Liminal spaces in urban places by Ruzha Sirmanova

LIMINAL SPACES IN URBAN PLACES

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities? by Ruzha Sirmanova

APPENDIX B Plagiarism declaration to be signed and included in submission POSTGRADUATE DEGREES AUTHORSHIP DECLARATION PLAGIARISM Every piece of work produced by every student is required to be the personal work of that student. Offering the work of other people and pretending it is your own is plagiarism, which is a form of cheating. It is, of course, quite legitimate to make use of the work of other people whether in the form of words or drawings. If this is done, however, it is necessary to acknowledge your source. Any student who submits plagiarised work will be dealt with according to the regulations of The University. To help you avoid the dangers of plagiarism, refer to The University’s Student Handbook – Section 4 Assessment Regulation 3.13 [https://www.hud.ac.uk/registry/regulationsandpolicies/studentregs/] which provides guidance on Plagiarism and The University’s guidance on referencing [https://www.hud.ac.uk/library/finding-info/apa-referencing/]. When you submit the final complete copy of your Dissertation, you are required to complete the declaration below with the work. DECLARATION I ...............RUZHA SIRMANOVA...................... (print name) confirm that this work submitted for assessment is my own and is expressed in my own words. Any use made within it of the works of other authors in any form (ideas, text, illustrtions, tables, etc.) is properly acknowledged at the point of use. A list of the references employed is included as part of the work.

Signed:......................................................... Date:.................. 22/12/17............................

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE TMA1160 : DISSERTATION

LIMINAL SPACES IN URBAN PLACES: WHAT IS THE DESIGN TOOLKIT PROVIDING QUALITY OF REFUGE IN CITIES?

A Dissertation submitted to The University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the Master of Architecture.

by Ruzha Sirmanova

Tutor: Hazem Ziada

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE & 3D DESIGN SCHOOL OF ART, DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE THE UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD 2017-18

CONTENTS 1. Title sheet...............................................................................................05 2. Contents.................................................................................................07 3. Abstract..................................................................................................09 4. List of illustrations...................................................................................10 5. Acknowledgements................................................................................15 6. Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction.......... .................................................................................16 Definition of terms.................................................................................18 Literature review ...................................................................................20 Methodology..........................................................................................28 7. Chapter 2: The importance and difficulties of integration......................32 8. Chapter 3: Case study: The built environment of Little Sheffield Overview / Location / Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history of immigration.......................36 The urban block.......46 The infrastructure.........69 The dwelling.........69 Contemporary developments................................................................86

10. Chapter 4: Conclusion.........................................................................95 11. List of references.................................................................................98 12. Bibliography.......................................................................................106 13. Appendix 1: Interviews Walking interview ................................................................................116 Semi-structured interview....................................................................125 14. Appendix 2: The Sheffield gennel......................................................144

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

ABSTRACT The refugee crisis in Europe is associated with the displacement of large groups of people fleeing war. This puts refugees and asylum seekers in a situation where they can often struggle to integrate in society. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the urban environment preferred by such minorities and the spatial strategies and tactics used by them to create refuge. To do this, I conducted a walking interview with a charity case worker from Sheffield. Based on the route selected by the interviewee, I identified the urban fabric of Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s London and Abbeydale Roads - an area which has been a haven for displaced communities for over two centuries. Afterwards, I analysed the current state of its streetscape as a participant observer, and then its development in time using historical maps and photographs. I found the urban fabric of this locality to be associated with a quality of refuge for marginalised communities, and certain strategies of the existing cityscape - to contribute positively to social inclusion. Further investigation is needed to deepen the knowledge of the spatial features architects and urban planners need to promote to facilitate the successful integration of refugees and asylum seekers in western cities.

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Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page 23, Figure 1. Mumbai’s Fort Colonial Arcades turned into a bazaar (Hernandez, 2010) Page 25, Figure 2. A 1950 photograph of the Victoria Terminus (on the right) and The Municipal Corporation Building (on the left) (Marg Publications, 1997) Page 25, Figure 3. An architectural drawing of Victoria Terminus Victoria in Mumbai. An example of the colonial architecture Mehrotra and Bhabha discuss. (Marg Publications, 1997) Page 29, Figure 4. Harvey and Bhabha both argue that the “right to the city” of the marginalised is removed by the upper classes (Drooker, 2017) 27 Page 30, Figure 5. London and Abbeydale Roads in the city context (Google maps, 2017) Page 31, Figure 6. The route of the walking interview with Tom Caunt, showing the immigration-related landmarks in the area (STRAVA, 2017) Page 35, Figure 7. Manchester New Smithfield Market - Sunday wholesale markets attract asylum seekers, refugees, and economic immigrants (own image) Page 37, Figure 8. Sheffield in the UK context (own image) Page 38, Little Sheffield’s neighbourhoods and their connection to the two roads (own image, based on (Digimap, 2017) Page 39, Figure 10. The activity induced by the two roads and shown on this map is of main interest to the study (own image, based on (Digimap, 2017) Page 40, Figure 11. Internal migration to Little Sheffield (Google maps, 2017) Page 40, Figure 12. London Road in the 1930’s (Sheffield City Library, n.d.) Page 41, Figure 13a. Time-scale of Sheffield’s migration history (own image) Page 43, Figure 13b. Time-scale of Sheffield’s migration history (own im-

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

age) Page 45, Figure 13c. Time-scale of Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s migration history (own image) 45 Page 47, Figure 14. The evolution of row terraced housing into courtyard housing blocks (Cherry and Sutcliffe, 1986) Page 48, Figure 15. Courtyard housing block formations (Cherry and Sutcliffe, 1986) Page 49, Figure 16a. Abbeydale road urban blocks before the housing shortage (Sheffield City Archive, 1902) Page 49, Figure 16b. Abbeydale road urban blocks after the housing shortage. Adamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideas are being applied (Sheffield City Archive, 1923) 49 Page 49, Figure 16c. The urban block remains unchanged today (Google maps, 2017) Page 51, Figure 17. Rigid urban blocks in France (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) Page 51, Figure 18. London Road shared backyard today (Zoopla, 2017) Page 52, . Axial settlements in England (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) 52 Page 52, Figure 20. Urban courtyards in Sheffield middle to later 19th century (Muthesius, 1982) Page 53, Figure 21a. Urban courtyards around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1902) Page 53, Figure 21b. Urban courtyards expanding around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1923) Page 53, Figure 21b. Urban courtyards expanding around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1935) Page 53, Figure 21c. Urban courtyards preserved today (Google maps, 2017) Page 54, Figure 22. The fragmented urban footprint of the terraced house and the movement it allows (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) 54 Page 55, Figure 23. The solid urban footprint of flats and the movement they prevent (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) 55 Page 56, Figure 24. Extrusion and fragmentation

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Page 58, Figure 25. Extrusion and fragmentation 58 Page 58, Figure 26. La Madeleine, Paris (Google maps, 2017) Page 60, Figure 27. St Paul’s, London (Google maps, 2017) Page 61, Figure 28 a, b. Power balance in plan Page 61, Figure 29 a, b. Power balance in elevation Page 62, Figure 30. A comparison between London road in reality, and a London road with an imagined power balance as the one in Paris (own image) Page 64, Figure 31. A comparison of a road which is set similarly to the roads in focus and a rigid structure road which funnels the pedestrian traffic (own image) Page 64, Figure 32. Skaters and cyclists feel free to use every part of the road and the pavement (own image) Page 66, Figure 33, 34, 55, 36. Change of pavement Page 66, Figure 37. Pedestrian Footfall, (STAVA, 2017) Page 66, Figure 38. Cyclists, (STAVA, 2017) Page 67, Figure 39. Traffic as fragmentation on the road Page 67, Figure 40. The remains of the front gardens meeting the pavement and extending the public walkway Page 68, Figure 41. Passage for pedestrians Page 70, Figure 42. Vertical fina’ Page 71, Figure 43. Vertical fina’ Page 72, Figure 44. Al fina’ Page 73, Figure 45. Type 1 fina’ Page 75, Figure 46. Type 2 fina Page 75, Figure 47. Type 3 fina. Page 76, Figure 48/9. Bricolage Page 77, Figure 50. This is the entrance to a skatepark - hidden behind Page 79, Figure 51. A bar with a hidden entrance Page 79, Figure 52. A restaurant which appears deserted during the day 79

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Page 80, Figure 53. Loxleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Printworks Page 81, Figure 54. No loitering signs Page 82, Figure 55. Versatility within the global family Page 83, Figures 56, 57, 58. Versatility within the global family Page 85, Figure 59. Minimalist interiors (Muthesius, 1982) Page 85, Figure 60. Backyards and Privies (Muthesius, 1982) Page 88, Figure 61. Chinatown boundary Page 88, Figure 62. Chinatown Page 88, Figure 63. Chinatown Page 88, Figure 64. Actual Chinese development88 Page 89, Figure 65.Lansdowne Picture Page 89, Figure 66. Abbeydale Picture house Page 90, Figure 67. Barclays Bank - WWII damage (Sheffield City Archives, 1942) Page 90, Figure 68 Barclays Bank and the new Pagoda Bank Extension (Sheffield City Archives, 1950) Page 90, Figure 69. Barclays Bank and the new Pagoda Bank Extension (Sheffield City Archives, 1950) Page 90, Figure 70. New Pagoda Bank Entrance (Sheffield City Archives, 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) Page 91, Figure 71. Pagoda Bank Page 91, Figure 72. Pagoda Bank Extension Page 91, Figure 73. Pagoda Bank Windows Page 91, Figure 74. Pagoda Bank Lattices Figure 75. Pagoda Bank Entrance 91 Page 92, Figure 76. The right to the city Page 93, Figure 77. Chinese mimicry but vernacular materiality

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend my thanks to the many people, who generously contributed to the work presented in this dissertation. Special mention goes to my supervisor, Hazem Ziada. My dissertation has been an amazing experience which has enriched my architectural knowledge immensely. I have been extremely lucky to have a supervisor who cared so much about my work, and responded to my queries so promptly. I am also hugely appreciative to Tom Caunt and the Sheffield Library and Archive support staff, who shared their experience and expertise with me so generously. Completing this work would have been all the more difficult were it not for the support and friendship provided by the other members of the School of Architecture in Huddersfield. I must express my gratitude to Adam for his continued support and encouragement, and by the patience of my mother, father and sister who experienced all of the ups and downs of my research. Thank you!

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

INTRODUCTION Design is political. Centuries of religious architecture in Europe, colonial architecture in Asia and Africa, and redlining in the USA are evidence of its capacity to cause segregation and isolate minorities. Therefore, in time of crisis like today’s, it is important for architects to remember that while there is no guarantee that urban planning and the built environment can ensure inclusion and integration, they are completely capable to marginalise society’s weakest members. Therefore, it is essential to know the spatial arsenal of inclusion and exclusion when shaping the scape of modern cities, and how it can be utilised towards solving the European refugee crisis in the most respectful way. This is as crucial to host countries, as it is to guests. If unable to integrate, war fleeing migrants face a variety of issues due to their inability to continue their development as a person beyond being a “refugee”. Alternatively, moving on with life can enrich each party in both cultural and economic aspects. Authors such as David Harvey, Simona Schroeder and Felipe Hernandez argue that to improve integration one needs to be granted the “right to the city”. However, literature appears to either cover housing issues of the refugee crisis, or the urban problems related to post-colonial communities, without overlapping the two topics. Thus, the aim of this research is to deepen the realm of urban and architectural knowledge of how to facilitate the acceptance and integration of asylum seeking migrants into western cities. To do this, I investigated the urban environment, inhabited by asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants. Thus, in my thesis I would like to expose the need for their right to the city, analyse and illustrate how this claim is made and investigate what kind of urban fabric allows such freedom of interpretation.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

I focus my spatial investigation on the area surrounding London and Abbeydale Roads, located immediately to the south of the Sheffield city center. This area has been a haven for refugees, asylum seekers, and other immigrants from around the world for over two centuries. Following displacement caused by the world wars, civil wars and colonialism, the area is now home to second and third generation immigrants, as well as refuge-seeking newcomers attracted by the evident inclusivity of the locality. My claim is that there are existing urban forms in this area and within the British cityscape which have successfully accommodated asylum seekers and refugees in the past and continue to do so today. While these havens have formed inadvertently, it is necessary to find a way to intentionally encourage equivalent results. Consequently, designers should re-evaluate architecture and urban planningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aims and aspirations at a local level. To do this, first there is a need to define the spatial properties which give urban forms the quality of refuge. Hence, I address the following research questions in my thesis: What are the urban fabric spatial and physical qualities preferred by refugees and asylum seekers? Why? What are the design tools associated with providing these qualities in cities? How can architects contribute to the creation of similar urban forms to encourage integration?

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

DEFNITION OF TERMS In her 2017 interview with Helen Zaltzman for The Allusionist podcast, lecturer and researcher in journalism studies, Emma Briant and Nikesh Shukla talk about her 2013 book “Bad News for Refugees” and explain the meaning and common misconceptions behind the legal terminology, as quoted below. • Migrant – “a person moving from one place to another, even within the same country” (Briant, 2017) • Immigrant – “someone who is coming into a country” (Briant, 2017) • Emigrant – “someone who is leaving a country” (Briant, 2017) • Refugee – “someone who is fleeing political oppression and has been offered sanctuary in another country. One needs to prove their life is truly in danger to be granted such status” (Briant, 2017) • Asylum seeker – “someone who is awaiting their application to be approved in order to become a refugee” (Briant, 2017) • Destitute asylum seeker – someone who has been denied refugee status but is still in the country (Caunt, 2017) According to Briant, using wrong legal terminology in order to charge it negatively, has become a trend in recent times. Furthermore, in the context of this dissertation, the right use of terminology is guidance to one’s status and background and thus their involvement with the cityscape. For example, a third-generation Chinese immigrant, would lead a completely different lifestyle to a Kurdish refugee. Therefore, when the distinction between the terms remains unclear or is unimportant, I use the following term

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

• Newcomers - As discussed later in this dissertation, Sheffield has a long history of migration due to its heritage in steel industry. Therefore, it is not always possible to discern between the urban impact of current refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants, and second and third generation of migrants whose displacement was caused by colonialism, World Wars I and II, or various civil wars. Thus, I am going to use “newcomers” as an umbrella term to refer to all of these marginalised categories. Other abbreviations (used within the body text and interviews): • FURD – Football Unites, Racism Divides is a Sheffield based charity organisation, working on the integration of migrants with the local communities • Sheffield LA – Sheffield Local Authority • G4S – Group 4 Securicor is a security company which has provided a large quantity of housing for asylum seekers in the UK

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

LITERATURE REVIEW Based on the aforementioned argument of the importance of the right to the city to refugees and asylum seekers’ integration, the research main objective is to examine to what extent it is possible to facilitate communication and the sense of community and security. If proved relevant, this principle should be taken into further consideration by urban designers and architects, to contribute towards the resolution of the European refugee crisis in the most feasible way. Therefore, in this section I analyse and compare the secondary literature supporting my argument. To do this, I cover the four ideas, crucial to this thesis: the integration of refugees and asylum seekers, imagined as the right of marginalised communities to imagine and claim the city; the notion of architectural and urban design’s role in granting the right to the city; newcomers’ desire to be visible but remain unnoticed; and how they achieve this by building “other” spaces within cities and thus demand input to their urban environment. In her 2015 MArch dissertation “Architecture and Asylum: a Critical Analysis of the Segregation/Integration of Asylum Seekers in Denmark”, Simona Schroeder discusses the challenges asylum seekers face in western countries. She highlights the necessity of inter-communication between existing and newly formed communities, arguing that currently integration is based on assimilation into a new culture, which leads to the loss of heritage and personal identity. In conclusion, the involvement of asylum seekers in the urban fabric can encourage integration by granting them the right to the city (Schroeder, 2017). First mentioned in 1968 by Henri Lefebvre in his book “Le Droit à la Ville”, “the right to the city” is a slogan which has been discussed and developed in terms of both social and urban issues by various writers. David Harvey uses it as a starting point in his book “Rebel Cities: From the Right to City to the Urban

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Revolution” (2013). Inspired by Karl Marx’ socialist philosophy Harvey takes on the “right to the city” and its “class dimension” (Figure 4). He makes the connection between class division and Lefebvre’s slogan evident through an example of Paris city centre in 1870 - demolished and redesigned by Georges Haussmann, under the rule of emperor Napoleon III. Harvey argues that the “beautification” of the city resulted in dislocating the marginalised communities which originally lived where the new Parisian boulevards and fountains now rise. The author concludes that the poor’s right to the city was removed by the upper classes taking charge of urban issues and aiding capitalism to “piggy-back” on the disposition of those below. While Harvey’s take on “the right to the city” is discussed by opposing the upper and lower classes financially, Felipe Hernandez relates the term to the issue of post-colonialism and immigration. In his book “Bhabha for Architects” (2010), Hernandez considers post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha’s views on “otherness” and segregation in the context of cities. His analysis of Bhabha’s work takes “the right to city” even further by stating that it equals the right to ownership of one’s urban environment. Moreover, Fernandez highlights Bhabha’s views that currently one is allowed in the city only if they assimilate and comply with the local norm. He, Bhabha and Schroeder, imply that an individual requires the right to contribute to their urban environment to claim ownership, which is vital to integration. In the conclusive chapters of “Bhabha for Architects”, Hernandez relates this notion to Rahul Mehrotra’s theory of kinetic and static architecture. In his Foreword to “Rethinking the Informal City: Critical perspectives from Latin America” (2009), Mehrotra opposes the monolithic “static” colonial architecture (Figures 2 & 3) represented by the Royal Arcades in Mumbai, to the living, “kinetic” architecture of the market stalls inside it, used by traders to create a bazaar – a space, typical to this community’s culture (Figure 1).

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Thus, Mehrotra exemplifies how kinetic architecture is used by marginalised communities to adapt liminal spaces in the city’s urban fabric and claim ownership of them. This conclusion is in line with the findings stated by researcher Huda Tayob in her lecture “Black Markets: Invisible Spaces of Hospitality in Cape Town, South Africa” (2016). She claims that refugees in Cape Town feel safest inside the city’s black markets. On one hand, this phenomenon is based on the make-do character of these places – they allow migrants to claim their right of space. On the other - Tayob argues that markets offer crucial protection to refugees by “render[ing] them invisible” to the hostile city. A similar notion of invisibility is also discussed in Richard Sennett’s book “The Fall of the Public Man” (2002). He argues that the age of capitalism and the growing importance of psychology caused drastic social change in 19th century European society. Sennett states that this shifted life’s focus to the self and made people want to dissociate from those around them. This was done to avoid judgement from the “public eye”, consequently causing a desire to be “not invisible but unnoticed” (Sennett, 2002, p.169) in the cityscape. Furthermore, he argues that people can only seek comfort in open spaces, as long as they are at a human-scale. This way they can avoid the ”public eye” and fulfil the need for contact. Sennett explains this through the paradox of the open plan office. While such arrangement is used to prevent people from interacting, by making silence the only barrier between them, he observes that tangible physce barriers in an open plan office encourage interaction. According to him, this particular setting takes out the element of surveillance and allows the users to communicate freely with whoever they choose. The creation of “tangible barriers” (Sennett, 2002, p.15) in the self-built markets is exactly what Mehrotra would call kinetic architecture. He states that such structures are built using tactics, in the sense of Michel de Certeau’s 1988 theory of “strategies and tactics”. The French philosopher uses military terminology to investigate the ways people function in society. According to him, a

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 1. Mumbaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fort Colonial Arcades turned into a bazaar (Hernandez, 2010)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

farmer would use “strategies” to build up their wealth, based on the property they own and care for. In opposition, a thief would use tactics. Their actions would be dictated by time, rather than property, leading them to act only if a profitable situation occurs. De Certeau puts this in the context of migration by the example of a South African immigrant in Paris. Not knowing the language and living in a foreign place are both peculiar to him. Therefore, similarly to the refugees in Cape Town or the vendor owners in Mumbai, he uses tactics to adapt his surroundings to survive in this unfamiliar environment. According to Michel Foucault’s 1988 lecture “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias”, both examples of urban versatility stated above can be defined as heterotopias - or spaces which are “other” to the norm. He explains the term with the following analogy: …the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port. (Foucault, 1988, p.9) The concept of heterotopia has been discussed by various theorists since. The editors of “Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in Post-civic Society” (2008) Dehaene and Cauter argue that “public space heterotopias”, such as the two markets, are “places of contact and contest and hold the potential to instigate social change”. Therefore, intercommunication and integration should be possible to stimulate by the urban form of public space. However, Christine Boyer’s essay “The Many Mirrors of Foucault and their Architectural Reflections” (2008) from the same book, claims that not every kind of urban space allows to be claimed and adapted by users. Moreover, she argues that spaces tend to be prescriptive, rather than adaptive. She condemns this by citing architect Rem Koolhaas “Where there is nothing, everything is

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 2. A 1950 photograph of the Victoria Terminus (on the right) and The Municipal Corporation Building (on the left) (Marg Publications, 1997)

Figure 3. An architectural drawing of Victoria Terminus Victoria in Mumbai. An example of the colonial architecture Mehrotra and Bhabha discuss. (Marg Publications, 1997)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

possible, where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible” (Boyer, 2008, p.65). Boyer states that architects need to realise that buildings’ designs are constantly developed by their users and only stop changing after demolition. Once again, she cites Koolhaas and his claim that voids are never empty. Instead they offer stronger potential in terms of programmatic adaptability and can be utilised however. Furthermore, the only urban form that isn’t capable of flexibility is the one which is already “filled”, because the “absence of architecture is often stronger than presence” (Boyer, 2002, p.65). Therefore, it is not the ruling classes that take away the right to the city per se, rather than the way they use the built environment as means of segregation. The notion of architecture’s impact on urban marginalisation is put in the city context by architect Tobias Armborst in his urban dictionary “The arsenal of exclusion and inclusion” (2017). He analyses a number of design tools, used to control the spatial psychology of users within their environment and proves that the cityscape is capable of bringing people together and encouraging communication. Hence, my hypothesis is that there are places in the urban landscape, which offer powerful sense of community and with properties, such as: human scale and versatility, contribute to the creation of refuge in cities. On one hand, these characteristics allow newcomers to adapt their environment to gain security and on the other hand, they authorise the newcomers’ right to claim ownership to the city, which is argued to be essential to integration. The following sections investigate the urban grain in several different scales to seek where and why those liminal spaces have formed and what makes them versatile; the relationship between their kinetic and static structures; and finally, what are the architectural pre-conditions which have allowed their development in the first place.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 4. Harvey and Bhabha both argue that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;right to the cityâ&#x20AC;? of the marginalised is removed by the upper classes (Drooker, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

METHODOLOGY Based on the nature of the thesis question, I selected to use case study, as an empirical enquiry methodology. According to Yin (2013) a case study is the appropriate strategy when the focus of the analysis is on a contemporary phenomenon, such as the refugee crisis, examined within a real-life context, like the city of Sheffield. A single case study strategy facilitated me to conduct a focused and comprehensive analysis of a locality. Another reason to select this methodology was to enable me to cover the development of urban trends in time. Sheffield has been a refugee sanctuary since the end of the 18th century - a longitudinal case study enabled me to trace the evolution and transformation of the area, its effect on newcomers and vice versa. After identifying the city of Sheffield, as an appropriate location to test my thesis, based on its international character, I conducted a walking interview with Tom Caunt - a case worker from a local charity which is focused on helping destitute asylum seekers (Figure 6). The route selected by the interviewee stretched along London Road and part of Abbeydale Road (Figure 5), covered landmark establishments, and the mixed-use area, frequented by refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrants. Based on the walk and the information from our conversation, I identified a manageable sized area to analyse. The nature of the enquiry requires complete immersion in the urban fabric. Therefore, I gathered qualitative data about the site by visiting it as a participant observer. This was conducted by direct observation of the practices in utilising the built environment and then recorded through sketches, notes and photographs. Afterwards, I organised a second, semi-structured interview with the same case worker to gain in-depth knowledge of the everyday life of asylum seekers and their place in the Sheffield cityscape. (Both interviews are

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

LON DO N

ROAD A

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Figure 5. London and Abbeydale Roads in the city context (Google maps, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

available at Appendix 1). Overall, the information gathered from the case study covered common “strategies” (de Certeau, 1988), foreign migrants’ spatial preferences and my own experience of the area. This research design has reliability limitations, as it is based on personal perception, making it inherently subjective, especially when being an immigrant myself. To balance this subjectivity, all information is supported by quantitative data gathered from local planning applications forms and drawings, census data, local planning policies and published records and documentation of the urban development of the area in the past 200 years. Furthermore, the following chapters argue that architecture should be interpretative and subjective, rather than fitted to the average user. I have also noted that the presence of an outsider in the selected case study area can interrupt its usual dynamics, causing inaccuracies in the findings. However, the area’s popularity with university students made it achievable to blend in as a user, rather than a researcher and minimise disruptions. Overall, the opportunity to speak to a case worker, obtain data through personal experience and perception, and compare to historical maps, drawings, photographs and other archival documents, from the city library was used as means of data triangulation. This has contributed to gain objective information and enrich the results of the study of Sheffield’s immigrant quarter.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 6. The route of the walking interview with Tom Caunt, showing the immigration-related landmarks in the area (STRAVA, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

CHAPTER 2: THE IMPORTANCE AND DIFFICULTIES OF INTEGRATION To seek the spatial practices turning liminal urban places into refuge, it is crucial to understand the social issue of integration; the importance of this process, as well as what can deter or facilitate it. In this chapter, I examine the nature and causes of social stigmas around refugees and asylum seekers, as well as their effect on integration. Furthermore, I discuss a wave of spatial strategies which aid integration and examine their relationship with urban spaces in cities. Currently, Europe is experiencing the largest movement of people since the Second World War. This has triggered a variety of changes throughout the continent, encouraging governments to recognise the importance of the social inclusion of migrants, and particularly of those who have fled war. Even though there is no conclusive definition of social inclusion, the United Nations’ 2016 “Report on the World Social Situation” has broadly identified it as “The process of improving the terms for individuals and groups to take part in society”. (UN, 2016, p.19) Furthermore, the 1989 National Agenda for Multicultural Australia summarises three key aspects of social inclusion: the right to preserve and share cultural identity; the right to equal treatment and opportunity; and finally, the economic need to effectively utilise people’s skills; all regardless of one’s background, language or religion. It is important to highlight, that the last statement recognises the socio-economic benefit of integration to both migrants and their host country. Therefore, all fields, even architecture and urban planning, adjust and develop to deal with this crisis, beyond designing temporary housing, but urban spaces which don’t segregate the marginalised classes but include and support them. Asylum seekers can spend up to two years in legal limbo before receiving an answer from the authorities. In this period, they are not allowed to work, and experience a variety of problems in their everyday life (Caunt, 2017). Such

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

daily inactivity is associated with a variety of issues, one of which is the loss of identity and sense of belonging, thus causing isolation and incapacity to integrate and contribute to society (Schroeder, 2016). According to interviewee Tom Caunt (2017), the need to belong to a community brings people to Sheffield’s immigrant quarter. Without the access to work, home or hobbies, and feeling threatened within the centre, they find spaces which offer a quality of refuge in several isolated locations, such as Sunday wholesale markets, or the Sheffield Winter Gardens, which carry heterotopic qualities (Figure 7). London and Abbeydale Roads are the only network of “other” spaces. Therefore, it of interest to research what makes it susceptible to this. Schroeder argues that a large part of the integration issue is based on the public misconception that successful integration is associated with assimilation. This concept of overlap between the two, contradicts one of the key aspects of inclusion stated above: the right to preserve and share cultural identity, regardless of one’s background, language or religion (Jupp, 2007). Observation of the two roads shows that this is not the case in this area. The immigrant quarter has been “dressed-up” by its foreign users to meet their needs. Similarly to Mehrotra’s Royal Arcades vendors, they have adapted the area’s appearance to be closer to home. According to Louis Wirth, author of “The Ghetto” (1998), intercommunication is crucial to prevent isolation and facilitate integration. However, language and cultural differences often pose a problem even when prejudices are put aside. In recent years, this issue has been tackled through activities which require non-verbal communication. Cooking or eating, creating art, acting, playing music or sports, and even basic shopping are all activities which people understand on a basic human level without being required to speak the same language. Moreover, they allow one to integrate by sharing their heritage and developing their personal interests rather than assimilating. This kind of intercommunication allows asylum seekers and refugees to be seen as equals to

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

their hosts. The important element of this interaction is the chance to contribute to the community, to acquire a new sense of belonging, and therefore be granted “the right to the city” (Harvey, 2013). I would like to highlight that a comparison between the listed non-verbal activities shows that there is a tendency for them to inhabit places such as parks, playgrounds, sports courts, and markets, which are all liminal urban spaces found in cities. It is important to highlight the universal character of these typologies and their space - as more fundamental than language - if parks and gardens spaces are used similarly around the world, then they don’t require language skills, which are the main reason people are put off communication in the first place (Caunt, 2017). Therefore, the correct use of universal spaces should be able to facilitate easier communication and consequently integration. Although there is no concrete evidence that urban spaces can guarantee intercommunication, architect Gisella Calcagno argues in her 2017 presentation “From Emergency to Integration?” that the crisis is an opportunity for urban innovation towards resilience and flexibility. She states that planners and architects play a considerable role in the lives of transitioning refugees. Calcagno concludes that urban spaces can make a meaningful change by either “enhancing or decreasing the likelihood of effective social integration”. Analysing the literature in the context of the study area proves that urban liminal spaces and heterotopias are attractive to marginalised migrants. While such places occasionally occur in isolation, it is interesting to examine them in the context of a complete, complex and permanent network of universal “elsewheres”. Based on the primary data gathered from interviews, it seems that the major qualities of interest to foreign migrants are community, security and adaptability. Hence, I analyse the spaces around London and Abbeydale Roads, seeking what spatial practices give the area qualities of community,

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

security and versatility, enhancing the prospects of efficient social integration. Finally, I examine the relationship between those tactics to the existing architectural strategies. However, to put this in context, I start with a brief overview of Sheffield and the locality in focus, tracing the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history and its effects on immigration through documentary data such as: maps, sketches, photographs, planning and census data.

Figure 7. Manchester New Smithfield Market - Sunday wholesale markets attract asylum seekers, refugees, and economic immigrants (own image)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDY Overview: Little Sheffield – the liminal space within the scope of a city 18th century British colonialism in Asia and Africa, both world wars, and various civil wars have caused the displacement of thousands, driving them towards England (Figures 13 a,b,c). Simultaneously, the Industrial Revolution caused a worker’s shortage and encouraged migration within and to the country. Work in mills was tough but low skilled and attracted foreigners from abroad, or originally settled along the coast. According to data from the National Census (2001), Sheffield has one of the biggest Pakistani, Caribbean and Irish communities in the country. They are accompanied by smaller but well established West Indian, Chinese, Chilean and Somali communities; as well as groups deriving from Polish and Yemeni war refugees. Minority numbers are still growing. Already established as a diverse and welcoming city, Sheffield is actively attracting those seeking asylum in England today (Caunt, 2017). According to 1977 Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Education Committee report “Immigrant Communities in Sheffield”, the city council would often house war refugees in Little Sheffield. In contrast, colonial migrants originally settled to the east from the city center - area defined by heavy industry. According to Ruth Slade’s 1965 report on immigration, their aim was to live closer to their workplace. Then, changes to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1962) encouraged immigrants’ families to join them in the UK. This led communities to move to Little Sheffield - a more “stable” residential area (Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee, 1977) (Figure 11) and remain there until today. This locality consists of neighbourhoods: Sharrow, Highfield, Millhouses, and Nether Edge and has one of the highest foreign demographics within the city (Census, 2011) (Figure 8 & 9). Even though the area is still referred to as Little Sheffield, it has been completely merged with

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

SHEFFIELD SOUTH YORKSHIRE

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Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

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What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

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Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

the city and is located immediately to the South of the center. Its trade and leisure activities appear to gravitate along London and Abbeydale Roads, an artery which starts at the city-centre ring-road and heads South towards the countryside (Figure 10).

Figure 11. Internal migration to Little Sheffield (Google maps, 2017)

Figure 12. London Road in the 1930â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (Sheffield City Library, n.d.)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 13a.

1700

Time-scale of

The Industrial Revolution starts

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1701 - 1769 tion history (own image)

Slave trade booms

1786 Jewish immigration to Sheffield

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Emancipation Act

1839 Occupation of Somalia

1839 Somalian seamen arrive in the UK

1848 1851 Economic migration to Sheffield

Revolutions in Europe force refugees from Germany, France, poland and Italy to the UK

First synagogue in Sheffield 1855 First Chinese settlers

Figure 13a. Time-scale of

1870

Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s migra-

Heavy steel industry in Sheffield

tion history (own

1871 - 1904 image)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

London Road was originally built to be a shopping street in the first half of the 20th century (Figure 12). However, due to its peripheral location, it never became largely successful in comparison to the city-centre shopping streets. While this situation started to change in the 50’s after Second World War bombings left the favoured high streets badly damaged, London Road failed to become the shopping high-street it was designed to be (The Star, 1937). It is likely that the creation of the ring-road in the 60’s which compromised the direct foot-link between the city core and the shopping stretch, was what ultimately resulted in lack of interest in the area, thus lowering property prices and attracting the lower classes (Figure 13b). In this context, it is interesting to highlight that, investigating Sheffield’s Planning application archive, there is a spike of “Change of Use” forms regarding the area, applying to transform existing dwellings into establishments such as cafes, shops, food take-aways and restaurants, all associated with foreign cultures. While there is no concrete evidence, it is likely that its low success as a shopping area for the indigenous population, has made it affordable to minorities’ entrepreneurs to recycle the existing establishments. In time, newcomers started developing community centres, the most prominent of which – Caribbean Workshop, the Hub - was located on Sharrow Lane. (Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee, 1977). Today, even more community points are gravitating around this area, signifying its importance to the local minorities. Refugee help points such as language centres, sports facilities and food banks are located within and around the corridor of passage, connecting the city center with the southern residential quarters. Moreover, Little Sheffield is home to the city’s only Chinese church, two out of three Islamic centers, and 20% of the Sheffield’s Muslim places of worship, including the Central mosque. Consequently, foreign led “regeneration” has turned the area into an “immigrant colony”.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

1905 Aliens Act for Jews and Eastern Europeans

1914 First World War starts Black & Asian soldiers recruited from the colonies

1910 First chinese laundry in Sheffield

1918 First World War ends

1930 Somali seamen resettle in Sheffield

1939

1938 Czech refugees settle in Sheffield

Second World War Starts

1945

Second World War Ends

1950

Post war industrialisation

1950 Yemeni refugees settle in Sheffield Slum clearance in Sheffield

1961 First Indian Restaurant in Sheffield

1966 Pakistani migration to Sheffield

1972 First Chinese church in Sheffield

1979 Saddam Hussein rules Iraq

1971

Asian & African migration Military coup in Chile and the arrival of Chilean refugees

1979 Kurdish refugees in Sheffield

Figure 13b. Time-scale of Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s migration history (own image)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Multi-ethnicity is visible in every element of the streetscape - from the uses and names of establishments, art and materiality, to the way traffic is organised. This extraordinary spatial arrangement is completely different to the rest of the city. According to Maureen Heyns’s essay “Rubbing the magic lamp” (2008), this divergence with surrounding spaces redefines the public domain structure and consequently - spatial experience. This atypical setting, and the median location of the roads has turned them into principal space of transition, rather than heterotopia. However, by recycling and adapting spaces, newcomers have generated multiple “elsewheres”, associated with their heritage. Changing the city to match their spatial needs for leisure, trade and religion and hence creating heterotopic spots which “enable people to interact with remote locations in “real time” and with increasing sensorial sophistication” claims Lee Stickells in his essay “Flow Urbanism” (Stickells, 2008, p.253). Furthermore, these heterotopic nuclei are held together in a complex network of liminal spaces and heterotopic flows, atypical to the Sheffield cityscape. In her essay for “Architecture and Participation“, called “City/Democracy: retrieving citizenship” (2005) Teresa Hoskyns states that not every space allows to be “filled” or adapted. For example, Daniel Libeskind’s Berlin Jewish Museum isn’t capable of housing an exhibition, because the building itself is the exhibition. Hence, there are spaces which can never become anything beyond their original brief (Hoskyns, 2008). This notion inevitably poses the question “how do you lay emotional claim to a place that isn’t yours?” (Dehaene and Cauter, 2008, p.214). The liminal reality of the roads is clearly visible. Yet, it is not apparent what has originally made it tolerant to adaptation after being targeted as a migration destination. While economic and historic factors, such as property prices, council accommodation and damage from the wars have destined the immigrant profile of the area to an extent, there must be a unique spatial form of contribution towards its development as refuge space. Otherwise, the urban space wouldn’t

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

1979 Iranian revolution and refugees

1982 First Asian Councilour in Sheffield

1991 Fall of the Soviet Unitoin

1980 Somalis in Highfield Chinese migration to Sheffield

1991 Congolese refugees

1994

Refugees escaping Yemen civil war

1999 Abbeydale Park Multicultural Festival

2006 Sheffield Islamic center opens

2007

Global Financial Crisis hits

1998 Refugees escaping the civil war in Kosovo and Ethiopia & Zimbabwe 1999

2003

Iraqi refugees arrive in Sheffield

2007 Nigerian and Kenyan refugees arrive in Sheffield

2011 Syrian civil war starts

2015 European refugee crisis

2018 Today

Figure 13c. Time-scale of Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s migration history (own image) have permitted its transformation and the inhabitants would have dispersed. Thus, I investigate what are the architectural pre-conditions which have enabled the urban metamorphosis caused by immigrants in three different scales: the urban block, the infrastructure, and the dwelling. Each section seeks and analyses the historical and spatial factors which have pre-conditioned the area to be susceptible to adaptation.

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

The Urban Block As already mentioned, newcomers were attracted to the residential areas of Little Sheffield for various reasons: war refugees were housed there by the government and other communities migrated from the industrial areas, in search of a more settled environment, after being reunited with their families; the Muslim communities were known to buy clusters of houses to be can live together and use them as a unit (Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee, 1977). This saturation of newcomers has since attracted other foreigners seeking refuge, by living in a community (Caunt, 2017). To understand how the housing arrangements in Little Sheffield provided this sense of community, I trace back the history of the area and the associated architectural typologies. Therefore, this section dissects the idea of community housing and trace it back to the Industrial Revolution, its further development and current remains. Simultaneously, I explain its psychological effects on users. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century caused a housing shortage across the country. This issue was resolved by adapting the terraced house to the needs and budget of the working classes. Being the biggest steel manufacturing center, Sheffield received a boost of terraced housing in the beginning of the 19th century (Figure 16 a,b,c). However, it wasn’t the terraced houses which bonded the communities, but their arrangement. According to Cherry and Sutcliffe’s analysis of the “Model House in Britain” (1986), urbanist Thomas Adams was the first to emphasize the relationship between the unit and its environment, and particularly its “global structure”, meaning the loosely formed housing networks. He suggested the avoidance of long housing rows and their exchange for blocks (Figure 14). Consequently, his Design and Building manual changed the urban footprint of industrial-class housing. A more walkable and permeable neighbourhood was encouraged by building terraced blocks instead of rows. Furthermore, tunnels

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 14. The evolution of row terraced housing into courtyard housing blocks in the beginning of the 19th century (Cherry and Sutcliffe, 1986)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 15 (above and below). The evolution of row terraced housing into courtyard housing blocks (Cherry and Sutcliffe, 1986)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 16a. Abbeydale road urban

Figure 16b. Abbeydale road urban

blocks before the housing shortage

blocks after the housing shortage.

(Sheffield City Archive, 1902)

Adamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideas are being applied

(Sheffield City Archive, 1923)

Figure 16c. The urban block remains unchanged today (Google maps, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

and alleys pierced the footprints at 90 degrees to the main roads, allowing access between the streets and through the dwellings’ semi-private spaces. According to “The social logic of space” (1984) by Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson, English settlements have an unusual global network footprint. Instead of surrounding a focal point, they are arranged along main roads, stretching their center into an axis (Figure 19). Hence, when the terrace row is turned into a block, its solidity is teased into smaller volumes diluted by voids and tunnels, generating a loose network, instead of a rigid footprint (Figure 17). Therefore, the combination of urban blocks and axes, has caused the creation of a large volume of intimate transition spaces, which feel private but belong to the outside (Figure 20). This composition improves the chances of communication by creating tangible spaces of transition between private and public (Hillier and Hanson, 1984). Therefore, Adam’s strategy was the major factor which contributed to communal living in the global scale of the cityscape. So, when Adam’s urban arrangement resulted in a system of shared semi-public courtyards, it was utilised by the whole group, usually as allotments or grazing (Cherry & Sutcliffe, 1986). According to Lucy Caffyn’s book “Worker’s Housing in West Yorkshire 1750 - 1920” (1986) a lot of terraced houses and urban blocks were built as workers’ accommodation projects issued by mill owners. They often aimed to create complexes allowing for public spaces such as schools or religious centres to be placed in those courtyards, and encourage shared activities (Caffyn, 1986) (Figure 18). Nether edge Primary School is included on maps dating back to 1905 (Figure 21a,b,c). The three figures show the development of the block and how the school playground was slowly surrounded by housing and turned into a semi-public core – an agora everyone looks towards. A layer of back yards and houses protects the playground and allows the parents to overlook their children during the day. The centric relationship in the block contributes to the sense of community by improving the security and eliminating distance to the

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

school. This adds transparency to the relationship between the establishment and the users. Also, it creates an additional common factor between all neighbours, enhancing the sense of community within each generation (Figure 15). The courtyard model of shallow urban block was developed and transformed in the years to come, but the notion of shared defensive space protected by a layer of housing remained. According to Stefan Muthesius’s 1982 book “The English Terraced House”, the courtyard was a popular house arrangement in Sheffield, which developed into a shared backyard model. While other typologies, emerging at the same time, separated each back space, in Sheffield, a single open backyard would serve 4 to 6 houses and open to the street behind them. This trend was associated with building external toilets, or privies, in the end of the yard. They were often shared between 6 – 8 dwellings, and were the

Figure 17. Rigid urban blocks in France (Hillier and Hanson, 1984)

Figure 18. London Road shared backyard today (Zoopla, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 20. English settlements axes (Hillier and Hanson, 1986)

Figure 20. Urban courtyards in Sheffield middle to later 19th century (Muthesius, 1982)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 21a. Urban courtyards around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1902)

Figure 21b. Urban courtyards expanding around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1923)

Figure 21b. Urban courtyards expanding around a school in Sheffield (Sheffield City Archive, 1935)

Figure 21c. Urban courtyards preserved today (Google maps, 2017)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 22. The fragmented urban footprint of the terraced house and the movement it allows (Hillier and Hanson, 1984)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 23. The solid urban footprint of flats and the movement they prevent (Hillier and Hanson, 1984)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

center of all activity, as they generated semi-private community spaces. This was possible thanks to the 1830’s -1870’s strive for cleanliness, best achieved by creating long backyards. So, filth was easy to clean and smell didn’t interrupt other activities (Muthesius, 1982). The tangible boundary between the yard and the path allowed users to interact with the public space from a safe location, encouraging visual permeability and communication with the street. As those designs developed and got more complicated during the 19th century, builders recognised the appeal of community housing and added more transitional spaces, such as front gardens. Those liminal spaces changes transformed the neighbourhood dynamics: “Neighbourly chats took place both at the front and the back” (Muthesius, 1982, p.115). The importance of semi-public transitional space running between paths and dwellings is explained by Hillier and Hanson (1984). The authors state that rows of doors, windows and gardens, associated with terraced housing, incise the street elevations and create a visual dialogue between the users, inside, outside or in between. Shallow interior spaces and a horizontally balanced inside-outside access system encourage the inhabitants to engage with each other by providing the right setting for conversation to happen: public enough to meet others, private enough to engage with them (Figure 22). In contrast, a solid footprint of an apartment block takes most of this activity inside corridors and stairwells, which unlike voids and courtyards, don’t encourage stationary behaviour. Furthermore, accommodating people in height, removes the incisions along the street elevation by arranging them upwards, rather than sideways, thus taking away from the notion of the visual permeability and having “eyes on the street” (Hillier and Hanson, 1984, p.140). So, the human scale of the urban blocks along London and Abbeydale Roads is crucial to their communal spirit (Figure 23).

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Fragmentation caused by projecting spaces towards the street (front gardens and bay windows) (Figure 24,25), their direct adjacency and permeability define the terraced blocks of the locality. The Sheffield terraced block has impacted its inhabitants by being designed to encourage the formation of small communities. From the courtyard, to the urban block model, through the shared back yards, abutting front gardens and common bathrooms, the liminal spaces around the dwelling were consistently designed towards promoting communication. Today, many of those traits remain to a certain extent, providing the quality of shared space to those seeking support and interaction. However, the intimacy of these networks flows into the vast open space of the main road artery, posing the question of how it is adapted to suit the foreign usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; scale requirements.

Figure 24. Extrusion and fragmentation

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 25. Extrusion and fragmentation

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

The Infrastructure - bringing the pedestrian to the front of the action According to urbanist Jeff Speck’s lecture “4 Ways to Make a City More Walkable”, people resemble animals in the sense that they always seek “prospect and refuge – we want to be able to see predators, but we want to feel that our flanks covered”. Therefore, achieving a “human” ratio between building height to street width is of importance to the refuge quality of cityscapes. The complex network of blocks and voids along London and Abbeydale Roads ensure there are tangible boundaries and small-scale spaces within the urban footprint to communicate and navigate in, while avoiding the sight of the “public eye” (Sennett, 1984). Speck argues that such narrow pedestrian paths are more walkable and bring comfort to pedestrians, while wide boulevards drive them towards the periphery. Hence, it is surprising that the five-lane wide route piercing Little Sheffield is bustling with street activity. Hence, why this section examines the properties of the area’s infrastructure. According to Hillier and Hanson (1984), the reason for this unusual use is the traditional planning of English promenades. When comparing boulevards in France and England, French examples often follow a model which aims to “close” a street by introducing a monumental, institutional, super-structure in one or both ends. In his essay “Architecture’s Public” (2005), Giancarlo de Carlo states that throughout history architecture has been a “tool of domination”, used to highlight the “opposition between those of power and those who don’t have power” (de Carlo, 2005, p.17). This notion was Haussmann’s aim and is particularly visible in Paris. Figure , shows the approach to one of Paris’s cathedrals – La Madeleine (Figure 26). The boulevards leading to both main façades meet the entrances on 90˚ angles, providing clear view of the approaching pedestrian from over a mile away. This imposition of the upper class turns visibility into surveillance by distributing the spatial power unequally along the

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

La Madeleine

Figure 26. La Madeleine, Paris

Figure 27. St Paul’s, London (Goog-

(Google maps, 2017)

le maps, 2017)

street and using the fear of the “public eye” (Sennet, 1984) to maintain control. Considering, the strong opposition between asylum seekers and the establishment, representing immigration control, such arrangement would have been detrimental to the area. English urban planning has developed in a contrasting way. Examining the approach towards London’s St. Paul’s cathedral (Figure 27), it is evident that one can see its front elevation only as close as 0.2 miles away from the entrance. This is caused by the skewed angle in which the religious complex meets the street leading to it. Furthermore, the promenade doesn’t end by meeting St Paul’s entrance, but meanders around it. This co-relation diminishes the cathedral’s imposition on the pedestrian, by allowing visibility without surveillance. The power balance maintains the human scale of public spaces, without being oppressive or intimidating, and gives newcomers a better chance of inclusion and integration.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

While skewed angles soften St Paul’s grandeour, smaller settlements promenades don’t lead to a landmark whatsoever. In the context of London and Abbeydale Roads, run from the city center and disappears into the countryside. At the same time, the opposite end flows into the traffic of the ring-road. Even though new developments have extruded the scale upwards along the final stretch, they don’t dominate by abutting the road with their façades. Instead they than stand back and alongside the axis. Finally, their use is residential, rather than related to the establishment. Hence, no obstructions interrupt the continuous streak of row housing, turning the promenade itself into the focal point of the urban grain. This automatically shrinks the urban space in height and spreads its power horizontally at a scale palatable to the pedestrians (Figure 28a,b). This brings the user to the spotlight of the street scape and turns them into the protagonist of the road activity (Figure 29a,b). This new focus alleviates the vulnerability caused by the physical manifestation of the “public eye” (Sennet, 2002), by removing it completely, thus allowing the users to utilise the street however they like.

Figure 28 a, b. Power balance in plan

Figure 29 a, b. Power balance in elevation

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 30. A comparison between London road in reality, and a London road with an imagined power balance as the one in Paris (own image)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

According to Sennett, however, the discomfort of being in large public spaces is caused by the growing importance of the psyche, as well as the need to conceal it, meaning this struggle is internal. Therefore, even after removing the external element of oppression, users still require human-proportioned spaces. So, the newcomers in Little Sheffield have adapted the roads by segmenting them into smaller corridors of traffic. Since these amendments are generated by tactics, they are completely transient and rely on their continuous occurrence in time to maintain their boundary function. While other main streets are surrounded by metal railing, there is almost a complete lack of hard boundary between the road and the pavement along the axis. At the same time, having been a tram track, the two streets in focus are wide enough to accommodate a bus lane on each side. This peripheral trafficless space is used freely as parking and loading bays by the occupiers of the establishments, creating a transient barrier between the road and the pavement which is physically and visually permeable. Simultaneously, there is slow or stagnant four lane traffic on the roads (Figure 37). This is caused by the large amount of traffic lights along the stretch, and at the junction connecting London Road to the ring-road. The combination of no highspeed, or hard boundaries grants immediate access to pedestrians, cyclists and skaters between the two realms. Having claimed both the road and the pavement, provides them the ability to remain unnoticed, by being able to navigate on their own accord rather than avoid obstructions. Alternatively, rigid barriers such as metal railings or the strict use of pedestrian traffic lights would funnel the flow, limiting oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible routes (Figure 31). This pedestrianisation has turned the artery into a preferred journey into the center from the south, making London Roadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s footfall and cycling activity the second highest after, Ecclesall road, which is a high-end shopping street (Strava, 2017) (Figure 32, 37, 38).

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 31. A comparison of a road which is set similarly to the roads in focus and a rigid structure road which funnels the pedestrian traffic (own image)

Figure 32. Skaters and cyclists feel free to use every part of the road and the pavement (own image)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

The priority of the pedestrians is further enhanced by means provided by the council. Vehicular traffic is often slowed down or deterred from interrupting the pedestrian areas. According to Armborst’s book “The arsenal of exclusion and inclusion” (2017), one of the easiest ways to navigate vehicles is through road humps. While the crossings connecting the pavement ends are not physically raised, they are in contrasting colour and materiality to the road texture (Figures 33&34). On one hand, this intervention creates a visual continuation of the pedestrian walkway, giving right of way to those using it, and on the other - it alarms vehicles of their inferiority. The use of such elements is known to make streets more walkable by slowing down cars, reducing accidents, and encouraging disabled access (Armborst et al., 2017). On other occasions, bollards and change of texture completely disconnect the main roads from their perpendicular subordinates, denying vehicles passage, and supporting the progression of the pavement (Figures 35&36). Moreover, such dead ends abutting the road eventually turn into parking. Removing traffic, consequently expels the space from the road and into to pedestrian realm, adding more options to the flexible movement in it. Finally, a web of discreet alleys branches out from the pavement and leads to other traffic arteries parallel to it. It connects the commercial edges of the street with the residential areas behind them, awarding access to the users who are familiar with them. While this complex pedestrian network has no hard borders interrupting its fluidity, it requires certain knowledge to acquire passage. This gives the space heterotopic qualities of exclusivity, while protecting the semi-private voids between dwellings, where communication often happens. The elimination of the physical manifestation of the “public eye” dominating the main road, has overthrown the power balance, granting it to the pedestrians. At the same time, the lack of imposed boundaries presents further freedom to the users to appropriate the street system however they like. The newcomers living and working along London and Abbeydale Roads have stated their dom-

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

inance over vehicular traffic by infiltrating the road system and claiming it, thus adding towards a complex and flexible access system. They have completely redefined the dynamics of the road, and essentially turned the movement network into a heterotopia of flows, completely foreign to the infrastructure of the city.

Figure 33. Change of pavement

Figure 34. Change of pavement

Figure 35. Change of pavement

Figure 36. Bollards

Figure 37. Pedestrian Footfall,

Figure 38. Cyclists, (STAVA, 2017)

(STAVA, 2017)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 39. Traffic as fragmentation on the road

Figure 40. The remains of the front gardens meeting the pavement and extending the public walkway

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 41. Passage for pedestrians

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

The dwelling and its liminal spaces While the path is a heterotopia of flows, and the neighbourhood is a global transitional space, they interconnect a network of heterotopic nuclei, where all establishments gives immediate access to distinct cultural “elsewheres”. In this section, I investigate the development of such heterotopias in the scale of a dwelling and the transitional space around it, called al fina’, as well as the architectural pre-conditions which have accommodated this appropriation process. Walking along London and Abbeydale Roads, it is impossible to miss that their elevations are a constantly-changing mosaic of temporary or semi-permanent structures (Figure 42). Seating, signs, adverts, bricolages and other makedo elements of “kinetic architecture” (Hernandez, 2010) are lodged in niches, plugged into static buildings or have claimed the space along the roads by “spilling” their premises outside. They constantly change the face of the streets’ ground level according to various fleeing factors like time. Their architecture is constantly being modified in accordance to the users, proving that a building’s true design development starts in the end of its constructions and is complete after domilition (Giancarlo, 2005). Thus, the function of planning is not to block further interpretation of reality with a permanent and immobile form but, on the contrary, to open up a dialectical process in which reality expands continuously, solicited by images, which in turn become increasingly diversified through new expansions of reality. (Giancarlo, 2005, p. 18)

Such quality of constant adaptability is clearly stated along London and Abbeydale Roads. Interestingly, it is also widely recognised by Islamic urban practice. In his article “Investigating ‘Relevancy’ of the Traditional Principle of the

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 42. Vertical finaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 43. Vertical finaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Right of Appropriation of Open Space and Fina’ in Contemporary Urban Poor Communities in Cairo, Egypt” (2015), Khaled Galal Ahmed argues that city’ forms are not a product rather than a process, caused by the properties of al finaˊ. Ahmed (2015) defines this term as the space spanning 1-1.5m away from the external face of a building, both vertically and horizontally, claiming part the public path to create a liminal threshold (Figure 43&44). This claim to appropriate the fina’ is considered an owner’s right, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone (Ahmed, 2015). In his 1998 article “Al-fina’, in-between spaces as an urban design concept: making public and private places along streets in Islamic cities of the Middle East”, Hashiar Nooraddin describes it in the following way. The result of those spatial additions provided many benefits to the urban dwellers: from benefiting each business, through giving character to the area based on the local activities, and creating a communal space for conversation, to endorsing safety by bringing everyone to the streets. Nooraddin states: The longer that people stay in the street, resulting from the created settings of al-fina’, allows for the possibility of watching and controlling street life events continuously. (Nooraddin, 1998, p.76) Despite the period and location difference, this occurrence is clearly established along London and Abbeydale roads. These are kinetic, temporary bricolages which change by the day. To analyse the kinds of afnia (plural), I have categorised them in three typologies based on the kind of activity they inhabit. Figure 44. Al fina’

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

The first and most popular kind of fina’, found on both roads is static and uninhabited. It consists of small scale inanimate objects such as hanging or A-frame signs, planting pots, door shelters, ramps and parked vehicles. Such elements don’t offer an activity but are used for advertising. As biproduct, they also navigate the flow of movement along the pavement. This property is occasionally employed by savvy traders, by claiming their fina’, as well as the transitional space between the road and the pavement (Figure 45). While the bus lanes are used by parked cars and loading bays, some merFigure 45. Type 1 fina’

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

chants have parked advertising vehicles near the front of their shop windows. This organisation creates almost a tunnel between the hard boundary of the building and the soft boundary of the van. The shop on Figure has “furnished” their fina even further by changing the pavement in front of their entrance and adding planting pots, hence claiming the full section of the path. It is interesting to highlight that the van isn’t parked directly in front of the shop entrance. Instead it is positioned to allow visual permeability between the shop and the pedestrians on the opposite side of the road. Thus, the space in front of the window doesn’t seem cluttered, and is extended along the length of the van. The second typology is static and inhabited. It includes external seating and smoking areas in front of cafés and restaurants. This category is rare as it is more demanding to build. Permanent alterations require a large amount of documentation and fees to be allowed by the LA. This situation has caused many establishments to go beyond an external seating area and expand by building small extensions. This permanent solution fragments the footprint by creating more voids (Figure 46). The final kind of transitional space is active and inhabited. It is seen on Abbeydale Road, so further away from the center. It consists of bricolages created from goods, tires, furniture and other items for sale. This kind of space is used by merchants and shopkeepers to attract attention and manipulate the pedestrian traffic by slowing it down and luring it in (Figure 47,48,49). According to Armborst et al. (2017), temporary bricolages, dwarf walls and railings, or parked vehicles act as psychological rather than physical barrier, claiming a portion of the pavement or a former garden as a seating or smoking area, a ramp, a bike rack or a garage’s working area. The informality of this kind of boundaries allows the users within to feel safe, yet able to interact with the street life through both observation and conversation. Acting as a “large, defensible foyer and becomes an active part” (Armborst et al., 2017, p.154)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 46. Type 2 finaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Figure 47. Type 3 finaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 48. Bricolage

Figure 49. Bricolage

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

of each establishment, and providing a sense of security and inclusion at the same time. When considering such structures, it is important to mention that even though originally al fina’ was considered a right (Ahmed, 2015), its current practice requires a fee and a permission from the Sheffield LA. However, a comparison between the built environment and the planning applications made in the last ten years, shows that many of the temporary changes along the streth are not completely legitimate, and the right of fina’ is negotiated between users, taking the LA out of the process almost completely. This has occurred because the fina’ doesn’t obstruct the flow of the pavement, so no complaints have been made to the authority. The reason for this visible in the pavement materiality: two kinds of concrete meet in the middle of the pedestrian zone and are separated with a low ledge (Figure 40). This fragmentation is caused by the design of the row houses situated along the roads. All

Figure 50. This is the entrance to a skatepark - hidden behind

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

dwellings turned shops have sacrificed their front yard to the public path and then re-claimed and utilised it in the form of fina’. These plots have “adopted new design and functions as a consequence of modifying the designed elements and spaces” (Nooraddin, 1998, p.66). While the majority of heterotopias are defined by their openness and visibility by using their fina’, others have formed an antitype – a heterotopia which requires strict access (Figures 50, 51, 52). The existing small-scale fragmentation allows the user to modify the building to an extent where they can choose to either completely remove the street access to voids or regulate them with buzzers, allowing the user to screen potential visitors and regulate the flow of people. Furthermore, some establishments have chosen to manifest their exclusivity by completely ignoring the fina’ and thus concealing the entrance. To enter, one needs to already know where they are going. This (lack of) arrangement manifests the security and tightness of the community inside, proving the general inclusivity of the area – anyone is free to accommodate their establishment along the full spectrum of their imagination. Therefore, the inclusion of a gated community into the transitional space of Little Sheffield is not a complete surprise. According to Armborst (2017) segregated upper-class communities usually gravitate around a cultural landmark and reply on the use of walls to deter communication. The Abbeydale Road 1980’s enclave sits next to the 1854 Loxley’s Printworks building (Figure 53), and a Hoffman Kiln which is a 19th century historic monument (Historic England, 2003). Behind its tall hard boundary there is a scheme of 7 semi-detached dwellings and two apartments, all looking away from the street and towards the drum of a private cul de sac. Brick walls, hit and miss fencing and abundant vegetation, as well as blank property walls create a visual barrier between the public and private spaces, manifesting the inhabitants’ reluctance to interact with the street life. Christine Boyer cites Rem Koolhaas comment on the Berlin Wall: “Every architectural wall functions as a machine of elimination:

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 51. A bar with a hidden entrance

Figure 52. A restaurant which appears deserted during the day

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

to separate and to exclude, to circumscribe and to avoid those things that bear offence” (Boyer, 2008, p.66). The island is not only segregated from its immediate environment, it is also dissociated from the main road by cutting off its access. A dead-end street isolates the community. Bollards prevent traffic coming from Abbeydale Road. As already mentioned, such arrangement encourages parking, forming another boundary layer between the pedestrian traffic along the road and the community. The complete separation between Marples Drive and the main street flow is used to segregate the vehicular flow from the complex. When it comes to pedestrians, while loitering is not a crime in the UK, no-loitering signs on the “public end” of the street, welcome any intruders by signifying its semi-privatisation (Figure 54). The signage ultimately deters any kind of inter-communication, promoting fearful segregation from “teenagers, the homeless and people

Figure 53. Loxley’s Printworks

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

of colour” (Armborst et al., 2017, p.232). Once again, the versatility of the area has included even those who don’t want to be included. Nevertheless, a general sense of equality is distributed among the main streetscape. This is caused by belonging to the global structure discussed earlier. Hillier and Hanson (1984) argue that every element within it is situated with the universal organisation in mind, hence creating a base model of the typical unit – a terraced house. Such units belong to the same family, but “each is strongly recognisable as a unique individual” (Hillier and Hanson, 1986, p. 84). This phenomenon allows unlimited permutations and adaptation, which give the urban space a quality of repetition in the sense of equality, while it encourages users to “approach individuality without sacrificing generality” (Hillier and Hanson, 1986, p.85) (Figures 55,56,57,58). In addition to their versatility in elevation and volume, terraced houses offer

Figure 54. No loitering signs

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

their inhabitants the quality of flexibility in price due to their size, as well as the promise of growth and development in time. Such advancements are seen across the two roads as the combination of terraces into one, or outward extrusions. Due to their easy to demolish and rebuild timber structure, and originally minimal interior, alterations are easy to fund and execute (Figure 59). On one hand, the lack of existing partitions has enabled new owners to transform the open plan floors by dividing or combining them. On the other - the narrowness of each plot has evoked small chunks of outwards extrusion. This is possible mainly because of the large amount of transitional space around each dwelling: the large back yards have accommodated rear interventions of kitchens and internal bathrooms. Small structures in the personal and shared backyards also start to appear in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. A comparison between the planning applications listed in the Sheffield Council Archivesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Register of Approved Buildings and Plans Noâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 49 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 56 shows that both London and Abbeydale Roads accommodated many small alterations and household extensions applications through the years. Many applications appear to cover bay-windows, alterations of windows to shop-

Figure 55. Versatility within the global family

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 56. Versatility within the global family

Figure 57. Versatility within the global family

Figure 58. Versatility within the global family

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

fronts or extensions of living spaces, separation or connection of housing and attached lavatory and garage expansions, as well as gas tanks – all claiming the fina’ permanently, expanding their private space and increasing the value of the property. As already mentioned, this is possible due to the existence of back yards accommodating the detached toilets in industrial housing (Figure 60). However, openness at the rear is more exacerbated in Sheffield, in comparison to other cities. According to Muthesius (1982), contractors in the 20th century were forced to expand the length of back yards to accommodate Sheffield’s outdated plumbing system. Therefore, its rear yards are 4.5m long - considerably bigger than the national average of 1.7m (Muthesius, 1982). The opportunity for expansion along the terraces in Little Sheffield is largely based on the unusually large liminal spaces around them and therefore completely incidental. It appears, that the original design of the terraced houses in Sheffield has created a precondition for the transformation caused by immigrants on London and Abbeydale Roads. Fragmentation, multiple liminal spaces on each side, and various sheltered voids have permitted newcomers to adapt them easily and creatively, without the need of official permission. This fragmentation is caused by the human-scale of the urban blocks and is translated into every element of the discussed streetscape. Hence, I believe that while it is the users’ tactics which have turned Little Sheffield into an immigrant colony, this process wouldn’t have been possible without the strategies adopted by the planners and architects of the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, some of the crucial static architecture properties exist by chance, meaning that the reason the area has turned into refuge is largely due to a combination of events. Nevertheless, the streetscape’s properties enforcing small communities, security from surveillance and adaptability are all caused by the human-mindful proportions of the urban spaces.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 59. Minimalist interiors (Muthesius, 1982)

Figure 60. Backyards and Privies (Muthesius, 1982)

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Contemporary Developments The internal migration to Little Sheffield and the following adaptation of the area have caused long-term changes to its architectural character. In this section, I discuss the impact of transitional spaces used by newcomers on the static architecture around London Road since the beginning of the 20th century. The semi-permanent architecture of the facades and the interiors of the multiethnic mosaic have influenced the static architecture around the area, unofficially known as Chinatown. This cluster is situated where London Road meets the ring-road, and acts as a symbolic “dragon gate” between the city center and the foreign-migrants’ quarter. According to Jane Mackillop’s Ethnic Minorities in Sheffield report for the Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee (1981), Chinese refugees from Hong Kong and Vietnam as well as Vietnamese war refugees settled in the area in the beginning of the 60’s. The above report states that the areas of Sharrow and Highfield still host the most Chinese immigrants within the city (Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee, 1981, Jane Mackillop). Chinese entrepreneurs were attracted to London Road, and its proximity to university student accommodation. Their businesses often involved launderettes, grocery and hot food take away shops targeting Chinese students. Since the area was originally designed for a shopping street, with commercial use on the ground floor, and living space above, it was convenient for them to recycle spatially (Sheffield Metropolitan District Council Committee, 1981, Jane Mackillop) (Figure 64). However, the site nickname nods towards the solid architecture of the area, rather than the transformations carried out by the actual Chinese communities. Furthermore, even though it carries an intention towards Chinese design mimicrty, most of the buildings it houses are a pastiche of both far and middle

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

eastern elements. Yet, while their “otherness” in elevation is obvious, in plan they bear no correlation to any culture but the indigenous. At this point, it is important to mention that all of these buildings were issued, designed and used by the indigenous population during the 20th century and represent its longing for “elsewhere”. They are native-built heterotopias of alien cultures. Moreover, it appears that Chinatown’s purpose is to “sign-post” the threshold to the liminal area of Little Sheffield and the actual immigrant’s quarter (Figures 62&62). According to Roman Mars’s documentary “Pagodas and Dragongates” (2015), the first ever Chinatown was built from scratch in 1910’s San Francisco, in an attempt to avoid hostility by exaggerating foreigness, using curiosity to exoticism as protection. Thus, a project was issued to architects who had never been to China, resulting in an obsolete, film-set-style cluster of pagodas and dragongates – “vaguely exotic, but safe enough for a middle-class white America” (Mars, 2015), and a refuge nonetheless. Similarly, Sheffield’s counterpart is visibly curious but not necessarily accurate and even diluted (Figure 63). This is particularly evident in the Lansdowne Picture House (Figure 65), which was the first of the cluster to be designed in this style. The 1914 structure relates to both Chinese and Islamic building strategies (Roper, 2017). While the white and green terracotta façade and pagoda-like roof are a nod to Chinese tradition, its curved canopy and round windows imply elements often seen in Alhambra inspired venues such as the Abbeydale Picture house (Figure 66), situated along the same stretch. Similarly, the Pagoda Bank building across the road was originally built as an extension to a Barclays Bank after being damaged in the Second World War. Its façades include traditional Chinese elements, such as metal lattices on the ground floor windows and symmetrically arranged square permutations floor windows and symmetrically arranged square permutations through the windows above (Lee and Tiong, 2013). However, a comparison to vernacular

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 61. Chinatown boundary

Figure 62. Chinatown

Figure 63. Chinatown

Figure 64. Actual Chinese development

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 65.Lansdowne Theatre

Figure 66. Abbeydale Picture house

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 67. Barclays Bank - WWII dam- Figure 68 Barclays Bank and the age (Sheffield City Archives, 1942)

new Pagoda Bank Extension (Sheffield City Archives, 1950)

Figure 69. Barclays Bank and the new Pagoda Bank Extension (Sheffield City Archives, 1950)

Figure 70. New Pagoda Bank Entrance (Sheffield City Archives, 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s)

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 71. Pagoda Bank

Figure 72. Pagoda Bank Extension

Figure 73. Pagoda Bank Windows

Figure 74. Pagoda Bank Lattices

Figure 75. Pagoda Bank Entrance

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

Figure 76. The right to the city Chinese architecture shows these designs are diluted in style and complexity. Moreover, they are translated to the English urban fabric by using materiality like steel and ashlar stone, making the object of the building curious, yet palatable to the western user (Figure 77). The Pagoda Bank design continues to evolve today. Historic photographs of the area show, that the remains of the original building were demolished and a new entrance added. The solid formal doors were decorated with white roses, the symbol of the Yorkshire county, claiming back ownership of the main elevation (Figure 67-70). However, today these are stylized in shape and colour.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

Figure 77. Chinese mimicry but vernacular materiality

Liminal Spaces in Urban Places

This adjustment is in keeping with the new use of the building – a Chinese Fireworks store (Figure 71-75). Furthermore, a recent extension adds to the original “Chineseness” of the colour palette and geometry, thus reclaiming it and proving that design development is a constant process generated by the users. Finally, an analysis of the most recent builts in the area shows that both the semi-permanent architecture of the newcomers and the 20th century stimulatory structures have informed the contemporary architecture of Chinatown. Blue and green cladding, contrasting dark grey window frames and mullions, and geometric permutations translate the appearance of the existing architecture into modern apartment blocks. Hence, the contemporary “static architecture” (Mehrotra, 2009) has contributed to the character of London Road, rather than taken away from it. Building in keeping with the semi-temporary nature of the newcomers’ urban interventions is honouring the credibility of their structures. Thus, their “kinetic architecture” (Mehrotra,2009) has not only affected the existing terrace façades by superimposing cultural elements but contributed to the static architecture (Figure 76). Once recognised by the host society architecture, the tactics used by the newcomers to transform the area, become strategies which ultimately recognises the newcomers’ “right to the city” (Harvey, 2013).

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSIONS The Sheffield based study investigation has shown that the urban form of cities can facilitate the integration of refugees and asylum seekers at multiple scales. The case study highlights the effects on inclusion in terms of social and spatial aspects of the locality and the urban block network, the programme (or lack of one) on street level, and the impact of design and materiality on a dwelling scale. In answer to the first research question, to encourage communication and prevent isolation, while simultaneously developing a sense of equality, security, community and ownership, a considerate creation of responsive and non-prescriptive urban spaces and architecture is required. The case study findings have shown that on a national scale the English cityscape already has considerable potential associated with the urban qualities of integration stated above. Therefore, the most important task is to preserve and encourage the existing tools of the English architectural tradition of human scale spaces, which bring the user in the focus of urban activity, while taking away the element of surveillance and upper-class dominance imposed by some other western cities. In my opinion, the research has exposed the significance of the design development of spaces and architecture after their constructional completion, as well as the importance of this transformational quality to claiming oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s environment. Furthermore, the case study findings regarding Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chinatown have shown that contemporary architecture can not only provide spatial versatility to encourage the demand to claim ownership, but also honour the newcomersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; superimposed tactics of transformation by reflecting them, thus ultimately granting the right to the city. Finally, assessing the success of London and Abbeydale Roads, investigated in the case study chapter, requires me to acknowledge their partially accidental

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nature. While Little Sheffieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban qualities have played a role in it becoming a super-ethnic hub, the decisiveness of these properties to its status remains unclear. Furthermore, unanswered remain the questions if and how adaptability can be designed in, as programming versatility would be an ambiguous task. Moreover, such discourse would require designers to schedule the future use of tactics which would oppose their definition, by turning them into strategies. The challenge would be to identify if and how the urban qualities of thriving multi-ethnic hubs like London and Abbeydale Roads can be applied to spatial and architectural design beyond the mimicry of generating artificial spaces of simulation. Nevertheless, given the potential benefits to facilitating the integration process of refugees and asylum seekers, the acceptance of this principle in urban planning and architecture agendas needs to be considered by designers when moulding the western cityscape. After all, if spatial exclusion and hegemony can be programmed in, then certainly urban inclusion must be attainable too.

What is the design toolkit providing quality of refuge in cities?

REFERENCE LIST & BIBLIOGRAPHY

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REFERENCE LIST •

Account Book Dept. Planning Application Listing, Sheffield.

•

Armborst, T, D’oca, D & Theodore, G. (2017). The Arsenal of Exclusion

& Inclusion. USA: Actar. •

Boyer, C. (2008). The many mirrors of Foucault and their architectural

reflections. In L. De Cauter & M. Dehaene (Eds.) Heterotopia and the City (pp. 53-75). Milton Park: Routledge. •

Caffyn, L., Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England),

& West Yorkshire (England). Metropolitan County Council. (1986). Workers’ housing in west yorkshire, 1750-1920. ( No. 9). London: H.M.S.O. •

Calcagno, G., & Bologna, R. (2017). FROM EMERGENCY TO INTE-

GRATION? The spatial controversy of reception centres in Italy. Presentation, Toronto. •

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APPENDIX 1 INTERVIEWS Walking interview with Tom Caunt So, where are we going now? We are going to the UMIX center. They have a lot of activities there. So it’s like a sports facility. There are also music rooms and various other things. I am not actually sure about everything they do but it’s all advertised online. I think its ran like a little community programme so we are meeting to get a lot of people to integrate with each other. Also, there is a lot of the activities are advertised to asylum seekers too. So, this is why we are going there. And do you work there as well? I don’t really work here but, you see, my case work with Assist, we do refer a lot of people here. So, a lot of our clients, when we are looking for activities and things to fill their time, we will refer them to here, and the sports stuff we do as well. So, I think a lot of the charity facilities do sort of link up and talk to each other a bit. This is interesting. Was the building built for that or is it something that has been reused? I am not sure to be honest. I am not sure if it’s always been this. Like I say, I think it is more of a community thing, rather than being for refugees but obviously it is available to those people too. [after further research, it was determined that the building was built to the purpose to create a sports center for marginalised communities] Let’s cross over. So actually, to be fair, I see it [the building] for quite a while but never really knew what it actually was...

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So, they [UMIX] are not connected to the council? This? No, no - This is the building here, it has a court, a studio, it has everything. And here is the football [court]. [People are playing.] Oh, wow, this look really good. [Not legible.] So, this can be used by anybody? I think you have to register and stuff so I don’t think is like you just turn up. Could you give us some context of where we are? Are we close to the city? We are at a 10-15-minute walk away from the town center. So, if you walk from here it will take you about ten minutes to walk to the ring road. And to the town center proper is about 15 minutes or so. [Points at opposite building] This is actually a school. I always use to think this is one thing but it’s a school. Shall we walk all the way around? If we walk up here we can go [back to the main road] and go to Learn for Life on London Road. [Learn for Life is a volunteer organisation which supports marginalised communities in learning language and computer proficiency skills.] Yes, this would be great. Is there any set accommodation [for asylum seekers and refugees] which is around here or it is further away? I am not sure. Because the charity that I work with we work with destitute asylum seekers. So, it’s kind of like, they don’t have any right to accommodation from the government, so we do have a couple of houses. They are not particularly close to here. As I said, I only really know, I guess destitute asylum seekers - so this is kind of like, they have applied for refugee status and had it turned down and they are still here.

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We walk straight up here, I guess. But yes, I think they do have houses funded by charity really. Walking down London Road we decided to stop recording, in order not to disturb the natural dynamic of the road by attracting attention to ourselves. From there, we approach to St. Mary’s Church (refer to attached tracking map on Fig ??) [Church bells are ringing] So why are we here? This is St Mary’s Church. The community of the church occasionally makes food so we would guide our clients to come here for free food. As destitute asylum seekers they are not allowed to work or an indefinite amount of time until their documents get looked over again and possibly approved so they can become refugees. In this case, they can’t work and often are not allowed to stay in their accommodation, if they have one, during the day. This sounds so helpless. Can you tell me more about this situation. Yes, so people aren’t confined they are free to go wherever they want. However they can’t work and they have to go to the Home Office [in Sheffield] to sign every couple of weeks so the government can keep a track of them. This is very stressful experience, as they can often just say you can’t stay anymore [when you are signing] and not let you back out. This sounds like a very stressful experience to do every couple of weeks. And then what happens? Then you get sent to a detention center or back to your country of origin. However, there are situations where the country doesn’t want to take you back. So then they are in bureaucracy limbo. And people do this every couple of weeks not knowing if they can go back out free. Going back to what you said earlier about not having noth-

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ing to do all day. Can you go back to this and tell me more? Yes, basically, while you are an asylum seeker you don’t have any rights and cannot apply for national insurance number and can’t work legally. This is when a lot of people go to black markets. Also, because of this people don’t have much to do during the day or where to stay, as I said. This is why we send our clients to the Sheffield Winter Gardens, which is where we are going now. .... At Tudor Square The library is a library, so you got access, there is also books, they got a section in different languages and stuff. And there is the Winter Gardens on the right, which is just like inside [you just get to be inside and there is no activity like in the library] but it’s like a lot of people who don’t have places to stay in the day, they can go in the inside and be warm. So, yea, a lot of the destitute asylum seekers they got a place to stay over the night but they can’t be there in the daytime and stuff like that. So, obviously when winter it’s cold and you want to be warm when you can be. Or warmish.[The Winter Gardens hold plant which aren’t typical to the UK and a Mediterranean climate is mimicked to sustain them throughout the year.] You said they can go in the Winter Gardens, is there any events that happen there? Can they make any input to it [the gardens]? There are events there. I am not sure how you get by about getting involved with them. I mean, I think the main thing is just so if you got a choice, why wasting time outside or indoors. Indoors is better.

Do you want to walk up to them or go to other places. Is there any par-

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ticular days when people go there or is it just any day? Any day. I can’t speak for everyone because I just don’t know but for the guys, I am on the Monday team, the casework. So, I see people on Monday. But then, I will have contact with them like once a week, so obviously it would be fine if people got things to do on the other days too. So, you just go and sit on a bench. A lot of homeless people go there too. So, there is the thing, where they [the asylum seekers] would be afraid of the local homeless people, if that makes sense? When you say they get referred. When you refer someone to somewhere, do you need to confirm with this place? It depends, food banks, a few of them they need a referral. So, it’s like, we will give them a form to say, you know, “This person is destitute. Can they have food?” With some of them is a bit more relaxed. There is food banks that a further out of town where people can just turn up and get food but then you got the issue of being out of town and travelling there. So a lot of people will be: can you walk that far and stuff like that. And there is a lot of, you know the football we went to earlier on. They’ll get referral through us or through somewhere else. I meant, it depends, we are charity and it is a community project so there is not really a set. It’s somewhere you can drop in where you need a referral and bits of everything. We can walk down here, because on this church we have the help desk thing. Which I will explain that a little bit too. So, basically this block here. That church there. There is another entrance on the side and is within the church building. But the actual main entrance there, there is a help desk. So, if you are an asylum seekers, or a refugee with status, actually as well, you turn up there every Wednesday in the afternoon. And there are different agencies there. So, if you need the Red Cross [charity organisation] for example, or Assist, there is that desk out. So, we got a lot of people coming here, just as your first point of contact, really.

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And how do they find you? I think, a lot is stuff online. A lot is word of mouth. So, I guess, there is some people, I guess it’s not everyone, but there are some people there who have been living in another city, that had a friend who’s got here and said: “You know Sheffield is a good place to be so they travel down for that.” There is other, people who have been in Sheffield for a while. One friend has got in touch with whatever charity through here. But yes, people turn up here on Wednesday with lots of different things. So, I guess this is kind of this entrance. Actually, we can walk around. There is a medical center around the corner. So it is going in though here. There is an upstairs bit here. [ Not legible ] This is where we have a room for my music project. There is a big upstairs room, and also the cellar has been done as well. But it is with a lot of other community projects going on here so it’s not just asylum [seekers] again. ... You can approach them with an idea for a project and if there is time, they will fit you in. Who else would go besides asylum? I guess, whoever, really. I mean, I know it’s something we got in Sheffield, so there is the asylum charities, ...there is also refugee charities. So, people who have got status and then it’s just sort of community projects again. There is lots of stuff that goes on.

So, I guess the different minority groups can then mingle between each other and they sort of have something in common to bond.

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Yes, this is sort of the point. With this kind of assistance we can only support them for three years, just because there is always new people coming in and it is not really a big charity which is a shame. I think that part of it is to show people have a lot of community ties with whoever, so when ..does end they got friends who can help with food and accommodation. I guess people would be destitute asylum seekers for years and years they might get status but they might not. And there is that kind of, you know, with some people it’s like, they will keep like, filing fresh claims. They might get refugee status which is great. But some people, they exhaust every charity that can help them. And they are just stuck in this country with no help and basically go underground in a way. So, in a way the charity’s main aim is to give them support for afterwards when they can’t help. I guess, it’s look after them now but then in the long run, I suppose, if you come to Assist you got three years of support. Or it might be a year and you stop coming and then you come back and you got two years. I suppose there is an immediate effect, so you get some people who will come like not know anyone and not have a clue what to do and will be obviously quite distressed. I suppose it might seem quite hostile since Calais. You know, immediate things, make sure they are okay for the first bit. But towards the end, it’s kind of making sure you are prepared for when we can’t support them anymore which is sad. Obviously, for my music group - this is an independent thing, so that’s just sort of open. There isn’t anybody involved or running it or anything so that is just open all the time. I guess with Assist is very much about money for food and getting by and everything. When you say “prepare” - do you have any sort of activities that prepare people. With Assist, I am a “caser”, with what is called the accompany interview. So

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you go to the office, and you will go with a client to wherever really. You might take then to the doctors if they don’t know where to go or to where we are going now, for example to get food. I suppose, a lot of it is about referring people to other organisations and community projects. So, it depends, really, on the person. I think is just making sure when the support ends they are not a city where they don’t know anyone. Do you feel like your music of teaching music is helping towards that make a community between different people who are interested in the same thing. I like to think so, I think the main thing is there is not so much of a language barrier there so that can be a big thing. You know, it is quite easy to lump asylum seekers into one group and it’s like people from the same country aren’t necessarily going to speak the same language. I think for the music stuff, it is an activity where you can be part of the group when you are not held back by the lack of language. And I guess also it’s kind of like part of I can only teach in English. I don’t know any other languages which are applicable for it. I guess it’s having a group where English is the main language it will help, it is not our main objective, people to talk in English with each other. I suppose the music in general, I find this really it helps, just everything about playing music together - you do form a bond. So, you know, even if it is singing badly together, or whatever, you form a bit of a bond so I guess that’s quite nice too. There is another thing too. Trying to get instruments for people, it’s filling time. So, we will do the music group once a week. But then you got an instrument that you can play for hours and hours every day. I think, one of the main things is, that for many people being in a situation where they are not entitled to anything, they are not going to be detained or deported any time soon, so it’s kind of, you are just sort of there wasting your life away. So it’s trying to find something productive and making sure you got goals.

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APPENDIX 2 INTERVIEWS Thank you for meeting me and as I said earlier I invited you to ask you some questions on the charity work you have done with refugees. Is this still okay? Yes. I hope that in the end of the interview I will be able to understand how you help them and how our work in the build environment can help them as well and see if we can create some solutions to the challenges they face in England. OK. Interviews tend to always take a different amount of time but would an hour be okay? Yes, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fine. You can tell me anything there is no wrong answers it is all about your opinion. Okay Everything is confidential and only I will know your exact answers before they are generalised but is it okay if I keep the recorder on? Yes, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay. Do you have any questions so far? No. Brilliant. Shall we start then? Okay, can you tell me how did you start working for the charity in the first place? So, in September, I saw an article online for Assist and we got in touch them.

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The sort of thing that I do is - I would interview clients: destitute asylum seekers and sometimes help out their situation. Following on from that I decided I wanted to do a music group. So, I am a musician so I started my own project which is dependent (on Assist) to extend but is just a music group where people can go and play music and socialise. Okay, so you started working for the charity but then you proceeded on your own, is this correct? Yes, the music group is not part of what they do but they helped me find a place to run it and stuff. So, this is kind of like my own thing but yes I do help them (Assist) too still. And how many people would you see for the casework along with Assist? We usually have 2 appointments per week. So, I do one day volunteering and I will have an hour or so with two clients but we also see drop-ins. So, on a quiet day you can see two people but on a busy day you will have two made appointments but more people will show up so it depends really. Okay and you do this once a week. And what will the appointment entail? I think a lot of it is just checking up on their situation and trying to help with anything they might need. So, you know, direct them to food banks and stuff like that. And what sort of space do you use for this? So, for Assist, the office is in the back of a church [in the city center], where we have a quite big reception room and then we got three little booths in the back where people and clients can have interviews, so they are kind of separate from the main room. I see - and how many people would you will be using the space at the

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same time? I think in main reception, maybe between 10 and 20 people at a go because the way it works: the charity hands out - they give money to the asylum seekers and people come each week to collect this. So, people would be queuing to get money. So when they are booked for an appointment which is usually every month or two: they will collect their money and go for their appointment in one go. This is really interesting - I didn’t expect there will be so many people sharing the space at the same time. In this case, how many people in total would you deal with, not on the same day, but in general at the same time? Do you mean how many people we see altogether? Yes, that’s right. I think the Monday team, because I am in on Monday. I think we have 25 altogether. It might be a little bit more. There is a team for each day of the week. So I guess roughly 125 people. Maybe more but I am not sure to be honest. Oh, this is quite a lot - sounds great. So, you get to build a relationship with everyone on your team? Oh yes, I think one of the main things: in the other case when you are waiting around and you are hovering around in reception, trying to get to know people by name and stuff. I think one of the main things for what we do is sort of: I didn’t realise that building a relationship is quite important. Everyone says when we first started: Don’t worry too much about how good you are to begin with because it is quite hard to do the job. But just be friendly because for a lot of people it is like that they don’t really get that many friendly faces in Sheffield, I guess. Okay, I see. Would you say that people tend to keep to their own and

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avoid contact where possible? It’s hard to generalise really. Some people are quite open, and some people are quite reserved. I think one reason people keep to their own sometimes is that they are not too confident with their level of English, but as this improves, they get a bit more involved in activities. Another thing is that they have been through some horrible situations, and aren’t in the right place to want to socialise. Some people live in the same houses, but as a lot of our clients are sofa surfing, this isn’t necessarily a stable situation. It’s often a case of staying with one group of friends for a short time before staying with others. I think for London road, there’s a few factors. Firstly, it’s a very multi-cultural road, so it may be that they have friends who are in that area already and they will make contact with them. Also, though, there are G4S houses there, so it may be that they stated, or have friends who stayed near London road before their asylum claim was denied. The last time we met you said you get to see people for three years. Do you keep in touch after? Yes, I think, the way it is funded, the charity is not too big and is relying on donations and I think we have a bit of national lottery funding. I think there is limited funds to support people only for three years. I guess we try to help them to find a network for when we cannot support them anymore. Because we always have new people coming in. Okay, so introducing them to the city is quite important? Yes, trying to help them to build their social networks in a way for when we can’t support them anymore they don’t feel completely on their own. I understand - okay. Would you say social isolation is an issue with refugees? How do people tend to overcome it? I think social isolation is a big issue. I think a problem that causes it is that peo-

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ple are often in a place that they don’t know, where they know very few people, and they have so many issues that need sorting. An attitude that a lot of our clients seem to present when we suggest getting involved in leisure activities and social groups is that in their present state of mind, they just aren’t in a place to appreciate or enjoy some of the resources available. In this case, we usually try and help the best we can, and suggest activities when some of their other issues have been resolved. Other than Assist, we tend to direct people to learn for Life on London road. This is mainly for English classes and conversation clubs, but I guess it’s also a place where they will meet other people in similar situations. We try to encourage people to attend even if they aren’t ready for other activities such as football, as learning English is a necessity. Once they’ve attend there, we’ll mention places close to there, such as the U-Mix centre, and I think they’re more likely to attend if it’s close to somewhere familiar (in this case Learn for Life [language classes]). You mentioned earlier that you started your own music group. How does this relate to the work you do with Assist? Is this the same Monday group that you have every week or different people? It started with just Assist clients but there is a lot of other charities who are involved with asylum and refugees in Sheffield. So, this is in the new City of Sanctuary [charity organisation] building which is called Sanctuary, so we have advertised this to clients of all the charities as well. So, I think, what would be quite cool for people who have refugee status to attend as well and they can sort of help with people who haven’t got to that stage yet. You know, telling them how long it could take, help with know-how and this sort of stuff. This communication between the refugees and the asylum seekers is interesting. Do people tend to connect on their own with others who have already been granted status or do they rely on people like you to connect

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them? People sometimes connect on their own, or through other groups. There seem to be quite a few people whose family members or friends have been granted status, but they have not for whatever reason. A lot of it outside of that, is word of mouth. There are a lot of volunteers at assist who either are, or used to be asylum seekers. Also, we’ll try to signpost them to other charities and groups that help refugees. An issue with this though, is that whilst someone may be in Sheffield when they are an asylum seeker, if they put in a fresh claim and it is accepted, it becomes the government’s responsibility to look after them whilst the claim is processed, and they are often taken to a new city or town for housing. So, there is quite a few people in a day at the same time? Yes, although at the minute it is a bit slow. It is still very new. What I have done is use for guitar lessons an Assist office which wasn’t being used. But then this bigger space opened-up, so we started advertising it to more people. Hopefully, we will get bigger. Hopefully, yes! So, you had to rent a different room - is this a music space? What was the purpose for it initially? It is just a big room, really. I mean, I think it is owned by another charity called City of Sanctuary. They used to have quite a small office to where Assist was, then they managed to get hold of this - it used to be a shop, actually. Their organisation is about helping people socialise and integrate so they got this big space that can be used for whatever you like. The room we’ve got is big - it isn’t like an attic room but it is on the top of the building.

In this case, would you keep all your music instruments there or do you bring them on the day?

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We usually bring them on the day because what we have done so far: we have managed to get instruments for them so we gave everyone a guitar. We had instruments donated. For learning music, it would be good if you can take your instrument away with you. I think, one of the main things for people is they have a lot of free time and you are trying to utilise it productively. So, it is obviously easy to become apathetic in this situation when you are a destitute asylum seeker. So, there is a social aspect to actually turning up to a group and also when you got something to learn. That feeling of productiveness - would those people have learnt a music instrument before or they are just picking up something new? I mean, I had one guy - actually, he was a pretty good guitar player already, so he learn before he came to the UK. Actually, one of the things, he was sort of upset about where he couldn’t play music anymore. Because it was quite a big part of his life before. Also, there are people who never played go so they got something new to learn. So you don’t mind bringing your instruments there. Besides this, would you say the space is suitable for what you are doing? It’s okay, I mean, for what we are doing at the moment it’s fine. It’s not a music or practice room, but I guess for what we are doing it good. Obviously, I don’t have any money going into it at the moment. So, if it’s free space it’s okay. I think there is not much point having a music room at this point. Also, it is very close to Assist and the City of Sanctuary so a lot of clients are familiar with the building, or at least where it is so they feel more comfortable finding the place and attending really.

Is the location maybe more important than the space itself? Is this a factor?

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I think it is because it is in a familiar place. But at the same time, I can’t say what it would be like if I ran it in a different place. I don’t if people would have still come so I can’t really say. It is probably a good thing but I can’t say for definite. Right, no this is great. Have you heard of anybody else doing something similar with other arts? Yes, obviously there is quite a few activities in Sheffield for asylum seekers so I think one of the main things when people get in touch when they arrive in Sheffield is being directed to an English class and stuff. There is even a cinema club, so we would get tickets, see films. I think the universities in Sheffield do things as well. There are tickets for gigs and things like that. To be honest, I don’t know everything that is going on in Sheffield but there is a lot of group stuff. This sounds interesting - so there are plenty of events that encourage interaction and group activities. Going back to what you mentioned earlier, did you say Sheffield got a Sanctuary City title? Yes, I am not sure but I think Sheffield was one of the first cities to get that title. I think Sheffield has quite a good reputation. You would get clients who might know someone else here and come here from say Manchester because they have heard good things about it. This surprised me a bit. Oh, have heard about this too, about refugees seeking Sheffield, particularly about the Chilean refugee groups coming to Sheffield. This is all so interesting. I just have a few more questions. How long have you been working on the music class? I think, it probably started about September. In a way, I had the idea quite early on but I wanted to get to casework first with Assist. But is also built up very gradually. So, I had this idea of running a music group and started out with that guy I mentioned earlier, who asked about where he can play guitar in Sheffield.

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And it was all by chance so I eventually ended up doing guitar lessons with him. So, you have been doing this every week for a few months. Would you say you can see progress in the integration of people who have been coming to the class every week. Yeah, I think, because I teach in English, people find themselves in situations where they have got to speak in English with each other as most of them don’t have a common language. I think if we got a shared interest in music, you got something to bond over. It is almost like a non-verbal thing. So it doesn’t really matter about your background or your language, you can still play music with someone else without having any common language and this is the way to integrate because you are building a relationship. I think what we do get is there would be a few people who speak a common language, maybe Kurdish or Arabic. But a other won’t have common language between them.I think this is essential actually, you get little communities. People would create a community with others who speak their language but not so much with people who speak other languages. So, the people who speak a common language they don’t already live in a community. Is it a common problem that people get dispersed when they come over and can’t maintain their social group. We work with destitute asylum seekers: so they have applied for asylum but have been denied but they are still in the UK with no support. I think with them, they can wonder in a way, they are relatively free they can go to whichever city they want. With people who are till applying for a refugee status it is up to the government where they are sent to so you do get a lot of people who came to the UK with friends but after get send to different centers and cities. So this creates a problem for them where you come to a new country and you don’t know anyone.

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Oh, well it sounds like you are doing a good job connecting people nevertheless. Okay, I think I have everything that I need. This has been very interesting. Is there anything that you want to add or some questions you want to ask me? I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know really. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think so.

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APPENDIX 2 THE SHEFFIELD GENNEL The communal element discussed in the previous chapter is further developed the existence of shared tunnels or alleys between row houses. These connections are locally called “genells” [pronounced ʤe’nəl]. They are concerned by the second major point made in Adam’s housing design manual. The urbanist argues that the courtyard-like arrangements described in the previous section would generate blocks, which are so deep, they will once again comrpomise the walkability of the neighbourhood. His solution is the addition of such alleys and tunnels, piercing the whole, and connecting the main road with the semi-public courtyards or back yards under 90-degree angles, on either side of the cluster. These connections are often incorporated in the buildings, covered, with the first floor spanning over the semi-public space. In other occasions, they are open air, yet narrow enough to provide shelter. According to Stefan Muthesius’s book “The English Terraced House” (1982), sometimes, the main doors to neighbouring houses would be positioned, inside the gennel and opposite each other. This would keep the main entrances sheltered and prevent deterioration and hidden filth, which were a major issue in the first half of the 19th century (Muthesius, 1982). This arrangement answers contemporary criticism of the terraced house model. Its lack of lobby was heavily critiqued, as mentioned by Martin Gaskell, in his book “Model Housing: From the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Britain” (1987). Originally, one would step out of the street and inside a living room. Lodging the “front door” on the side elevation would turn the gennel in a shared lobby to both dwellings - a compromise which adds transitional space between the private and the public. Today, this transitional quality of the gennels is still visible. The semi-public paths are being utilised in a variety of ways. This existing fragmentation allows

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the user to modify the building to a considerable extent. Some choose to completely cut off the street access to the open spaces to the rear and the main entrance of their property. Other gennels are regulated with buzzers allowing the user to screen potential visitors and monitor the flow of people entering the property. Finally, some business establishments have accommodated their shared properties by adding to their selling grounds and claiming the semi-public space and controlling the access by adding doors which remain unlocked during business hours. Based on space syntax findings about vernacular British urban patterns, and the history of small scale planning, I conclude that integration and inter-communication in England are more attainable than in other countries. This is due to the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s typical urban development, which is strongly based on fragmentation and equality. Small scale buildings and voids focus on the individual without opposing and exposing it to monolith structures representative of the state. The importance of building in human scale has a positive effect on the encouragement of communication and thus bringing communities closer together and is crucial to the constructive development and integration of newcomers.

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