Space as an open software

Another viewpoint can transform how we understand space.

Could space programming become an open-source practice? Have we forgotten the importance of script and meanings on physical form?

Space affects people in two ways. The first is in a physical way, where the forms and dimensions of spaces and objects, together with their relations gives opportunities, a framework, that decides where it is possible to sit, stand, run, walk or eat soup. etc.

But this physical side of space is on the other hand also given a cultural meaning. What they are is not only shaped by its physical form, but also how human culture relate towards it. Holy cows appear everywhere in our common way of understanding space. One could say that this is the software-side of space. A software that gives the physical form a meaning.

Often set aside is that this software is not a constant. The meaning of spaces can change; the American dream becomes a nightmare suburbia; a street is reduced to a means of transportation; Or an abandoned industrial area reinvents itself as a center for culture. A famous example of this is the High Line park in New York. It is a project that has transformed the consensus view of the industrial meatpacking district, with a lot of empty warehouses, from a disgrace that should be redeveloped completely into a modern neighborhood - to a potential for a cultural hub on Manhattan.

Promenade Plantée (to the right) in an already developed neighborhood (left)

Though, the High Line wasn't first. In Paris the Promenade Plantée is an elevated railway that was transformed into a park promenade already in 1993, long before the High Line. The difference to the High Line is that the surrounding neighborhood was already developed. There was no unreleased potential in form of empty warehouse buildings or undeveloped plots as with the High Line project.
One could argue that the High Line only spurs the development towards a high end neighborhood and gentrification. But on the other hand it is a project that has transformed the way we look at our industrial heritage. All around the world there is similar projects in former industrial areas where the old industrial structures are being looked upon as a potential rather than being filthy and undesired. The High Line is, except from a park, also a contagious idea. Suddenly we see park spaces, art studios and creative businesses all over the place when we look to abandoned and a bit rough industrial districts - it is a spatial formula reaching across and transforming a large quantity of spaces.

Garden city, Ebenezer Howard 1898

Keller Easterling is an American architect and professor interested in how this kind of contagious ideas form the spaces that we swim in, just like a spatial formula. Opposing that architecture is a profession limited by these contagious ideas and spatial formulas, such as the suburbia or the "zone", she says that architecture have the potential to manipulate these spatial formulas. In her text, "The action is the form: Victor Hugo's Ted talk", she starts with stating that "architecture is information".

"Anything dumb, inert, human, non-human, non digital – could be a carrier of information and that the physical arrangement of infrastructure space itself is information."

"To the degree that they make a difference in the world, they create influence, intention and relationship that constitute information. The information manifests, not in text or in code, but in activity.

She describes a concept of "active form", which opposed to object form deals with the performance of space; what can it do? What do they inflect, ignite or suppress? What potentials do they release?

Dom-ino by Le Corbusier 1914

Looking back to the history of architecture one can find many long lived ideas that still has an effect on the formation of space. The Garden City of Ebenezer Howard, the Dom-ino construction by Le Corbusier, the logic of Levitt-town suburbia, the functionalistic planning paradigm have all redefined our notion of the spaces surrounding us. What they have in common is that they are not complete designs in themselves, but rather a logarithm for how to create and use space. A spatial formula with a large influence of how spaces are created. They are examples of what Keller Easterling calls "active form".

”The designer of active forms is designing not the field in its entirety but rather the delta or the means by which the field changes"

Dom-ino constructions in Zabaleen, Cairo

Their success depends on an ability to adapt and to allow for diverse outcomes. The Dom-ino construction intended as a self built row-house typology is transformed here in Zabaleen, Cairo, to a vertical farm where added floors becomes the home of a younger generation. The logic of Levitt-town suburbia could be applied to variety of architectural designs, geographic contexts or income groups. It could even be used as a tool of non-military occupation, as in Israel where hilltop settlements are used to create physical borders in order to claim influence on new land.
One can argue that the architect profession has lost interest in this types of spatial logarithms. Instead these are designed by military strategics, building corporations and business consultants. The interest of the architect is instead directed towards the object form - a building design or an urban development plan, without questioning the spatial logarithms that defines them.

We architects enjoy making the symbols, whether it is for an economic free zone like Dubai or designing an elevated park that unconsciously will expose the potentials of industrial infrastructure. A way forward would be to design through script rather than simple object design. The power of the script is perhaps sometimes forgotten by architects. If we look at Dubai, a zone where rich westerners could live perfectly happy without friction, but where it is a very different situation for the rest of the population; Indian and Pakistani guest-workers without rights; an opressed political opposition that are being imprisoned for political reasons. It is caused by a jurisdictional script and maintained by spatial separation and seducement. From each of these perspectives the free-zone of Dubai get another meaning, with different possibilities, obligations and rights. What if a change in the script could transgress these clear cut lines of apartheid jurisdiction? Maybe a spatial intervention could expose the unjust situation and create a political awareness.

In an inspiring lecture by the architect Kris Scheerlink last week, I got across this building. It is called the transparent building, by architect Manuel de Sola Morales, and as far as I understand it has a very interesting program. It is a free space, open to any interventions and ways to be used. Of course this didn't work at the beginning. People couldn't relate to the fact that it was totally open and free, they didn't know what to do with it. But it only needed time for a culture of uses started to flourish.

Maybe a similar problem could be seen in many functionalist Swedish housing estates, where a large portion of the land is a sort of wasteland. Leftover spaces, with the only function of providing separation and daylight. Their program is a sort of non program and their uses are limited to occasional short-cutting when pedestrian paths are being stupid. It's hard to relate to these spaces - what can we do with them and who is in charge of them? The problem is maybe that they are taken for granted, we don't reflect on them, no one can take initiatives on them. To release the potential of these spaces, demands a script. A spatial formula that expose the possibilities, just like the High Line did with abandoned industrial infrastructure in our cities. Is it time for a "High Line-effect" for the waste spaces?