Productive cities - the reconfiguration of the urban block

This play on different planes is interactive - raised to be public, sunken for privacy, depending on the function it hosts - the ground floor is more playful. The large roof canopy responds to climatic, energy and information needs, generating a new type of space: the ‘in-between’. Such multifunctional arenas will cover events, whether concerts or exhibitions - loud and lively, experimental and fascinating, quiet for concentration or relaxation. A place of inter-disciplinary research and teaching, perhaps art or history, perhaps handcraft or technology. The canopies protect and partly shade the courtyards while giving a stronger sense of that “in-between” and permitting the limits between inside and outside to be blurred The Free Plan of Les Maisons Citrohan - one of Corbusier’s Five points, as open and unrestrained use of the ground floor - is flexible and allows people to appropriate spaces and relate to them differently; fostering various kinds of collaboration and associational practices. It also creates spontaneous activities where the boundaries between formal and informal are blurred. The fact that informality exists in BH tells us not only that it is present but that it works. BH’s use of space is so intense that it changes our understanding of the city; informality is prevalent, it works and the city structure needs it.