Who Owns the City?

Abstract

The following research discusses the changing nature of public space and how ownership has become an inevitable part of it. The aim of this research has been to discuss the complexity of the grey area between privately owned public space and public space, as well as the emerging issues related to POPS within the City of London. In which my design proposal acts as an investigation to how architecture could create a more balanced relationship between public and private interests as a response to the current privatisation of public spaces. It tries to find opportunities and possibilities by making use of this identified grey area and memory of site, space, elements and materials. Therefore, the research and design research has focussed on the architectural translation of this grey area as a means to understand how the architect could have influence: analysing usage, elements and materials of 15 existing POPS. It brings forward the notion of affordances and appropriation of space in order to create places which invite and allow different uses or behaviour and might trigger a more diverse and broader public. This allows POPS to be less determined and more open for own interpretation, as it promotes a more free use of public space. The users or actors play a vital role in this, since they are the ones who change the space into the desired program. Which in the end creates a sense of ownership.

In London - and many other metropolitan cities -, we have seen the large shifts public space has gone through over the years, as well as the effects on architecture and the people who inhabit the city. These changes have been the result of social, political and economic influences specific to their time. The last decades London has become a city where public good is being sold off to the highest bid. Private investors have become owners of large parts of the city and along with that, the number of ‘genuine’ public space decreases. My research tries to obtain a better understanding of why these changes occur and if these changes are still relevant in current times. As well as it aims to take a critical stand within this discussion, since it has become clear the believed positive effects of selling public good to private investors has caused large scale gentrification and created places of exclusion. By identifying the grey area within privately owned public spaces in London, my project seeks for an architecture in which the potential of the grey area is fully utilised and can result in a more representational space grounded in time and place. The design proposal tries to show ways in which architecture might mediate. By understanding the change in nature of public space throughout history and the reasons behind these changes politically, economically and socially: architecture can attempt to contribute in creating places where public, as well as private interests can benefit both. Possibly, create spaces where the imbalance between private and public will be less visible and tangible.