(daniel by justin)

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Archfarm
Non-periodical fascicles on architecture
Issue N 12, MAy 09
STIMULATING THE SENSES IN THE PUBLIC REALM

"...essential tension in public space: whether to remove risk, and so erase danger, or to tolerate or even encourage risk, and so enjoy the unexpectedness of our cities and fellow citizens. ... This, many contend, is what public space should be contented, painfree consumerism where there is always a place to sit down, a drink to be quaffed, a toilet to be found and a new product to be purchased. Such public realms are a Utopia, places where there are no homeless people, wailing sirens or speeding couriers. ... Rather, as internalised, controlled and sterile arenas — cleared of all litter and “undesirable people” — malls suggest that we are only citizens in so far as we consume. ... So there are indeed risks here, the risks of losing sight of what a vital civic arena could be. The risk of the city-as-shoppingmall is that public space becomes only for consumerism, that our bodies become passive, that we consume only by purchasing, and that poli-tical rights and critical thoughts are replaced by docile and accep-ting minds.

... One of the most pervasive forms of play in the urban realm is that of skateboarding. ... The skateboarder’s own body becomes alert with touch, hearing, adrena-lin and balance. Here then, the dissatisfaction with streets and malls — which both repel the human body and turn it into an instrument of vision — is confronted by a newly invigorated body, mul-tisensory, adaptable and alive. ... For example, ska-teboarding suggests that archi-tecture can be micro-spaces and not just grand monuments, that we can produce not only things and objects but also desires and energies, that public space is for uses rather than exchange, that one should use the public realm regardless of who one is or what one owns, and that the way we use public space is an essential factor in who we are.