Quentin Stevens | RMIT University (original) (raw)

Papers: Parklets by Quentin Stevens

Journal of Urban Design, 2023

A parklet is a small, relocatable public space installed onto kerb-side car-parking spaces. This ... more A parklet is a small, relocatable public space installed onto kerb-side car-parking spaces. This article examines the evolving design, programming, approval process and reception of a ‘playful parklet’, available for free public use, which was transformed and relocated between four urban contexts in Melbourne. It demonstrated a creative, collaborative placemaking approach involving artists, game-makers, researchers, residents and local governments. Through analysis of its playful, portable and pliable design, the article highlights three areas of innovation: testing new post-COVID governance and engagement possibilities; incorporating adaptability and incremental adjustment into parklet design; and serving as a platform for new modes of social and spatial play.

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2024

This paper examines the different values that stakeholders associate with parklets: small open sp... more This paper examines the different values that stakeholders associate with
parklets: small open spaces temporarily installed onto curbside car-parking spaces. It explores the growing debate in policy, research and the media around parklets’ value for the public and for the hospitality businesses that host most of them. The paper aims to inform policy deliberations around parklets by identifying and analyzing the diverse values that have been associated with them. It locates these values within the key policy concerns that shape the broader practices of temporary and tactical urbanism: urban intensity, community engagement, innovation, resilience and place identity. It evaluates whether parklets can have detectable and achievable impacts on different policy aims associated with them: whether the various specified policy values are strong, weak, wishful or hidden. The findings illuminate the contours of policy debates around parklets and indicate why certain policy objectives have been better served by parklets than others.

Journal of Urbanism, 2022

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parklets have been deployed onto kerbside carparking spaces th... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parklets have been deployed onto kerbside carparking spaces throughout Melbourne, Australia, by street-fronting hospitality businesses, to provide sociallydistanced outdoor dining spaces. These temporary parklets provide useful indicators of the varying capacities of urban streets to support street life and commercial activity. By examining the distribution of Melbourne's parklets, this paper identifies numerous urban design factors that provide capacity for parklets, or inhibit them. The analysis shows parklets thrive on traditional, pedestrianfriendly shopping streets with narrow frontages and good access but low through-traffic. Car-dependent outer-suburban shopping streets and strip shopping centres also support numerous parklets. Key hindrances include commercial streets serving as arterial commuter routes and streets that already have extensive traffic-calming features. Minor side streets can provide parklet capacity, but many design conditions inhibit this. The paper challenges policy-makers, planners and designers to address a variety of impediments to creating more pedestrian-friendly street environments.

Cities, 2024

Pop-up parks have emerged alongside other forms of temporary urbanism as low-cost, informal, comm... more Pop-up parks have emerged alongside other forms of temporary urbanism as low-cost, informal, communityengaged interventions that address pressing community needs. This article examines four pop-up parks in Australian cities (Melbourne, Sydney and Perth) that reappropriated street space for pedestrians and eventually became permanent. The article charts the developmental trajectories of these four projects, drawing on local planning documents, interviews with key actors, and government and media reports on how the pop-up parks performed. It uses mapping to analyse the context of built form, activity and movement flows in and around the four sites. The study shows how these pop-up trials served as a 'proof of concept' for permanent spaces, tested their impacts, made community consultation more open, engaging and tangible, and increased community support. These originally temporary spaces also facilitated wider strategic urban development outcomes, emboldening local governments to further improve public space in urban intensification areas.

The Conversation, 2021

Outdoor dining on former parking spaces – generally known as parklets – has proliferated during t... more Outdoor dining on former parking spaces – generally known as parklets – has proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reduced demand for parking coincided with increased demand for outdoor space – but when the pandemic subsides, cities must decide what comes next. Is this a temporary change before we return to the car-dependent city, or can it help us create a better city?

Papers: Temporary Uses by Quentin Stevens

Frontiers in Computer Science, 2021

The modern science of urban planning emerged in the 19th century in response to public health cri... more The modern science of urban planning emerged in the 19th century in response to public health crizes caused by cities due to the constraints of their medieval urban design. In cities like Barcelona, each deadly epidemic would kill a significant portion of the population due to overcrowding and chaotic infrastructure. This shift was characterized by urban planning that moved beyond the need for fortified, walled cities to focus on industrialization and free movement, communication and trade that led to urbanisation. During the 2017 Smart Cities Expo in Barcelona, the 150th Anniversary of Cerdà's urban planning concept was celebrated with the claim that Barcelona's Eixample was the "original smart city"-pre-digital, big analog data that informed Cerdà's general theory of urbanization (Cerdà, 2018). This was part of a larger global movement that led to modern urban planning, with public health a key reason for the organization of cities. Cerdà's 1859 plan for the expansion of Barcelona responded to the need for natural lighting and ventilation in homes, greenery in public spaces and waste disposal infrastructure based on data collected on the movement of disease in the cramped conditions of Barcelona's old city. The current global pandemic has created another moment to reimagine urban life. Within contemporary cities, public space plays a critical role in providing opportunities for people to come together. However, contemporary cities are also contested by competing future visions-the smart city, the capitalist city. Starting with efficiency and productivity driven by technological determinism, over the past decade these visions have been challenged by other value systems that focus on play, people, place and community. Public spaces will play a key role in restarting our cities after the COVID-19 pandemic by providing environments for community connection and social wellbeing (Daly et al., 2020). Currently, during periods of lockdown, these spaces typically appear empty and strange, as people's interactions are governed by social distancing rules that literally reconfigure urban spaces via constraints imposed by rules such as keeping 1.5 m away from others, avoiding physical contact and limits to the number of people allowed to meet in one place. Critical urban play (Flanagan, 2009) can reimagine public spaces and reframe public art-connecting people and place in creative ways. This can start by responding to the ways people have been reconnecting to these spaces during the pandemic. One of the few positive impacts of the pandemic has been a renewed connection with local neighbourhoods and community-largely through the simple act of walking (Franks, 2020). While there is much epidemiological research on the impact of walking and urban play on physical health and on mental health through the restorative power of nature and green spaces, there is less attention to their significant impacts on social wellbeing. Walking presents a range of possibilities, from the political to the social. We are interested in the ways that an increased focus on public spaces during the pandemic has drawn attention to the lived experience of cities, particularly the interaction between urban design-cities' rules and structures-and urban life-how people respond to and play with these as constraints and opportunities. Urban play during the pandemic has an immediate impact on wellbeing through

Analysis of the emergent theoretical, empirical, and planning policy studies of 'temporary uses' ... more Analysis of the emergent theoretical, empirical, and planning policy studies of 'temporary uses' of derelict urban spaces in European cities illustrates three distinct realms where the concept of 'creativity' is defined and applied to urban management and redevelopment approaches: in terms of creative production, consumption of creativity, and creative governance. These concepts mesh together with a liberalization of urban planning and governance. Creative planning for temporary use suggests not just reducing the regulation of urban activity and built form, but transforming the aims and methods of planning itself to be more dynamic and more facilitative.

The Conversation, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have reminded us of the vital role public space plays in suppo... more The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have reminded us of the vital role public space plays in supporting our physical and mental well-being. Lockdowns and "social distancing" have limited our participation in public life and public space. We need to act swiftly to retrofit our public spaces so they are both safe and support social activity. Our goal must be to avoid a long-term legacy where people fear cities and other people. This is where approaches known as temporary and tactical urbanism come in as a way to quickly reconfigure public spaces to create places that are both safe and social.

arber.com.tr

NOTE: The full paper reporting this research has now been published as: "Temporary uses of urban... more NOTE: The full paper reporting this research has now been published as:
"Temporary uses of urban spaces: How are they understood as ‘creative’?"
in ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research 12(3):90-107,
DOI: 10.26687/archnet-ijar.v12i3.1673

That full paper is also available on this webpage.

Papers: Memorials by Quentin Stevens

In recent decades, counter-monuments have emerged as a new, critical mode of commemorative practi... more In recent decades, counter-monuments have emerged as a new, critical mode of commemorative practice. Even as such practice defines itself by its opposition to traditional monumentality, it has helped to reinvigorate public and professional interest in commemorative activities and landscapes and has developed its own, new conventions. Terminology and analysis in scholarship on counter-monuments have remained relatively imprecise with writers in English and German employing the term ‘counter-monument’ or Gegendenkmal in different and sometimes confusing ways. In this paper we draw together literature published in English and German to clarify and to map various conceptions and categorisations. To do so we distinguish between two kinds of projects that have been called counter-monuments: those that adopt anti-monumental strategies, counter to traditional monument principles, and those that are designed to counter a specific existing monument and the values it represents.

City, 2020

Taiwan’s thousands of statues of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek have encountered varying fates s... more Taiwan’s thousands of statues of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek have encountered varying fates since Taiwan’s democratisation in 1987. Citizens have iconoclastically pulled down or beheaded numerous Chiang statues. Many have been removed from public view to the rural grounds outside his temporary mausoleum. Those that remain standing are regularly defaced with paint and slogans highlighting Chiang’s crimes. A more carnivalesque denigration of Chiang is university students secretly redecorating several campuses’ statues on significant historical dates, particularly 2/28, when the dictatorship bloodily suppressed a 1947 uprising. These costumes metaphorically critique Chiang, portraying him as a blood-sucking mosquito or ghoulish Halloween pumpkin. Graduating students at Taipei’s elite high school playfully transform its centrally-placed Chiang statue into an Oscar statue, an astronaut, and film characters. These redecorations parody the commemorative statue genre, implying such objects’ triviality and interchangeability. The paper explores these critical, humourous actions as forms of e’gao, a predominantly-online mode of hilariously parodying pop culture, crossing over to address difficult built heritage. A different set of responses to Chiang’s statues also reflect Taiwan’s democratic pluralism. Not everyone wants to see them removed or defaced. A social media community is dedicated to cleaning their neighbourhoods’ Chiang statues after 2/28. A 10-metre-high statue of Chiang, with its massive Memorial Hall and honour guard, remains among Taipei’s leading tourist attractions. Taiwan's Ministry of Culture has given this statue temporary heritage protection, and is exploring ways to recontextualise its meaning. Democracies respect such heterodoxy toward the past; they allow different actors to respond differently.

Planning Perspectives, 2019

In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of publ... more In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of public memorials – sculptures and structures in public spaces that convey information and social attitudes about past persons, events and ideas. This renaissance has been most marked in national capital cities. To better understand this recent revival of interest in memorials, and their potential to reproduce or transform social and spatial relationships within cities, this paper examines the historical evolution of the role and form of memorials within the overall planning and development of Western capital cities, both existing and new, from their origins in Ancient Rome and through their later development from the Renaissance to the beginning of Modernism. It charts memorials’ ongoing contribution to the role of the capital city as a diagram that defines and communicates national history, identity and politics, contrasting this to ways that memorials have adapted to changing technological and political realities of land development and management.

This paper examines the evolving subjects, forms, symbolism, and spatial constellation of the div... more This paper examines the evolving subjects, forms, symbolism, and spatial constellation of the diverse memorials erected in Seoul since 1953. It explores how these memorials have expressed shifts in national identity towards democracy since the end of dictatorship in 1987. It illustrates how commemorative intentions in this massive, rapidly-changing metropolis have intersected with other urban design aims and pressures. The analysis reveals an evolutionary progression in memorial themes, from heroic statues that re-establish roots of Korean national identity and independence, to marginal grassroots memorials and wider themed precincts that present more inclusive, democratic, complex narratives of identity and history.

Architectural Theory Review, Jan 1, 2009

Public memorials often have “spectacular” forms: visitors' feelings are affected primarily throug... more Public memorials often have “spectacular” forms: visitors' feelings are affected primarily through relatively passive, distant reception of visual depictions and symbols. At London's Lady Diana Memorial fountain and Berlin's Holocaust Memorial, the visual message is intentionally reduced to almost nothing. Instead, these designs present visitors' bodies with intense and varied stimuli to hearing, touch, temperature and kinaesthesia. This undermines contemplation or introspection. Visitors explore a variety of physiological feelings, both pleasurable and unpleasurable. These physical feelings are intended to stimulate emotional ones; people should feel the purpose of the memorials rather than think them. But they come away with different impressions; most visitors' actions appear hedonistic rather than mournful.

It would seem inherent in the purpose and the expense of public memorials that they would seize o... more It would seem inherent in the purpose and the expense of public memorials that they would seize our attention, explain events from the past, and help us remember those events. Because public memorials are generally intended to represent people, events, and values of lasting importance, one might assume memorials would always be designed as obvious, legible, physically durable objects in prominent locations. There is something strange, then, in the fact that many contemporary memorials are invisible, insubstantial, or illegible. Since Musil (1987) first noted, in 1927, the problem of monuments becoming unnoticed and their purposes being forgotten, the subject matter, design, and location of public memorials have diversified greatly. Memorials can often be found in very marginal, leftover spaces. Contemporary memorials may be small, insubstantial, fragmentary, or even ephemeral; many lack explicit symbolism and explanatory text. Some memorials take the form of voids, rather than solid objects. The purposes and messages of contemporary memorials are often unclear. As a consequence of these vagaries, people visiting commemorative sites do not always recognize their intended significance and sacredness. Contemporary memorial designs thus reflect two distinct aspects of terrain vague that are identified by Solà-Morales (1995): many of them are evacuated spaces, physically empty and available; and they are often spatially, experientially, and semantically vague spaces, which suggest liberty of interpretation and use.

Three London jurisdictions ‒ Westminster, the Royal Parks and the City ‒ employ different policie... more Three London jurisdictions ‒ Westminster, the Royal Parks and the City ‒ employ different policies, decision-making processes and criteria to shape the siting, design and subjects of new memorial proposals, in relation to different stakeholder interests, existing memorials and ongoing urban development. Across these jurisdictions, some new memorials fit well into existing physical, functional and symbolic contexts. Non-traditional ‘spatial’ memorials are often placed opportunistically wherever they can obtain approval. Other
memorials are incorporated into existing commemorative precincts, despite dissonance in form or subject. Varying systems, a densely-developed urban fabric, political influence and compromise all lead to very diverse commemorative outcomes.

This article examines three New World democratic capital cities – Washington, Ottawa and Canberra... more This article examines three New World democratic capital cities – Washington, Ottawa and Canberra – where the growing number of public memorials has spurred the development of official plans and policies to regulate the siting and design of future memorial proposals. The historical evolution of these strategies is examined in relation to the designs of individual memorials. The analysis identifies a range of planning strategies that significantly influence the design of individual memorials, including large-scale memorial precinct plans, the social meanings of surrounding sites and structures and existing memorials, and the uses of memorial sites for activities other than grieving. The article examines controversies surrounding the siting, design, meaning and public use of a number of specific memorial examples. The research draws upon existing planning and briefing documents, wider public and professional discourse, and site analysis.

Memorials installed within public pavements are a recent, distinctive genre in terms of their for... more Memorials installed within public pavements are a recent, distinctive genre in terms of their forms, subjects, audiences and custodianship. Through international examples, this paper examines their varied materials and designs, and their differing placement in relation to the pavement surface, the location of the events commemorated and the wider cityscape. It analyzes the particular visual and tactile encounters they frame for the passing public. These commemorative installations sit in tension with the complex ownership, regulation, use and maintenance of the public right-of-way. They also engage with specific physical and representational opportunities that the public pavement presents for commemoration.

Much has been written about Canberra and other modern, democratic capitals, in terms of how their... more Much has been written about Canberra and other modern, democratic capitals, in terms of how their urban designs communicate national identity and values. But relatively little research has focused specifically on the layout of their various commemorative works or the formal tools and processes used to manage these, except for the case of Washington DC. Commemorative planning decisions in Canberra are shaped by its unique historical, cultural, topographic and political context. Over the past century, Australia's federal government has developed a range of commemorative planning tools for Canberra, including physical master plans, formal open-space schemes and regulatory processes for individual memorial proposals. These tools have evolved in response to the developing constellation of built memorials and their scope of subject matter. Over the last decade, an expanding range of commemorative proposals from different interest groups and conflicting views as to their appropriateness has prompted the production of strategic guidelines for the capital, which pre-emptively suggest appropriate commemorative subjects, locations and forms and delineate the wider community values that memorial proposals should respect.

Public Art Dialogue, Jan 1, 2012

Public artworks are major investments; public memorials doubly so because of the huge emotional e... more Public artworks are major investments; public memorials doubly so because of the huge emotional expenditures involved in defining, producing and using them. The value of such investments can be diminished when many people ignore or reject the meanings that ...

Journal of Urban Design, 2023

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2024

Journal of Urbanism, 2022

Cities, 2024

The Conversation, 2021

Frontiers in Computer Science, 2021

The Conversation, 2020

arber.com.tr

That full paper is also available on this webpage.

City, 2020

Planning Perspectives, 2019

Architectural Theory Review, Jan 1, 2009

Public Art Dialogue, Jan 1, 2012

OASE architectural journal, Jan 1, 2008

This article highlights people’s proactive role in exploring the rich physical, sensory, represen... more This article highlights people’s proactive role in exploring the rich physical, sensory, representational and social potential of even the most sombre and purposive landscapes, appropriating spaces to suit their varied desires. Memorials and public spaces are both luxurious uses of scarce resources. To create such settings which are central, public and open is to recognise and invite diverse, new and unpredictable behavioural possibilities rather than serving narrow, predetermined instrumental activities. These gathering points imply and stimulate social interaction and ‘transfunctional’ usage, transcending the orderly routines of everyday life. We know already how design meets universal human needs for weather protection and everyday practical activities. Individuals’ needs and interests for remembrance or informal playing are much more varied, less well understood, and much harder to support or control through design.

This paper comparatively examines how three major world cities plan for the ongoing development o... more This paper comparatively examines how three major world cities plan for the ongoing development of memorials in their public spaces. The predominant focus is on memorials that have been erected in these cities over the past two decades, many of which have new forms and address new subjects. Each city has strategies for regulating the themes, sites and designs of future memorial proposals, because of significant ongoing demand, and to calibrate commemoration against other land use needs. Drawing upon interviews with city planners and memorial designers, analysis of planning documents and project briefs, and spatial analysis of memorial layouts, the paper analyses the needs, opportunities, constraints and historical contexts that are shaping new memorial development. It identifies the aims, principles and practices of the plans and regulations that guide memorial locations, designs and subject matter. It examines the historical evolution of formal memorial planning strategies and regulations in each city in relation to proposals and designs for individual new memorials and the availability of particular sites.

Journal of Urban Design, Jan 1, 2010

City beaches are produced by spreading sand, deckchairs and umbrellas onto industrial brownfields... more City beaches are produced by spreading sand, deckchairs and umbrellas onto industrial brownfields, parking lots, rights-of-way or other under-utilized open spaces. Where major reinvestment projects are lacking, these informal developments offer great amenity. This approach to placemaking is post-Fordist. It is highly flexible, even mobile. It involves complex, temporary networks of people and resources. It focuses on ‘soft’ content—services, programmes, themes, atmosphere—rather than inflexible built form. This enables rapid innovation. Through four case studies, the paper explores the roles and relationships among diverse actors—city mayors, entrepreneurs, property developers, grass-roots organizations, think-tanks and planners—in the production of city beaches, and identifies what new policies, tools and management approaches they require.

Journal of Urban Design, Jan 1, 2004

The urban riverfront of Melbourne, Australia, has been transformed over the past 20 years into a ... more The urban riverfront of Melbourne, Australia, has been transformed over the past 20 years into a popular leisure precinct known as Southbank. This is a postmodern landscape of contrived spectacle, where playful urban life is simulated, choreographed and consumed. Yet it is also the site of many forms of unplanned and unstructured activity. This paper explores the complex uses and meanings which can develop around such a waterfront, and outlines three dialectics which reveal how many new kinds of public life emerge within it. New tensions between global and local, politics and play, representation and embodied action lead to a rethinking of both formularized waterfronts and urban design theories.

Urban Design International, Jan 1, 2009

Research on contemporary urban waterfronts rarely looks below the surface to question the importa... more Research on contemporary urban waterfronts rarely looks below the surface to question the importance, role and condition of water in these settings, or the physical experiences these landscapes enable. Academics are often guilty of the same distant, spectacularised viewpoint for which they criticise waterfronts’ designers and clients. This paper examines public perceptions and uses of urban waterfront leisure landscapes, focusing on the careful shaping of the land/water interface. It explores how designers control geographic, climatological, hydrological and urbanistic dimensions of the waterscape to create idealised urban settings that optimise consumptive leisure and place promotion. The international case studies include artificial beaches, lagoons, rivers and indoor waterscapes. The analysis foregrounds four aspects of the artificiality of urban waterfronts: taming the landscape to provide comfort and safety; augmenting the landscape to provide varied sensory stimulation; carefully positioning the waterfront within a wider climatic, thematic and functional context; and managing the temporal dimension of visitor experience.

Town Planning Review, Jan 1, 2006

This paper critically examines the urban design of inner-city riverfront cultural and leisure pre... more This paper critically examines the urban design of inner-city riverfront cultural and leisure precincts, both called 'Southbank', in two major Australian cities, Melbourne and Brisbane. It evaluates simple functional planning matters such as use, scale and connectivity, as well as examining how these are entangled in more complex organisational, behavioural and representational outcomes, through observation of the broad scope of leisure activities which occur in the two settings. The paper examines four key dimensions of leisure experience on urban riverfronts - escaping the everyday, mixing with strangers, consuming spectacle and exploring new forms of bodily activity. Particular attention is given to the tensions between attempts at careful management of activities and imagery in these leisure zones, and the messy diversity of everyday life which actually takes place in and around them.

Transforming Urban Waterfronts: Fixity and Flow, Jan 1, 2011

Formerly industrial waterfronts in many German cities are, as in other developed countries, being... more Formerly industrial waterfronts in many German cities are, as in other developed countries, being revitalized with the typical range of large-scale cultural institutions, office and housing complexes, public promenades, and green spaces. A parallel and much more distinctive trend is the rapid emergence and diffusion throughout the country of hundreds of small, temporary artificial beaches on inner-urban waterfronts. The expression 'city beach' is difficult to define comprehensively, as the characteristics of the many schemes that go by that name are varied and changing. The key physical attributes of a city beach are an urban location, a large volume of sand spread on an open space (a site cleared by demolition, a railway easement, a parking lot, or a public park), a view of the waterfront (sometimes with access to the water), and the inclusion of thematic objects commonly associated with beach environments, such as deckchairs, beach umbrellas, palm trees, thatched huts, and tropical cocktails.

Urban waterfront redevelopments are often about image-making for economic and political gain. Thi... more Urban waterfront redevelopments are often about image-making for economic and political gain. This article analyses three major recent waterfront projects within the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area: Kuala Lumpur City Centre, the River of Life, and Lake Putrajaya. All have been important in projecting an image of a modern, developed, postcolonial Malaysia. The article examines these waterfront landscapes in relation to three key themes: their contribution to the overall city image, to economic development, and to ecological performance. The article draws upon policy documents, project plans, interviews with local policymakers, designers and academics, field observation of the current physical development, land use and social use of the three waterfront precincts, and a mental mapping survey of users' cognitive images of how these precincts fit within the overall city image. Analysis shows that the appearance, use and development process of these three waterfront projects draw heavily on international models. The article suggests several waterfront sites and uses within the three projects that indicate a more authentic local paradigm for urban waterfront development.

Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 2018

Waterfront regeneration projects worldwide have transformed cities' edges into new public spaces.... more Waterfront regeneration projects worldwide have transformed cities' edges into new public spaces. Although water should be the centrepiece of these transformations, users are often situated as passive observers of water; urban design of public spaces only affords distant views of water and limited possibilities for active bodily engagement and play. Formulaic urban design has often neglected the potentials of indeterminate spaces where users' desires can unfold. From these departure points, this paper uses a temporary design installation to investigate potential forms of active water engagement in a contemporary waterfront space. The installation prompts users to interact playfully with water through a variety of prototypes and devices. Observation of visitor interactions with the intervention provides data about users' desires for water engagement, in terms of three research questions concerning: engagement with the water and the marine life within it, the multiple behavioural affordances of the water's edge, and the adaptability of waterfront spaces. The study indicates the potential of temporary installations to test hypotheses and design possibilities, and thereby inform larger permanent waterfront urban design projects.

Transforming Urban Waterfronts: Fixity and Flow, Jan 1, 2011

Page 312. Conclusion Patterns of Persistence, Trajectories of Change Quentin Stevens The contribu... more Page 312. Conclusion Patterns of Persistence, Trajectories of Change Quentin Stevens The contributions in this collection examine the ongoing development of waterfronts in urban areas from the tropics to the cool temperate ...

With the importance of open spaces to urban quality of life being increasingly recognized, knowle... more With the importance of open spaces to urban quality of life being increasingly recognized, knowledge about which spatial characteristics influence open space use, how, and why is of growing interest to open space researchers, designers and managers. Through an observational survey of Southbank Promenade in Melbourne, Australia, the research examines how various specific design characteristics of open spaces correspond to their actual uses. The findings show that different levels and kinds of uses are associated with the different space features of three distinct sections of Southbank Promenade, under varying time and weather conditions.

The so-called ‘creative industries’ are increasingly being presented as an important tool of urba... more The so-called ‘creative industries’ are increasingly being presented as an important tool of urban regeneration and economic development. Many cities worldwide are seeking to make themselves more creative, by developing strategies, building facilities or defining particular quarters. However, it is only very recently that researchers have pursued more detailed investigation of the spatial conditions that support the creative economy: what urban morphologies, building types and qualities of place attract and retain creative workers and foster creative production.
With the aim of understanding these relationships, emergent research in urban design is starting to investigate how issues such as quality of place, urban morphology and other spatial factors support the processes that underpin creative clusters. This work is informed by new methodologies for studying the micro-geographies associated with the creative industries and creative practices. These aim to map the diversity of settings that are relevant for these processes and provide a more detailed understanding of their spatial patterns, raising new questions for the design disciplines. Policy tools can potentially incorporate these advances into urban design practice in order to nurture creative clusters. This special issue of the Journal of Urban Design brings together some of the diverse but limited current research in urban design and spatial planning that focuses on the physical settings of creative clusters at a variety of local scales.

Town Planning Review, Jan 1, 2009

This examination of recent UK 'liveability' discourse identifies five distinct policy areas which... more This examination of recent UK 'liveability' discourse identifies five distinct policy areas which this discourse seeks to embrace. It critiques liveability's strong emphasis on visual order, its problematic sense of the public interest, and its limited aspirations for the planning of the public realm. It analyses the philosophy of governance underpinning the UK government's liveability agenda, in its attempts to adopt two specific areas of ideology and policy from the USA: for cities, the urban entrepreneurialism of place marketing, government-facilitated gentrification and Business Improvement Districts; and for individuals, personal responsibility, the criminalisation of poverty and difference, and zero-tolerance 'law and order' policing. The paper suggests how public realm planning might engage in more nuanced and socially inclusive ways with the concept of liveability, by highlighting the few proactive, strategic, socially inclusive dimensions of the liveability agenda, and drawing on previous studies of unregulated, non-commercial social behaviour in public spaces.

In this paper I attempt to develop a comprehensive, robust model of urban morphology from a pheno... more In this paper I attempt to develop a comprehensive, robust model of urban morphology from a phenomenological and behavioral perspective. I do so by comparing the findings of two extensive empirical studies of users' experiences of urban public space: one primarily examining people's perceptions in relation to the practical task of wayfinding, and the other my own research into people's playful behavior in Melbourne, London, Berlin, and New York. Lynch himself called attention to ``our delight ... in ambiguity, mystery ... surprise and disorder'', but little is known about what role specific spatial conditions might have in framing such experiences, or indeed about the diversity of impractical activities people actually pursue in urban spaces.With this paper I seek to fill these gaps. Three elements common to both studies (paths, nodes, and edges) describe the fundamental topological structure of space in relation to movement and visibility. I focus on the four spatial elements which differ between the two models (landmarks, districts, thresholds, and props). Field observations illustrate ways in which the latter two spatial elements frame particular noninstrumental, `playful' experiences which are characteristic of the urban condition: spontaneous encounters with strangers; unfamiliar and risky bodily experiences; distraction, and interpreting new meanings in the urban fabric.

This article investigates the ways in which cultural economy is formed through negotiation and in... more This article investigates the ways in which cultural economy is formed through negotiation and interaction between local actors in the case of culture-led regeneration in Gwangju, South Korea. It looks at the dynamics between the bureaucrats' pursuit of economic growth in the city and the efforts of civil society to maintain a strong political spirit throughout the regeneration process. Through in-depth interviews with various participants and archival analysis, the politics of cultural economy are examined in relation to the Gwangju Biennale and the City of Culture project. The findings show that in these two cases bureaucrats were the dominant force, a tendency that instrumentalized culture. They also illustrate that this dominance brought about resistance from civil society. However, in the process of both engaging in conflict and working with each other, the different discourses of economic growth and cultural meaning were integrated, and in the process mutual learning and adaptation took place among members of the two groups. Civil society also faced cleavages resulting from different approaches to how to collaborate with the bureaucrats and its ensuing self-reflection on communicative value enhanced its rehabilitation. The article argues that the politics of cultural economy is dynamic, involving processes of renegotiation, adaptation and self-realization. It also offers the possibility of a new arena for the public sphere. Civil society plays a critical role in the integration of culture and economy.

Asian Journal of Social Science, 2014

In this study, we look at the cultural politics surrounding the narratives of cultural festivals ... more In this study, we look at the cultural politics surrounding the narratives of cultural festivals in Gwangju, South Korea and Glasgow, Scotland. These two cities illustrate both a general obsession to become world-class, and intervening efforts toward achieving world ranking. Through archives and in-depth interviews with key actors from the Gwangju Biennale and Glasgow's West End Festival, this study observes how different narratives regarding urban cultural festivals interact. It also takes a closer look at how instrumental narratives behind these events constrain community involvement. Our findings suggest that both cities adopted an instrumental approach to their cultural festivals. In both cases, the instrumental focus of festival organizers curtails community participation, by focusing on professionalism in both the public and private sectors. Community groups challenged the approach at different levels. We argue that cultural festivals are places where different narratives, such as goal-oriented instrumentalism and self-realisation, interact, compete, and negotiate with each other. We also demonstrate that an instrumental approach in the awareness of urban competition drives the direction and meaning of both the cultural festival itself and the community involvement in it.

Contemporary spectacles are often criticized for tightly scripting public life, proscribing space... more Contemporary spectacles are often criticized for tightly scripting public life, proscribing spaces and their meanings, and instrumentalizing the public realm for political, cultural or economic gain. Participant observation of visitor behavior at festivals in Glasgow, Scotland, and Gwangju, South Korea and analysis of the festivals' spatial organization reveal how such events can also facilitate social interaction at the local scale. Four kinds of spatial conditions—enclosure, centrality, axial connection and permeability—are shown to shape informal social encounters among attendees, and stimulate performances of local identity and engagement with the meanings of place.

Contemporary spectacles are often criticized for tightly scripting public life, proscribing spaces and their meanings, and instrumentalizing the public realm for political, cultural or economic gain. Participant observation of visitor behavior at festivals in Glasgow, Scotland, and Gwangju, South Korea and analysis of the festivals' spatial organization reveal how such events can also facilitate social interaction at the local scale. Four kinds of spatial conditions—enclosure, centrality, axial connection and permeability—are shown to shape informal social encounters among attendees, and stimulate performances of local identity and engagement with the meanings of place.

... The Role of Festivals in the Reproduction of the Urban Lifeworld. Shin, H and Stevens, Q and ... more ... The Role of Festivals in the Reproduction of the Urban Lifeworld. Shin, H and Stevens, Q and Kim, H (2006) The Role of Festivals in the Reproduction of the Urban Lifeworld. Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements. Full text not available from this repository. Type: Report ...

The Emancipatory City?: Paradoxes and Possibilities, Jan 1, 2004

It is difficult to generalize about the social life of the city. Urban behaviour does not conform... more It is difficult to generalize about the social life of the city. Urban behaviour does not conform to a simple set of rules, nor does it always meet expectations. The concentration of a diversity of unfamiliar people, objects, meanings, and opportunities for action in urban ...

Not all aspects of urban social life are predictable and rational. Urban public space is characte... more Not all aspects of urban social life are predictable and rational. Urban public space is characterised by tensions between efforts to regulate behaviour and stabilise meanings, and the diversity of everyday social practices. This paper examines such tensions, by focuss ...

Cultural Geographies, Jan 1, 2007

In 1954, a small team of Australian men landed at Horseshoe Harbor and began constructing Mawson ... more In 1954, a small team of Australian men landed at Horseshoe Harbor and began constructing Mawson Station: the permanent colonization of Antarctica was initiated. Two years later, Americans began the construction of their major Antarctic base, McMurdo. Although Antarctica is routinely represented as an empty wilderness, over the last 50 years tens of thousands of humans have occupied the continent, most of them living in Antarctica's 40 national bases. What kinds of spaces are these Antarctican colonial settlements? How do they function materially, ideologically, legally and spatially? This article explores the anatomy of two of the oldest and most populous of these spaces, Mawson and McMurdo stations. It attends to their physical environments and to the geopolitical epistemologies that shape them. It is thus a study of two distinct Antarctican spatialities. This article is part of a larger endeavour to account for the heterogeneous cultural geographies of the polar south. It works towards a definition of contemporary colonialism in its Antarctican context. In a previously-uninhabited continent governed by scientific internationalism, yet subject to disputed territorial claims and conflicting geopolitical spaces, colonialism takes on specific localized forms. This article attends to the unique colonial spatialities of two key Antarctican settlements.

Progress in Planning, Jan 1, 2006

Design codes are nothing new, but in recent years have increasingly been identified. both in the ... more Design codes are nothing new, but in recent years have increasingly been identified. both in the urban design literature and in practice. as tools that might help to deliver better quality development, more efficiently, and in a more inclusive manner that better integrates the ...

… K Franck, Q Stevens (Routledge, New York …, Jan 1, 2006

A young man hangs one more pair of faded jeans on the fence next to two other pairs, a worn leath... more A young man hangs one more pair of faded jeans on the fence next to two other pairs, a worn leather jacket and several shirts. Displayed on the sidewalk below are bits of kitchen equipment, miscellaneous plates and glasses, a stack of CDs and several pairs of men's ...

This paper examines an intensive 9-month project of knowledge exchange between an academic resear... more This paper examines an intensive 9-month project of knowledge exchange between an academic researcher and the urban design practice Rick Mather Architects, focused around their long-term masterplan for London’s South Bank Centre. This kind of project is still quite new within the design disciplines, but has significant potential benefits for both research and practice. Research can gain a better understanding of where new knowledge is needed, and enhance the prospects of being applied. Practice can benefit by using research to improve built outcomes. This paper evaluates the impact of a knowledge-exchange partnership on the state of knowledge of practice and research, and on the art of knowledge exchange in urban design as opposed to other disciplines. It identifies new forms of knowledge exchange through a set of research and engagement activities based on ethnographic methods. It highlights that the sharing of design knowledge is fundamentally a social art.

Play has always been part of the social life of urban public spaces. This thesis is a focused exa... more 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 this 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 behaviors 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 social space structures opportunities for playful acts because it frames unfamiliar, stimulating perceptions and unplanned, noninstrumental encounters between strangers.

The research centres on observation and discursive analysis of playful behavior 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 the meanings, desires, behaviors, 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.

Temporary and Tactical Urbanism examines a key set of urban design strategies that have emerged i... more Temporary and Tactical Urbanism examines a key set of urban design strategies that have emerged in the twenty-first century. Such projects range from guerrilla gardens and bike lanes to more formalised temporary beaches and swimming pools, parklets, pop-up plazas and buildings and container towns.

These practices enable diverse forms of economic, social and artistic life that are usually repressed by the fixities of urban form and its management. This book takes a thematic approach to explore what the scope of this practice is, and understand why it has risen to prominence, how it works, who is involved, and what its implications are for the future of city design and planning. It critically examines the material, social, economic and political complexities that surround and enable these small, ephemeral urban interventions. It identifies their short-term and long-term implications for urban intensity, diversity, creativity and adaptability.

The book’s insights into temporary and tactical urbanism have particular relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted both the need and the possibility of quickly transforming urban spaces worldwide. They also reveal significant lessons for the long-term planning and design of buildings, landscapes and cities.

Activating Urban Waterfronts shows how urban waterfronts can be designed, managed and used in way... more Activating Urban Waterfronts shows how urban waterfronts can be designed, managed and used in ways that can make them more inclusive, lively and sustainable. The book draws on detailed examination of a diversity of waterfronts from cities across Europe, Australia and Asia, illustrating the challenges of connecting these waterfront precincts to the surrounding city and examining how well they actually provide connection to water. The book challenges conventional large scale, long-term approaches to waterfront redevelopment, presenting a broad re-thinking of the formats and processes through which urban redevelopment can happen. It examines a range of actions that transform and activate urban spaces, including informal appropriations, temporary interventions, co-design, creative programming of uses, and adaptive redevelopment of waterfronts over time. It will be of interest to anyone involved in the development and management of waterfront precincts, including entrepreneurs, the creative industries, community organizations, and, most importantly, ordinary users.

The e-book was published on 22 January 2019. The Table of Contents and chapter abstracts, and a f... more The e-book was published on 22 January 2019. The Table of Contents and chapter abstracts, and a free downloadable PDF of the whole Introduction chapter, are all available at the following URL:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429951053

Memorials are more diverse in design and subject matter than ever before. No longer limited to st... more Memorials are more diverse in design and subject matter than ever before. No longer limited to statues of heroes placed high on pedestals, contemporary memorials engage visitors in new, often surprising ways, contributing to the liveliness of public space. In Memorials as Spaces of Engagement Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck explore how changes in memorial design and use have helped forge closer, richer relationships between commemorative sites and their visitors. The authors combine first hand analysis of key examples with material drawn from existing scholarship. Examples from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe include official, formally designed memorials and informal ones, those created by the public without official sanction. Memorials as Spaces of Engagement discusses important issues for the design, management and planning of memorials and public space in general.

The book is organized around three topics: how the physical design of memorial objects and spaces has evolved since the 19th century; how people experience and understand memorials through the activities of commemorating, occupying and interpreting; and the issues memorials raise for management and planning.

Memorials as Spaces of Engagement will be of interest to architects, landscape architects and artists; historians of art, architecture and culture; urban sociologists and geographers; planners, policymakers and memorial sponsors; and all those concerned with the design and use of public space.

What are public spaces for? Urban design often pursues such clear-cut instrumental goals as comfo... more What are public spaces for? Urban design often pursues such clear-cut instrumental goals as comfort, practicality and order. But the scope of everyday life in urban spaces is never completely subordinated to the achievement of predeﬁned, rational objectives. People can ...

In cities around the world people use a variety of public spaces to relax, to protest, to buy and... more In cities around the world people use a variety of public spaces to relax, to protest, to buy and sell, to experiment and to celebrate. Loose Space explores the many ways that urban residents, with creativity and determination, appropriate public space to meet their own needs and desires. Familiar or unexpected, spontaneous or planned, momentary or long-lasting, the activities that make urban space loose continue to give cities life and vitality.

This book examines physical spaces and how people use them. Contributors discuss a wide range of recreational, commercial and political activities; some are conventional, others are more experimental. Some of the activities occur alongside the intended uses of planned public spaces, such as sidewalks and plazas; other activities replace former uses, as in abandoned warehouses and industrial sites.

Following an introduction to the concept of looseness, the book is organized around four themes: Appropriation, Tension, Resistance and Discovery. The thirteen case studies, international in scope, demonstrate the continuing richness of urban public life that is created and sustained by urbanites themselves.

The book links two fields of interest which are too seldom considered together: the production an... more The book links two fields of interest which are too seldom considered together: the production and critique of art in public space and social behaviour in the public realm. Whilst most writing about public art has focused on the aesthetic, cultural and political intentions and processes that shape its production, this collection examines a variety of public artworks from the perspective of their actual everyday use. Contributors are interested in the rich diversity of peoples' engagements with public artworks across various spatial and temporal scales, encounters which do not limit themselves to the representational aspects of the art, and which are not necessarily as the artist, curator or sponsor intended. Case studies consider a broad range of public art, including commissioned and unofficial artworks, memorials, street art, street furniture, performance art, sound art and media installations.

In port cities around the world, waterfront development projects have been hailed both as spaces ... more In port cities around the world, waterfront development projects have been hailed both as spaces of promise and as crucial territorial wedges in twenty-first century competitive growth strategies. Frequently, these mega-projects have been intended to transform derelict docklands into communities of hope with sustainable urban economies—economies intended to both compete in and support globally-networked hierarchies of cities.

This collection engages with major theoretical debates and empirical findings on the ways waterfronts transform and have been transformed in port-cities in North and South America, Europe, the Caribbean. It is organized around the themes of fixities (built environments, institutional and regulatory structures, and cultural practices) and flows (information, labor, capital, energy, and knowledge), which are key categories for understanding processes of change. By focusing on these fixities and flows, the contributors to this volume develop new insights for understanding both historical and current cases of change on urban waterfronts, those special areas of cities where land and water meet. As such, it will be a valuable resource for teaching faculty, students, and any audience interested in a broad scope of issues within the field of urban studies.

In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi (1966: 88) notes: “Architecture o... more In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi (1966: 88) notes: “Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use and space”. Many different architectural elements modulate the relations between social life indoors and the public realm outside: doorways and display windows, colonnades and awnings, forecourts and gateways, terraces and stairs. The distinctive bodily, psychological, behavioural and symbolic potentials framed by such threshold
conditions are a crucial part of the architectural brief.
This paper utilises observations of behaviour around the thresholds of numerous buildings to explore three aspects of the threshold’s spatial mediation. It is a site of convergence, channelling people’s movement and focusing their attention. The threshold is a transitional place where people spend time and change direction. It is ‘both-and’, between inside and outside, and structures people’s exposure to these different settings. The spatial conditions of the threshold (Latin: limen) can frame possibilities for liminal social experience. Liminality is the transitional phase within social rites of passage, a ‘betweenness’ during which normal identities are suspended and rules are transgressed. Thresholds are, similarly, often unregulated and underprogrammed, places whose uses and meanings remain ill-defined. Thresholds are risky spaces, sites of tension between security and exposure. People often linger at thresholds, suggesting they savour the overlapping of actions and sensations which occur in these spaces.

The planning and regulation of public memorials in a capital city significantly shape the represe... more The planning and regulation of public memorials in a capital city significantly shape the representation of a nation’s identity and values, lending it both historical and conceptual grounding. The processes through which commemorative planning for a capital is conducted also reflect a nation’s democratic traditions. In autocratic nations, urban plans are decided and built by a central authority to serve and reflect its specific beliefs and interests. But in multi-party democracies with active civil societies, the development of capitals’ commemorative landscapes is much more complex. Memorials in democratic capitals are often not initiated, funded or designed by the government itself. These commemorative landscapes develop through negotiation between political parties, social movements, interest groups, subject experts, and individual mourners. This paper provides a comparative analysis of national and local government planning approaches that have guided the development of public memorials in a structured sample of four types of capital cities: capitals that have long, pre-democratic histories of physical development; new, masterplanned post-colonial capitals in the New World; ‘international’ capitals that host major international political organisations; and capitals of countries where democratic government has only emerged in the last 25 years from a range of kinds of pre-democratic regimes (dictatorship, communism, apartheid). It is hypothesized that these different polities employ quite different strategic, procurement and regulatory processes for public memorials. The paper’s methodology centres on analysis of policy documents from relevant agencies, including special-purpose strategic plans, policies that establish approval authority and criteria, and codified decision-making processes for approvals, as well as examination of key commemorative precincts and individual cases, and interviews with planning officials. The paper considers the relative prominence of various commemorated themes, the ways strategic plans and policies guide the location, form and theme of individual memorials, and how commemorative masterplanning relates to the cities’ wider spatial planning needs.

Public memorials are elements of our built environment whose designs often engender intense publi... more Public memorials are elements of our built environment whose designs often engender intense public scrutiny and debate. Moments and topics of contention within memorial decision-making processes can offer important, productive opportunities for democratic public participation on issues of great personal value, and for opening up memories, opinions, and design possibilities. These processes can thus enrich commemorative purposes. The embracing of engagement and conflict may also generate innovative and more widely acceptable design outcomes. But contestations around commemorative works are not always virtuous, open debate. Memorial procurement processes are distorted by differentials of power, knowledge and access. The objectivity, expertise and representativeness of decision-makers often comes into question. This paper analyses the decisions made during the development of public memorial proposals in two Australian capitals, Canberra and Melbourne. It develops a general model of the memorial development process and characterises four distinct procurement approaches used: open competitions, invited competitions, direct commissioning, and ‘grassroots’ initiatives that bypass formal planning procedures. It identifies a set of key decisions made within these processes, and clarifies the significant parameters that determine the form and scope of stakeholder participation in each decision. It identifies a set of recent, contentious memorial cases in both cities which span the range of procurement approaches. The definition of these parameters suggests when and how decision-making processes for memorial procurement offer opportunities for creative friction among stakeholders, with potential to enhance memory, social identity, cohesion, and the quality of the public realm.

Governments and civic groups erect public memorials in national capitals to record and legitimize... more Governments and civic groups erect public memorials in national capitals to record and legitimize selected events and people, so as to define collective history. Budapest provides a rich case study of how changing political regimes and their opponents also alter, re-interpret and remove memorials in their attempts to control national narratives and express and consolidate political authority. This paper uses archival research, interviews with memorial decisionmakers, and analysis of individual memorials to explore how various key themes of Hungarian history have been articulated through Budapest’s commemorative works, and how the expression of particular commemorative subjects has been contested, modulated or repressed. Analysis explores which approaches
to commemoration have remained constant throughout Hungary’s several regime changes, and what broad shifts have occurred in memorial themes, forms and locations. An examination of major memorials erected, removed and replaced in Budapest up until the 1989 collapse of Communism provides a context for understanding the subsequent proliferation of memorials to the 1956 Anti-Communist Uprising and the newly-completed reconfiguration of the
key national space, Kossuth Square. The paper identifies four specific dynamics in the reframing of Budapest’s memorial landscape since 1989 for current consumption: decontextualization, iconoclasm, liberalization, and avoidance.

This paper examines decision-making about the location and design of new public memorials in thre... more This paper examines decision-making about the location
and design of new public memorials in three major world
cities: London, Berlin, and New York. All three cities have
remained foci of political and economic power over several
centuries. The historical development of each city has been
marked by numerous shifts in the spatial distribution of
political power and its representation, and the installation of
hundreds of memorials to a plethora of subjects throughout
their built fabric. Each new memorial in these respective
cities must find a place within a complex constellation of
existing forms, settings, and values, and each new work also
contributes to an ongoing redefinition of priorities regarding
collective memory and identity. In each city, commemorative
works have to fit within a constantly evolving landscape,
potentially undermining their long-term effectiveness as
markers of memory. Ongoing demand for new memorials in
London, Berlin, and New York has created a need to develop
strategies for regulating the themes, sites and designs of
future memorial proposals. The paper examines the historical
evolution of formal planning strategies and decisions in each
city, in relation to the proposals and designs of individual
new memorials, and the availability of suitable sites.

This paper examines the critical and public reception of Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdere... more This paper examines the critical and public reception of Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (2004), a major recent public memorial which draws upon minimalist ideas and precedents, and two particularly important precursors, Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) and Richard Serra’s public sculpture Tilted Arc (1981). These works were completed several decades after the Minimalist movement had begun to expand the limits of artistic representation through sculpture. Eisenman and Lin chose minimalism as a means for memorialising types of tragedies which were not subjects of public memorialisation in earlier times. These memorials appeared in an era when large-scale public art had become a commonplace feature of public space. The key reference points for this investigation are essays from the mid-1960s by Morris and Fried and later reviews by Kraus which articulated the concept of minimalist sculpture. The paper identifies various ways that minimalist concepts have challenged and transformed the design, purpose, reception and management of public memorial sites. The analysis explores how minimalist public art and public memorials have established new relations between sculpture and landscape; new positions, roles and experiences for visitors; and new ways of linking visitor perceptions to memory. The paper outlines how rather than eliminating meaning, abstract forms provide new ways of provoking responses from visitors, transmitting meanings, and addressing new subjects of remembrance. The public’s responses to these designs highlight that not everyone comprehends or appreciates the messages intended by abstract forms of memorialisation.

This paper utilises observations of behaviour around the thresholds of numerous buildings to explore three aspects of the threshold’s spatial mediation. It is a site of convergence, channelling people’s movement and focusing their attention. The threshold is a transitional place where people spend time and change direction. It is ‘both-and’, between inside and outside, and structures people’s exposure to these different settings.

The spatial conditions of the threshold (Latin: limen) can frame possibilities for liminal social experience. Liminality is the transitional phase within social rites of passage, a ‘betweenness’ during which normal identities are suspended and rules are transgressed. Thresholds are, similarly, often unregulated and underprogrammed, places whose uses and meanings remain ill-defined. Thresholds are risky spaces, sites of tension between security and exposure. People often linger at thresholds, suggesting they savour the overlapping of actions and sensations which occur in these spaces.

This paper examines the complex role which the urban landscape plays in the representation and tr... more This paper examines the complex role which the urban landscape plays in the representation and transmission of social meanings. Whilst the city resonates with memories of past events and symbols of cultural beliefs, its public spaces are also a medium, a stage which frames actors and audiences. Places constantly gain new meanings because spatial context is a part of such performances of meaning. The paper focuses on those social practices through which “the imagination seeks to change and appropriate” the ‘representational spaces’ of a city (Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p. 39).

The paper draws on observation of social rituals and informal play behaviour in Melbourne’s public spaces. It describes a broad range of gestures through which people reproduce, refract and refute the social meanings that are embodied in built form. The paper focuses on examples of three different kinds of spatial behaviour: celebratory parades, bodily engagements with public artworks, and posing for wedding photos. These activities all illustrate a dynamic tension between the reproduction of accepted cultural meanings through participatory ritual; spaces of spectacle where meanings are consumed passively; and active interventions through which new meanings are written onto the urban landscape. The paper draws together concepts from a range of social theorists, to explore the interrelation between built form, representation public performance, and social identity.

The post-war period in Australia was one of acute suburbanisation. Beginning in the 1980s, Austra... more The post-war period in Australia was one of acute suburbanisation. Beginning in the 1980s, Australians rediscovered the joys of the inner city: its mixtures of use, its social density, and the vital public spaces which these conditions supported. Whilst waterfront redevelopment was in most cases a relatively late phase in the transformation of the inner city, it is currently at the cutting edge of urban redevelopment and urban design: waterfronts allow for functional expansion and augmentation in CBD areas which are already heavily built up; they are generally well served by existing transport infrastructure which can deliver visitors; and as new linkages, they add value and amenity to existing investments. This paper critically examines the urban design of waterfront cultural and leisure precincts in Australian cities, in terms of simple functional planning matters such as use, scale and connectivity, but also examining how these are entangled in more complex representational, behavioural and political outcomes. The paper draws primarily on an analysis of 'Southbank' precincts in central Melbourne and Brisbane, although it also makes comparisons with urban waterfront areas in other cities both national and international. Particular attention is given to the tensions between the careful management of activities and imagery in these leisure zones, and the messy diversity of everyday life which actually takes place in and around them. The underlying hypothesis is that it is the constant unfolding of oppositions, contradictions and conflicts between different users and different social ideals which makes these waterfronts vital, exciting, meaningful urban places.

Studied architecture in Melbourne and Berkeley and urban planning in Chicago. PhD in urban design... more Studied architecture in Melbourne and Berkeley and urban planning in Chicago. PhD in urban design analysed 'Play in Urban Public Spaces'. Teaches urban design and urban planning. Research interests focus on critical social theory, environment-behavior relations, and urban morphology.

In the name of science, the 'uninhabited' continent Antarctica is being settled, colonised. What ... more In the name of science, the 'uninhabited' continent Antarctica is being settled, colonised. What does the architecture of its colonial settlements look like? How are they organised spatially, socially, and ideologically? This paper critically examines the long-term occupation of Antarctica, focusing on two major settlements: McMurdo and Mawson Stations.

Public spaces are increasingly recognized as being the key contact and encounter spaces and thus ... more Public spaces are increasingly recognized as being the key contact and encounter spaces and thus essential tools to achieve cohesion. But what exactly is social cohesion, how is it experienced in the public realm, and what role can the design of public spaces have in improving it?

To address these questions, this lecture draws on Aelbrecht and Stevens’ recently-completed book exploring case studies of public spaces in 13 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

This lecture has been supported by the Cities Research Centre from Cardiff University and an International Research Exchange Fellowship from RMIT Alumni and Philanthropy.

Tickets are free but booking essential on Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-of-public-space-and-social-cohesion-tickets-59832959994

Join us at Cardiff University to celebrate the book launch of Public Space Design and Social Cohe... more Join us at Cardiff University to celebrate the book launch of Public Space Design and Social Cohesion: An International Comparison, a new edited book by Dr Patricia Aelbrecht and Dr Quentin Stevens which brings together scholarly knowledge at the intersection of public space design and social cohesion and takes a global view on scholarly research and urban design practice in both the Global North and Global South.

The event will include a talk by the authors, followed by a drinks reception (vouchers will be distributed to purchase the book at discounted price).

This lecture has been supported by the Cities Research Centre from Cardiff University and an International Research Exchange Fellowship from RMIT Alumni and Philanthropy.

Visit Routledge for more information about the book:

https://www.routledge.com/Public-Space-Design-and-Social-Cohesion-An-International-Comparison/Aelbrecht-Stevens/p/book/9781138594036

About the Lecture:

Public spaces are increasingly recognized as being the key contact and encounter spaces and thus essential tools to achieve cohesion.

But what exactly is social cohesion, how is it experienced in the public realm, and what role can the design of public spaces have in improving it?

To address these questions, this lecture draws on Aelbrecht and Stevens’ recently-completed book exploring case studies of public spaces in 13 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Over the last two decades, societies worldwide are facing serious challenges to achieve social co... more Over the last two decades, societies worldwide are facing serious challenges to achieve social cohesion. A context of rising diversity, austerity and a series of ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks have brought about a culture of fear, intolerance and distrust of strangers in our everyday public spaces. This context has led to a series of top-down and bottom-up experiments in public space design and management seeking to promote social cohesion and intercultural dialogue. To date there have been few efforts to evaluate the outcomes of these experiments and to understand if and how social cohesion and intercultural dialogue have been realized.

This workshop will bring together academics, practitioners and policy-makers to share their knowledge and experience around this subject, and identify where new knowledge is needed in terms of public space theory, practice and policy. It seeks to develop an international network of expertise to support and expand future collaborations in intercultural public space research, practice and policy.

The workshop will begin with a series of short presentations by the invited speakers outlining their varied research and practice insights on the subject, followed by a discussion.

Organizers
Dr Patricia Aelbrecht, Cardiff University, UK
Dr Quentin Stevens, RMIT University, Australia

Invited Speakers
Ceren Sezer, AESOP Public Spaces and Urban Cultures Thematic Group, TU Delft
Jane Dann, Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, London.
Noha Nasser, MELA, London.
Melissa Meyer, Regeneration & Economic Development, Greater London Authority
Anna Mansfield, Publica, London

Registration
Attendance is free but is limited to 30 people. If you would like to attend the workshop, please send an expression of interest of maximum150 words to both Patricia Aelbrecht (aelbrechtp@cardiff.ac.uk) and Quentin Stevens (quentin.stevens@rmit.edu.au).

e-book published 22 January 2019 - https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429951053\. The Table o... more e-book published 22 January 2019 - https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429951053. The Table of Contents and chapter abstracts, and a free downloadable PDF of the whole Introduction chapter, are all available at this URL.

Public spaces are key venues for social interactions between strangers. Social cohesion among these strangers is increasingly seen as under threat from the cultural and economic differences within our cities and the intensity of urban life.

But what exactly is social cohesion, how is it experienced in the public realm, and what role can the design of public spaces have in improving it?

To address these questions, this lecture draws on a recently-completed book exploring case studies of public spaces in 13 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

It critically examines open space design, public behaviour, and the ways people experience social cohesion, in relation to design practice, public policy, and public engagement processes.

The lecture will be of interest to academics, students, policymakers and practitioners across a range of disciplines, who are interested in how we can better understand and shape the everyday social life of cities.

Time and Date:
5:00-7:00pm
Wednesday 12 September 2018

Building 100, Lecture Theatre 100.3.1
RMIT University
corner Swanston and Victoria Streets
Melbourne VIC 3000

This lecture has been supported by an International Research Exchange Fellowship from RMIT Alumni and Philanthropy.

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Performing the City - online symposium at the University of Sydney, 7 August 2020, 2020

This presentation examines the variety of people’s playful encounters with artworks in public spa... more This presentation examines the variety of people’s playful encounters with artworks in public spaces. It focuses on how these acts explore and develop new relationships between a person, a designed object, other people, and a surrounding urban context. People’s play creatively performs the possibilities of objects and situations. But objects in their turn present distinctive opportunities for bodily and representational engagement, affecting the postures, movements and meanings that people act out. These possibilities are shaped by designers’ intentions, but not restricted to them. I will explore a range of concepts that have been used to understand these dynamic relationships and interactions between people and environments, including environmental determinism, function, ergonomics, ‘triggering’, affordances, appropriation, interactionism, play, and dialogue. This will draw together theories about person-environment relations, about the changing forms and experiences of sculpture, and about socio-material relations as explored in Actor-Network Theory and Assemblage Thinking. The presentation will be illustrated by observations of people’s diverse playful engagements with a range of public artworks and urban spaces in Australasia, Europe and East Asia.

lecture starts at 30:21 and ends at 1:16:45, followed by responses and questions

Dirty Linen: A Food Podcast with Dani Valent, 2020

In the context of Melbourne's imminent emergence from Stage 4 pandemic restrictions, and the prop... more In the context of Melbourne's imminent emergence from Stage 4 pandemic restrictions, and the proposed state government support funding and legislative changes to allow restaurants and cafes to temporarily take over city streets and squares for socially-distanced outdoor dining, Quentin spoke with Dani Valent, host of 'Dirty Linen: A Food Podcast', about how the hospitality industry might creatively respond to the challenges... "We talk city beaches, goodwill, what 'cutting red tape' might actually mean, and the opportunities for entrepreneurs as we emerge from lockdown."

This presentation draws on a body of recent research which explores three interrelated considerat... more This presentation draws on a body of recent research which explores three interrelated considerations that shape the design of public memorials: the scope of perceptions and actions that memorials make available to visitors; the masterplans and policies through which cities regulate memorial development; and the contested decision-making processes used to procure individual memorials. Through comparative analysis of a range of examples in Australia, Canada, the UK, US and Germany, the presentation reveals the complex political, bureaucratic and experiential context of contemporary public memorial design.

Urban play is not so much a specific set of actions, places or regimes, but is, rather, a distinc... more Urban play is not so much a specific set of actions, places or regimes, but is, rather, a distinctive mode of engaging with people, spaces and built forms, and developing new relationships to them. This mode involves curiosity, a richness of multi-sensory experiences, and active bodily engagement. It is characterized by liminality: freedom, openness, exploration, improvisation, and transformation. While some kinds of play have productive outcomes, achieving them typically involves escaping given social and physical constraints. Participant observation of playful actions within a variety of settings emphasizes users’ creativity in rediscovering and redeploying the spatial and social opportunities that urban conditions present. It also highlights several important physical attributes that tend to characterise play settings: closeness, looseness, variety and limits.