the establishment". Indeed, some city authorities still seek to prosecute traceurs, while action-packed blockbuster films play up parkour's more subversive side.

But in fact, the people who practice parkour are engaging in urban politics in a very playful way. This sport actively encourages people to see the city as a playground. Traceurs will often talk of having " parkour eyes ", which allow them to see the city as a child would: as a playground to explore rather than a system of containment.

Jumping over bollards, climbing up walls or rolling over concrete roofs; these spectacular movements show what the human body is capable of - but they also highlight how the city can be navigated in very different ways. In early films and videos, traceurs' spectacular physical movements are deliberately contrasted with parts of the city which are static, fixed and enclosed.

The freedom to move that parkour enables was, and still is, a fundamental part of its philosophy. It's also what makes parkour inherently political. Moving across the city in ways that it wasn't designed for is a liberating experience.

Parkour is very much a reaction to the increased restriction of movement in modern cities: it allows traceurs to rediscover their cities in an entirely new way, while also traversing architectural restrictions such as walls, fences and stair wells.

The politics of parkour are perhaps "softer" than other subcultures, such as skateboarding or graffiti, which have more subversive histories. In fact, there are plenty of comparisons to be drawn between parkour and martial art philosophies; particularly when it comes to practitioners' dedication to training the body and the mind.

But for all this, parkour is no less politically potent: it offers a way to highlight the city's systems of control, by creatively navigating the urban environment.

A social network

What's more, parkour is an inherently social activity. While most of the videos and images of parkour focus on individuals, traceurs actually train and practice together in groups. This social aspect is an important check on the temptation for self-promotion. They may gather in sanctioned parks (which often charge an entry fee), or more regularly in "hot spots": urban spaces which inadvertently provide the perfect architecture.

AgenciaAndes, CC BY-SA

One such place was the Vauxhall Walls in London, which was a concrete garden for a nearby tower block. Despite residents continually asking traceurs to leave, the spot became one of London's prime parkour locations. But in 2016, the site was "beautified" with landscape gardens and water features, and it is no longer suitable for practising parkour. This process feeds into other urban issues, such as gentrification - something London's Southbank skateboarders have also had to contend with.

The social aspect of parkour extends beyond training, too. As well as scoping out sites and developing new moves, traceurs often film videos of each other that are posted online. The virtual community of parkour is hugely important. It enables the sport to spread to new locations, by allowing people to watch videos of traceurs from the other side of the world, connect with them and adopt or adapt their moves.

Freedom from oppression

Parkour gives people the chance to express a freedom of movement that pays little attention to the instructions of the city. It's a highly social activity, which brings like-minded traceurs together and gives them a chance to be physically, but also politically active in their cities.

This is perhaps why it is flourishing in areas of the world that are under extreme social or political pressure. For example, there is a thriving parkour group among the disenfranchised youth of Gaza. And in Iran, where women's rights are often oppressed, parkour is gaining huge popularity among female participants.

Parkour offers a way to actively engage in the city physically, emotionally and socially. It requires nothing more than a pair of hands, an able body (which of course, makes it inaccessible to some) and a willingness to explore the city beyond the one your told to behave in. Parkour is an inherently political practice.

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The urban politics of parkour: how traceurs use sport to rediscover the city

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Parkour, as we know it today, stems from the activities of nine young Parisian men. The Yamakasi group, as they were known, trained together in what they called "l'art du placement": a spectacular, regimented and controlled way of moving. But that was at the turn of the 21st century.

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"Visibility graph is both isovist and current graph-based analyses of architectural space to form a new methodology for the investigation of configurational relationships. The measurement of local and global characteristics of the graph, for each vertex or for the system as a whole, is of interest from an architectural perspective, allowing us to describe a configuration with reference to accessibility and visibility, to compare from location to location within a system, and to compare systems with different geometries."

Turner, A. Doxa, M., O’Sullivan P., Penn, A. (2001) ‘From Isovists to Visibility Graphs: A Methodology for the Analysis of Architectural Space’, Environment and Planning B, 28(1).

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"Evolving from graffiti and street art, urban interventions are the next generation of artwork to hit public space. Using any and all of the components that make up urban and rural landscapes, these mostly spatial interventions bring art to the masses. They turn the street into a studio, laboratory, club, and gallery. Modified traffic signs, swings at bus stops, and images created out of sand or snow challenge us to rediscover our environment and interact with it in new ways. The work is an intelligent and critical commentary on the planning, use, and commercialization of public space."

Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Spaces Hardcover – 30 maart 2013

Gestalten (author), Matthias Hübner (author)

ISBN-10 : 3899552911

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Urban exploration using disruptive elements

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Urban exploration using disruptive elements

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Example: Projecto Galinha, by activists Bijari in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "...two hens are concomitantly freed at Largo da Batata, a Brazilian Northeastern culture enclave of low-income commuters who travel from downtown to the outskirts of the city; and in front of Iguatemi Mall, a trendy shopping center visited by the wealthier classes in town.
Surprise, affectivity, rejection and astonishment were among the reactions registered in this action, in which the presence of the hens break out urban normality by promoting little catharsis, thus acting as an analyzing element of social tensions."

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Opinion

Skateboarding and Architecture

Architecture is fundamentally limited to the conception of the building-as-object: a theoretical and historical fixation that erases the social and political experiences of the city. The following was written through the theories of Ian Borden, author of Skateboarding, Space and the city: Architecture and the Body.

Skateboarding as a process for rethinking architectures manifold possibilities:

My interest in skateboarding began well before my interest in architecture. It is not architecture history or theory but skateboarding that influences my social, spatial and conceptual understanding of architecture. My appreciation of the city is through the intimate desire to find new possibilities of representing, imagining and experiencing architecture. The followings investigates skateboarding as a legitimate means of architecture criticism and spatial appropriation.

Traditional architecture theory conceptualises the city as an absolute; it is recognised as an object that is not only static but also grounded by regulation. Through the values of skateboarding however, the city is reconceptualised as an amorphous space in constant transition, a space for the flow of ideas, events and activities. French Sociologist Henri Lefebvre argued that 'in addition to being a means of production and reproduction, space must serve as a tool for thought and action.'[1]

Skateboarding is perhaps an unusual object for study in architecture. However, it is precisely its marginal position that enables skateboarding to function as a critical exterior to the profession. Skateboarding is fundamentally concerned with the perspicacity of experience.

My own perception of architecture recognises space for production and reproduction. Space is neither stable nor fixed, but is constituted by the discourses and practices of social life. Architecture should be understood beyond the construction of built space; and through the practice of skateboarding, architecture can be defined broadly to be the tools, experiences, mappings, compositional processes and social relations that pertain in space.

Rejecting Capitalism:

In Sydney, skateboarding emerged in the late 1980s. Within a few years, it was legislated against. Innately, such laws add to the anarchic character of skateboarding, and form part of its dependence on, as well as struggle against, the modern city. Architects have often worked alongside the city to deter skateboarders from using public or private space. The danger that skateboarders possesses to the city goes beyond physical considerations and legalities; it is about what they symbolise. Skateboarding is the freedom of movement, it does not produce a commodity, and it is an unpredictable and unconventional anti-capitalist value.

The skateboarder requires an object (the skateboard); it involves great effort but produces no commodity in exchange. In contrast, architects exist because they produce a commodity (the building); they inherently support and make money from capitalism.

Marxist theorist and Situationist Guy Debord (1983) describes the capitalist experience of the city as the 'Society of the Spectacle'. Architecture contributes by creating part of the spectacle. Debord states 'The spectacle has created a passive society and aims to isolate the individual and reality itself becomes replaced only by images. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle of society everything is prohibited.'[2]

The Situationists responded to the 'Society of the Spectacle' by bodily movements of derive and détournement. The skateboarder actively moves through space using the same Situationist desire lines. Skateboarding is a true form of urban derive that refutes the reduction of activity solely to the spectacle of the image. Skateboarders say almost nothing as codified statements, yet present an extraordinary range of implicit enunciations and meanings.

Skateboarding's critique of capitalism is through the negative dialectic that denies exchange and through the positive dialectic that restlessly searches for new possibilities of representing, imagining and experiencing the city. Skateboarding is not only a critique upon the product of architecture but also upon the role of the architect. Skateboarding describes the need for architecture to consider social value, to be productive of things, and to encourage activities that are not explicitly commoditised.

The skateboarder undermines the ordered and commercial atmosphere of the city. The value of skateboarding when applied to architecture requires the architect to question the city in its conventional arrangement of floors, walls and stairs - to re-evaluate the importance of spatial experience.

Representation and Imagination:

Architecture criticism is traditionally conveyed through writing. However, skateboarding is also a form of architecture criticism entirely different to writing, drawing or theorising. In the participatory movement of the skateboarder's body across urban space lies the central critique of the city. It also forms a critique on architecture criticism and considers the need for criticism when concerned with experience to extend beyond the realm of writing.

The below image maps the movement of 2 different skateboarders and architects as they were asked to critique an area of the city. The site is Martin Place bounded by Elizabeth and Castlereagh Street. The diagram represents their movement (in plan view) within the site over a 10-minute period. Crosses mark the beginning and end of their critique, time is shown in minutes and the circles represent a physical interaction with a particular object (touching a wall, sitting on a bench etc). The path of the skateboarder is shown solid, while that of the architect is shown dotted.

Each of the maps allow observations about the manner by which the skateboarder and the architect interact with space. In each instance, the architect touches no more than two objects and there is no repetition in their movement. It is possible to trace the direction of their path and, at all times, the architect critiques within the boundaries of the site. In contrast, in each instance, the skateboarder touches more than 30 objects, whether it be a wall, handrail, seat, stair or floor. The movement of the skateboarder is fast and repetitive and it is difficult to trace the direction of their movement due the irregularity of their path, which intersects and overlaps. The skateboarder does not stay within the boundaries of the site and explores within the private properties of the commercial buildings.

The path of the architect shows his or her critiques of the site through passive observation. Conversely, the skateboarder critiques through movement and incites an active reassertion of touch, hearing, adrenalin, rhythms, balance and focus. The overlapping lines and specific areas of density within the skateboarder's movement show his or her focus on specific and isolated objects. There is no conventional arrangement to the skateboarder's movement and their disregard for rules is shown through their penetration beyond the site and within private space.

The repetition in the skateboarder's path and physical interaction with architecture in fact indicates a deep understanding of those particular objects that the architect would not be able to describe accurately. Skateboarder Todd Kelly describes skateboarding as the enhanced understanding of spatial meaning: 'I don't just walk through space without learning anything about it, or without having a relationship with it.'[3] The skateboarder analyses architecture not for historical, symbolic or authorial content, but for how surfaces present themselves.

Architecture theorist and skateboarder Iain Borden advocates skateboarding as a productive means to critique the city. Borden states 'architects can learn from the protestant work ethic of skateboarding, which suggests architects can produce different things: to explore building not as a product but as the production of emotions, actions, effort and play.'[4] When the movement of the skateboarder is applied to the application of criticism, it explores the need to understand buildings beyond visual appreciation and writing. Skateboarding reveals the need to represent the joy and experience of space through participation.

Social and Cultural Engagement:

Architecture is fundamentally limited to the conception of the building-as-object: a theoretical and historical fixation that erases the social and political experiences of the city. By doing so, it neglects the reproduction and experience of architecture. Lefebvre argues that 'architecture must produce activities and experiences of social and cultural importance.'[5] Skateboarding uses the left over objects of architecture to produce experience and meaning: 'Two hundred years of technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of unlimited potential.'[6]

Architecture rarely considers buildings as the facilitators of social and cultural autonomy. Architect Lebbeus Woods (1988) responded by creating moments of 'freespace': a space with no commodity or pre-determined use that allows pedestrians to use the space socially and culturally however they choose. The skateboarder applies the ideas of 'freespace' throughout the entire city and has therefore developed an unorthodox appreciation and ability to seek out potential social relations.

The below images are extracted from video documentation that records the social reaction of three different skateboarders and architects as they approach a constructed conversation. The top 3 images are that of the architect, the 3 below images are that of the skateboarder. Over a period of 10 minutes, I asked the skateboarders and architects to interact with something they found interesting. Their site was Martin place bounded by George and Pitt Street. The video camera was placed in a hidden location.

The video uncovers the different social and cultural responses of the skateboarders and architects. In each instance, the architect walked past the group of people (of the constructed conversation) without acknowledging any interest in their 'performance'. They each located various physical objects as their point of interest (such as façade details). At no point did the architect actually attempt to experience the object of interest beyond a visual or aesthetic appreciation. However, each of the skateboarders interacted with the people (of the constructed conversation): 'This group of people, who I wouldn't usually associate with, looked like they were having fun. I wanted to say hi, I wanted to be a part of that.'[7] Skateboarders are often understood as anti-social, yet their participation in the 'performance' actively sought to engage in a social activity.

Each of the skateboarders actively participated in the conversations in order to truly experience social values. The architects sought an entirely different agenda. The video explores the possibility for the ideals of skateboarding to flow into the general appreciation of space from which architects can learn. Architects design buildings from a spatial vision, and in order for that space to function, pedestrians are typically controlled though various architectural strategies including program and circulation. Their renders, plans and photography typically show their building without people or disruptions and by doing so, their total vision is withdrawn from social and cultural considerations. Skateboarding is inherently a cultural and social value. Architects are often too concerned with aesthetics and they neglect to find meaning or interest in the activities that actually happen within the space.

Skateboarding began in the beach cities of California, as a surfer's activity, emulating the surf moves on the hard surfaces of urban subdivisions and concrete. Skateboarding has therefore, always been about appropriating the city. Architects conceptualise their building in totality and typically conceive space with a pre-determined use (seats are for sitting, stairways are for walking). Skateboarding is fundamentally concerned with micro-spaces and rejects any pre-determined use of space: 'Most people think handrails are for people with mobility problems, I however say they are for ollie nose grinds.'[8]

Borden describes the architect as the creator of hierarchies, "of architecture-as-object, architecture-as-drawing or architecture-as-idea; the skateboarder disregards these hierarchies to create architecture-as-process, continually repeated, yet forever new." [6]

While rejecting the current condition of the city skateboarding begins to re-conceptualise the city. Skateboarders appropriate architecture through different techniques. The above image (left) shows a freestyle skateboarder who maps the city through seeking isolated objects (such as handrails, stairs and curbs) and uses them in a manner entirely different to its ideological content. It is about finding fixed and left over points in the city. The above image (right) shows a surf-style skateboarder who maps the line between two points: when the opportunity appears, they take advantage of a particular linear feature: 'Good paving on Fifth Avenue or a connecting bike lane-that's the kind of thing you're looking for.'[9] Each skateboarder finds a different technique and priority for spatial appropriation and creates a different map through space and time.

Skateboarding creates maps composed from the opportunities offered by the physical and emotional contours of the city and are enacted through new spaces and moments. Architects must understand that pedestrians use the city to create moments that are different to what is intended. Architects should encourage the ability for spatial appropriation, in order to allow social freedom and experience. By understanding appropriation as important to architecture, architects may begin to focus on the experience of space as opposed to the object.

Skateboarders take over and consume space conceptually as well as physically, and thus strike at the heart of what everyone else understands the city to be. The skateboarder dissolves the physicality of the modern city into the imagination of another micro-space. When applied to architecture, architects must question what is conventionally understood as the city and this will help to shape new appreciations of appropriation and spatial meaning.

Skateboarding as Architecture:

'Surely it is the supreme illusion to defer to architects, urbanists or planners as being experts or ultimate authorities in matters with relation to space.'[10] Skateboarders are among the most social and spatially aggressive group to reclaim the city for their own appropriation and as such, deny architects, urbanists and urban planners as ultimate authorities. Ian Borden proposes, that skateboarding actually becomes architecture, not as the object, but as the production and reproduction of space. Without licence, authority or professional obligations, the skateboarder creates personal space with intimate and subjective meaning.

Architecture can be described as the tools, experiences, mappings, compositional processes and social relations that pertain within space. Architecture, following Lefebvre's (1991b) body-centric formulations, 'reproduces itself within those who use the space in question, within their lived experience.'[11] It is through this definition of pedestrian, experience and reproduction that the skateboarder has a deeper understanding of space than the architect.

The skateboarder responds to everyday architecture and appropriates new edits, mappings, meanings and actions. The above images show spatial meaning and composition. Skateboarding denies the standardisation and repetition of the city as the serial production of building types, functions and discrete objects; it decentres building-objects in time and space in order to re-compose them in a strung-out yet newly synchronous arrangement. Through the values of the skateboarder, architecture is not seen as the vision of the architect but as the turbulent nexus of reproduction: 'On the street the urban blight is being reworked to new specifications. The man on the avenue is the architect of the future; Invent your own life.'[12]

Within Borden's theory, Skateboarding rejects the idea of the architect as the creator and their work as a project. Production is not seen as the production of things but of desires and actions, the purpose of space is for use rather than exchange, richness is social wealth not ownership, place is composed of time and speed, and the city is the interrogator rather than the determinant of the self.

Deconstructive Architect Bernard Tschumi (1991) describes the need for architecture to focus on the events and actions that must be facilitated within space. Tschumi describes his work as 'anti-form, anti-hierarchy, anti-structure-the opposite of all that architecture stands for and it is precisely for that reason.'[13] If architects were to consider the activity of reproducing space, architecture might develop in a manner that allows the pedestrian, like the skateboarder, to appropriate space as they desire.

Conclusion:

Throughout the course of architecture's history, social theorists including Debord (1983) and Lefebvre (1991a) have argued the social and cultural application of architecture. Architects often focus on the production of the object as opposed to the production of experience and therefore fail to truly understand the way in which space may be understood and appropriated by the various users of the city.

Skateboarding has a deep appreciation and understanding of architecture, regardless of how unconventional or subversive it may be. Ultimately, skateboarding helps to rethink architecture's manifold possibilities. Through the movement of the skateboarder across urban space, and in its direct interaction with the city, skateboarding forms its critique on architecture. When skateboarding values are applied to architecture, architects must reconsider conventional conceptions of space, values of experience, notions of control, ideals of freedom and architecture's contribution to corporate structures.

Additional reading: Check out this post on A Daily Dose of Architecture on Urban Sports and Design.
References:
1. Wikipedia.(2010). Henri Lefebvre. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Lefebvre>.

2. Gavin, F.(2007).Street Renegades: New Underground Art. p.4. Lauren King Publishing Ltd., London, UK.

3. Borden, I. (2001).Skateboarding Space and the City; Architecture and the Body. P.200. Berg, Oxford.

4. Pooley, J. (2007).Skateboarding vs Architecture. Viewed 23 September 2010, <http://www.skynoise.net/2007/09/15/skateboarding-vs-architecture/>.

5. Lefebvre, H. (1991b).The Production of Space. Pg 4. Blackwell, Oxford.

6. Borden, I. (2001).Skateboarding Space and the City; Architecture and the Body. P.173. Berg, Oxford.

7. Mainter, J. (2010), pers. comm. Interview conducted by Linda Bennett.

8. Shudder speed. (1981), Thrasher magazine, p.50. Vol 1.

9. Nobel, P. (2010), pers. comm. (email) Interview conducted by Linda Bennett.
Suggested Reading:
Anderotti, L.&Costa, X. (Eds). (1996). Theory of Derive and other Situationist Writings on the City. Meseu d, art contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona.

Benjamin, W. &Baudelaire, C. (1985). ALyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Verso, London.

Borden, I. & Dunster, D. (Eds). (1995). Architecture and the Sites of History: Interpretations of Buildings and Cities. Butterworth Architecture, Oxford.

Borden, I. (1998). Body Architecture: Skateboarding and the Creation of Super-architectural Space. In Occupying Architecture(edited by Hill), Routledge, London.

Borden, I. (2001). Skateboarding Space and the City; Architecture and the Body. Berg, Oxford.

Debord, G. (1983). Society of the Spectacle. Black and Red, Detroit.

Gavin, F.(2007). Street Renegades: New Underground Art. Lauren King Publishing Ltd., London, UK.

Gottdiener, M. (1985). The Social Production of Urban Space. University of Texas, Austin.

Hill, J. (Ed.). (1998). Occupying Architecture: Between Architecture and the User. Routledge, London.

Kiendl, A. (2003). Godzilla vs Skateboarders: Skateboarding as a Critique of Social Spaces. Dunlop Art Gallery.

Lefebvre, H. (1991a). Critique of Everyday Life. Volume 1: Introduction. Verso, London.

Lefebvre, H. (1991b). The Production of Space. Blackwell, Oxford.

Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1963). Selected Writings, T. Bottomore & M. Rubel (Eds). Penguin, Harmondsworth.

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Archi-Ninja | Skateboarding and Architecture

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Architecture is fundamentally limited to the conception of the building-as-object: a theoretical and historical fixation that erases the social and political experiences of the city. The following was written through the theories of Ian Borden, author of Skateboarding, Space and the city: Architecture and the Body.

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Movie recommendation - Exit through the gift shop.

Pichação - " It consists of tagging done in a distinctive, cryptic style, mainly on walls and vacant buildings. Many pichadores (pichação painters) compete to paint in high and inaccessible places, using such techniques as free climbing and abseiling to reach the locations."

Image retrieved from here.

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"s a graphic script formed of ideas, sensations and emotions. It is a drawn letter, a diary of images..." Andrea Ponsi. studioponsi.it

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by Andrea Ponsi
studioponsi.it

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The Method of Loci              (through drawing and poetic prose)

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The Method of Loci              (through drawing and poetic prose)

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'the mental walk'...  (Johan Van Den Berghe, Thethre of Operations.... 2012, Book 2, p. 41). Drawings excavating the memory of the Grandmother’s House [jvdb, 06-2009 / 01-2010©] (2012, page 78).

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"an act of fierce resistance against the obstacles that block the possibility of building" (Johan Van Den Berghe, Theatre of Operations or Construction Site as Architectural Design. Doctoral dissertation, RMIT, Melbourne 2012, Book 2, p.99).

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"The field drawing can accommodate
broader information than a site drawing. A field drawing collapses time
and space, and the scale and nature of the drawing is allowed to change where
it is deemed relevant to do so. " (Eeckhout, Riet. Process drawing: PhD dissertation, RMIT, Melbourne 2014, p. 13).

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Process Drawing: "an action undertaken in the here and now. (it finds its
benefits in the action). The surrender to the process of the drawing.
It refers to a drawing process that is generative and process-driven in nature
and is used as a tool to observe and to speculate on spatial content." (Riet Eeckhout, Process drawing, PhD dissertation, RMIT, Melbourne 2014).

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Reference(s):
Riessman, C. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences . SAGE Publications.

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Reference(s):
O'Reilly, K. (2009). Virtual ethnography. In O'Reilly, K. Sage key Concepts: Key concepts in ethnography (pp. 215-220). London: SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9781446268308

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Reference(s):
Given, L. M. (2008). The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (Vols. 1-0). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412963909

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Reference(s):
Pink, Sarah. Doing visual ethnography. Sage, 2013.