SPACE UNDER THE PRISON

Space has physical properties and includes social, psychological, and symbolic meanings. (Lefebvre, 1991) 8 In a society with a consumption-centred structure, urban characteristics are reflected in space. According to Lefebvre’s triadic dialectics, we can analyze the impact of consumerism on urban space from three different spatial dimensions, taking London as an example: a. From urban space function and layout: Perceived space encompasses our daily physical environment (Lefebvre, 1991) 9 , including buildings and streets. These spaces are usually tangible and actually exist, directly impacting our behaviour and activities. The author believes that the impact of urban space on our behaviour can be analyzed by observing the existing buildings and environmental distribution. The author investigated the boundaries of residential, working, public spaces, and transportation areas. In this process, the author clearly observed the control of different areas over action efficiency. urban space and the manipulation of pedestrian behaviour from the intuitive physical space. Although other factors affect action efficiencies, such as sidewalk width, time, population density, and culture, the author hopes to continue observing this phenomenon and conduct more rigorous research. b. From the perspective of changes in urban development unkonwn, unknown (no date) Shui Mu Yi Building Apartment, Nanshan District, Xinjia E Home - Marketing Centre. Availableat:https://www.go-home.net/c25485.html(Accessed:11May 2023).

Representational space refers to the conceptualization and imagination of space(Lefebvre, 1991)10, including our cognition, understanding, and imagination of space. It is expressed through planning, design, and other means and ultimately presented in physical space. Representational space reveals the social meaning and power relations of space. In the book "S, M, L, XL," Rem Koolhaas proposed the concept of the generic city, believing that globalization and consumerism lead to convergence in architecture, spatial planning, and urban image of many cities, losing their unique features and historical backgrounds(Koolhaas & Mau, 1995)11 .

The author collected and compared photographs of different cities, finding that many pictures could not distinguish cities. Moreover, new buildings, commercial spaces, and other spaces are incredibly similar (Fig.4), indirectly indicating that the homogenization of urban space is so prevalent.

8: Lefebvre, H. (1991) ‘Chapter3:The Spatial Architectonics’, in Theproductionofspace. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 73–73.

“Social space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products: rather, it subsumes things produced, and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity - their (relative) order and/ or (relative) disorder. It is the outcome of a sequence and set of operations, and thus cannot be reduced to the rank of a simple object.”

9:Lefebvre, H. (1991a) ‘Chapter2: Social Space’, in The production of space. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 33–33.

For example, in residential areas, people move quickly, stay for a short time, and have high throughput efficiency. In commercial areas, people move slowly and have low action efficiency (Fig. 1&2). In different areas of London, areas with similar attributes also have different action efficiencies. For example, comparing the action speeds of Peckham's commercial street and Oxford Street on weekday afternoons. Moreover, there are differences in the action speeds of people in different residential areas (Fig. 3)

The author believes that in urban spatial layout, consumption directly affects space. Residential areas near the city centre or significant commercial streets accelerate people's action speed to enter the consumption area, while other spaces become marginal. Through observation and recording, the author observed the control of consumerism over

Esra Akcan criticizes Koolhaas's view as a fascination with old buildings in "Reading the Generic City" and believes that the generic city is the future model because it accommodates more population and reflects diversity. (Akcan, E. 2008)12However, the author believes that such homogenization phenomena directly or indirectly lead to the convergence of people's behaviour in space. Excessive pursuit of spatial efficiency and meeting population demands turns urban space into a cage restricting citizens' behaviour.

The author believes that the homogenization phenomenon reflects the control and exclusion of a consumptioncentred social system over citizens, classifying and marginalizing consumer groups by their consumption capacity. This restricts people's observation, thinking, and behavioural diversity, killing the possibility of different behaviourgenerated spaces.

10:Lefebvre, H. (1991a) ‘Chapter2: Social Space’, in Theproductionofspace Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 33–33.

11:Koolhaas, R. and Mau, B. (1995) The generic city, Koolhaas_Rem_1995_The_Generic_City.pdf. Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/7/78/Koolhaas_ Rem_1995_The_Generic_City.pdf (Accessed: 09 May 2023).pp. 1248

12: Akcan, E. (2008). Reading“TheGenericCity”: Retroactive Manifestos for Global Cities of the Twenty-First Century. Perspecta, 41, 144–152. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/40482324

13: Lefebvre, H. (1991a) ‘Chapter2: Social Space’, in Theproductionofspace. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 33–33.

14: Marcuse, H. (1964) ‘Chapter1: One-Dimensional Society’, in One dimensional man. Boston,  United States: Beacon Press, pp. 14–14.

15: Postman, N. (1985) ‘Chapter6: The Age of Show Business’, in Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. New York, United States: Viking, pp. 92–92.

c. From the perspective of spatial experience

Lived space is where people live and act between perceived space and representational space, seeking meaning and value (Lefebvre, 1991)13.Marcuse, in “One-Dimensional Man,” expressed that the ideology in capitalist society shapes and influences people’s ideas and behaviour through channels such as education, media, and religion(Marcuse, 1964) 14 . Individuals often unconsciously accept social norms, resulting in rigid thinking and homogenized behaviour. With the development of consumer society, as Neil Postman mentioned in“Amusing Ourselves to Death,” people prefer simple, intuitive, and efficient video and image information(Postman, 1985)15. In London, advertisements and other image media are prevalent in commercial areas and transportation hubs. Businesses create unique and captivating environments to entice individuals to pause, take notice, and make purchases, eventually leading to predictable behaviour patterns.

In the author's records and observations of Oxford Street, as a non-shopping participant observing this street from a third-party perspective, the author discovered different interesting places, such as Figures 5 , which display various ground details that passersby wouldn't usually notice. More interestingly, in Figure 6, the author analyzed the order of passers-by's gazes through video observation, showing that most people instinctively ignore other places besides the shop windows on both sides and the walking direction. According to the observation of people's walking paths, the author drew Figure 7 , which clearly shows that people's behaviour is one-dimensional in these urban spaces. For example, in the aisles of supermarkets, people's behaviour changes as this one-dimensionality is disrupted when they search for specific items. Coincidentally, some people in urban spaces actively observe the entire space, such as photographers and tourists. They actively explore, looking for materials and unfamiliar things, providing great inspiration for the author: active exploration is necessary to break rigid observation and thinking patterns.