Thesis
Stilstaan in de publieke ruimte, de snede als openbaring
Master's thesis urban design & spatial planning
How do we perceive our build environment? How does a society forms and tranforms itself and its habitat?
This thesis was a theoretical research about the perception of the city and how citizens can act upon it.
The case-study was Brussels and in particularly the old harbor of Brussel in the north-west of the center.
It was Richard Sennett who stated that the city was 'a place where people can learn to live with strangers'. Sennett saw in the interaction between strangers, in the confrontation of differences, a possibility for citizens to reflect on the city as a physical and social phenomenon and to reform it when necessary. Confrontation and the awareness of difference were key elements for a critical society, it were these elements that I wanted to stimulate through design. It was not a question of how a critical society can rethink itself but rather how a society can become critical and how design can play a role in this awareness.
Public space can be seen as the physical space where society emerges and tranforms. It unites the physical and the social concepts of the city. As a designer I did not wish to impose an aesthetic or political design. It was a question of how public space could be a confronting platform for multiple urban realities (tourists, refugees, authenticity, simularca, density, openness, hardware, software, green, water, pollution, acceleration, congestion, ....).
The role of the designer was to (re)direct the gaze & to change the course of movement. The rest was up to the citizens themselves. In essence it was an emancipatory design that primarly focused on confrontation. It is a believe that as a citizen we can not rethink our city if we do not know it, if we only see a fragmented reality of our environment.
The research was embedded in the theoretical approach of the 'network city' and has been a starting-point to rethink the concept of heterotopia.
These contra-sites were crucial to open up questions of how the city functions (or disfunctions).
Rather than moving from one space to another, in a speedy way and without much consideration for what happens in between; I wanted to implement an alternative experience through the city. An expressive movement. It was about exploring space as a three dimensional element. This movement in space was meant to open up new viewpoints, to confront citizens with the city and with others. The designer became a choreographer in the network city.
As a result I implemented the idea of the section in public space. An element that reveals an elusive part of the urban reality and introduces a more holistic viewpoint of urban mechanisms.
This thesis was written in Dutch. If you are interested in a copy please contact me: mariefrancelebbe@gmail.com
 |
|---|
 |  |
|---|---|
 |
 |  |
|---|