Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemUrban threads( 2007)Urban Threads is the account of a critical, spatial praxis in interstitial sites in the city of Melbourne. A creative collaboration between architect, academic and author of this thesis and a group of homeless women resulted in an installation that investigated the ways in which those who have no land, money or power can shape the urban fabric, and in particular the way private space can be claimed in the public realm. The thesis takes as a given that good urban design ought to create more equitable and inclusive cities. This view is supported in Melbourne by State Government planning strategies. However, the signs indicate that as general prosperity increases the opposite is likely to eventuate. How can architects respond? Is not our practice circumscribed by those who hold power and wealth? Cultural theorist Michel de Certeau observes that even those without apparent power have 'tactics' at their disposal to usurp place momentarily for their own ends. It is with this in mind that the creative works in this thesis begin. What results is a model for place-making that is ephemeral, performative and contingent, arising out of 'discursive' interactions between the city and its most marginal citizens. Discursive is defined broadly to include conversation, urban writing (graffiti and other surface inscriptions) and choreographies of movement, making and marking. The thesis is thus presented as a discourse between different genres of writing and image, each retaining its own distinct qualities. While the 'voices' are all those of the author, they seek to represent a variety of viewpoints: personal and experiential, historical and theoretical, woven around a narrative thread. Neither the visual nor the textual are privileged in the account that follows. At times they blur from one to another, as views often do.