Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemPlay in urban public spaces( 2001)Play has always been part of the social life of urban public spaces. This thesis is a focused examination of the ways in which urban public spaces both stimulate and facilitate play. The hypothesis underpinning the research is that play arises out of the tensions and contradictions of urban social space. The research aims to broaden our understanding of what social behaviours and values might be considered when siting and designing public spaces. Practices of play can be recognised by their dialectical tension with predetermined social goals and productive functions. Practices of play have use value, as pleasurable, escapist ends in themselves. Yet at the same time play can be seen as a critique of instrumentally rational action, and as a means of discovering new needs, exploring identities and developing new forms of practice. By playing, people find temporary escape from social demands and restrictions, and test the boundaries of their existence, living more intensely. The research is guided by Caillois' articulation of four basic forms which play takes: competition, chance, simulation and vertigo. This framework highlights a variety of ways that play transgresses social norms. Urban public space structures opportunities for playful acts because it frames unfamiliar, stimulating perceptions and unplanned, non-instrumental encounters between strangers. The research centres on observation and discursive analysis of playful behaviour in public spaces in central Melbourne, Australia. The analysis draws upon Lefebvre's theoretical insights into urbanism, everyday life, and the production of space, to explore the complex interrelations between social experience and the physical properties and meanings of urban form. The analysis examines five types of urban spaces where play occurs: paths, intersections, thresholds, edges and props. It explores how these spaces nurture practices of play, both because of the social activities which typically occur there, and by the ways they frame certain perceptions, meanings, relations between bodies and possibilities for action. The conclusion of the thesis highlights three dimensions of urban social life where the design of space has a critical influence: performance, representation and control. These dimensions highlight how meanings, desires, behaviours, and even the built forms of urban public spaces do not arise directly from the intentions of designers, but through a constant dialectical interplay between instrumentality, normativity and play.