Somewhere Between 'No Longer' and 'Not Yet': Manual on the Social Value of Left Over Architectural S

Somewhere Between ‘No Longer’ and ‘Not Yet’ A Manual on the Social Value of Left Over Architectural Spaces

NO LONGER

LEFTOVER

NOT YET

Written by Sophie Peterson Masters of Architecture (Part II), 2022 University College London (UCL)

Supervised by Dr. Sabina Andron 1

Thesis written by Sophie Peterson In partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Masters of Architecture (Part II), 2022

2

Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL) Supervised by Dr. Sabina Andron

Acknowledgments For everyone who has ever experienced a profound encounter with the built environment but has had no words for it.

With special thanks to my thesis supervisor Dr. Sabina Andron, who showed me the beauty and importance of disorderly subjective thinking in a quest for architectural knowledge.

And to every friend, who has been patient with me as I stopped to marvel over and photograph litter, weeds and dust in the city.

3

D 1 Introduction Aims, purpose, methodologies, definitions, key concepts.

Page 8

Leftoverness An introduction to the condition of leftoverness.

Page 12

4

I

R 2 An Exploratory Handbook on Traces A guide to following traces in the built environment and acknowledging their significance.

Dust

Page 17

Fingerprints

Page 18

Fluids

Page 18

Litter

Page 19

Weeds

Page 19

E

3 Vertical Typologies The significance of trace occupation of wall-like artefacts.

C

The Abandoned Wall

Page 22

The Fence

Page 28

The Temporary Façade

Page 29

The Framing Window

Page 32

5 Compound Typologies The combination of vertical and horizontal typologies.

T

The Corner

Page 46

The Disappearing Stairs

Page 47

O

4 Horizontal Typologies Occupiable typologies and zones of negotiation.

The Sidewalk

Page 37

The Roof

Page 41

Y

R 6

Conclusion Bibliography

Page 54

List of Figures

Page 58

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FIGURE 1.1 Grey Eagle Street, Shoreditch UK

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On a hidden backstreet just off London’s famous Brick Lane, a building stands, slowly crumbling under the weight of its guests. Weeds climb the bricks and grow between gaps in the mortar. Remnants of graffiti become slowly covered by vines climbing upwards. People weave themselves between the crevices of the gutted carcass of the building in the night.

The building on Grey Eagle Street becomes a host for a logic beyond that known to capitalism. Once an office and warehouse to store goods and provide space for working, the building has now become a temporary home to those that have no place to go, a canvas for the eyes of street artists, a backdrop for dancers and a shortcut for those that know the bustling Brick Lane area all too well.

The building is a cog which has fallen out of the capitalist machine. Its architecture leaves behind a form with an unassigned function. Something else takes over, something which “has the last word, who produces disorder and who generates a different order;” the parasite.1

1

Serres, M. (1980) Der Parasit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

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1.0 | Introduction

1.0 Introduction

Introduction Unprogrammed space in the city holds social value which goes unrecognised every day. This thesis explores the territorialisation of this left-over space in order to develop a vocabulary to describe the traces, matter, humans and nonhumans left behind by commercial, capitalist ventures. A guiding question: how would everyday participants in the city experience the urbanscape differently if they could recognise and describe encounters with leftover spaces? How might architects and urban planners approach design differently with this appreciation?

This exploration meets at the intersection of three key realms.

Firstly, leftover space, how it is defined and what it constitutes.

Secondly, the economic philosophies, social attitudes, and prevailing architectural contexts which these spaces operate within and beyond of. Finally, I will use readings of new materialism to emphasise the power of trace and how its embedded agency & memory is key to following the narrator-less stories of the leftover spaces.

The aim of this thesis is to produce an architectural language to describe encounters with leftover space. The purpose here is not to question the disposal or repurposing of the built environment, but rather to shine light on the idea that all matter has agency2 and by engaging with the practise of architecture, we are never completely in control. I hope to reconcile the coexistence of socially valuable leftover spaces with that of relentless dogma of growth at the heart of capitalism. In doing so, I attempt to observe and negotiate how leftover space works within and outside of the realm of commercial, capitalist spaces in the city. I believe this presently uncommodified space plays an important role in offering encounters with a new kind of social value beyond that known to capitalism.

8

A New Kind of Social Value Since 2012, the concept of social value has been formally recognised by the English government with the passing of the Public Services (Social Value) Act. In said document, social value is defined as “the positive legacy created through the performance of a contract.”3 Unsurprisingly, the language used is one centred around law, policy and economics. The English government themselves state that this act is “a tool to help commissioners get more value for money out of procurement.”4 Examples of activities which are executed under this act include the development of a community-picked criteria for the award of a youth offender grant and the precise monetary benefits of increasing the efficiency of the main social housing association in England.

Here, economics is the obvious focus, leaving out intangible, socio-cultural and geo-political implications of social value. This kind of value-for-money thinking constitutes virtually everything leftover spaces elude. So, a new definition is needed. We may begin with a simple but potent statement by French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre: Introduction

“(Social) space is a (social) product.”

5

If physical space is a product of capitalism, then social space must be the outcome of societal interactions. The social space Lefebvre speaks of is not a ‘thing’ or ‘product’, but rather, it is the force which “subsumes things produced, and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity – their (relative) order and/or (relative) disorder.”6 This force is the outcome of past actions, allowing fresh actions to occur whilst suggesting or prohibiting others.7 In considering this within the context of this thesis, we may define social value as the beneficial actions facilitated by the subsumption or appropriation of the existing built environment. This social value is beneficial in its 2

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things Book. Durham: Duke University Press.

3

GOV.UK (2021) VCSEs: A guide to working with government. Online: accessed 3 April 2022.

4

GOV.UK (2022) Social Value Act: information and resources. Online: accessed 3 April 2022.

5

Lefebvre, H. and Nicholson-Smith, D. (1974) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.

6

Ibid: pp. 73.

7

Ibid: pp. 73.

Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vcses-a-guide-to-working-with-government

Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-and-resources/social-value-act-information-and-resources

9

1.0 | Introduction

On Methodologies

mostly intangible effects of allowing individuals and communities to feel connected to place by allowing a degree of authorship of and right to the city and offering unprogrammed space for freedom of encounters and expression. Leftover space is the built environment which may be appropriated by humans and nonhumans, litter, weeds, liquids and all matter alike and is able to be reprogrammed to achieve this social value. This definition steps away from Keynesian-centric thinking of social value where the most positive benefits of a scheme are offered to the most amount of people. Instead, the social value I have alternatively defined only exists when the programming of services, institutions and industry step out of its way.

Methodologies to Capture the ‘Encounter’ This thesis hopes to give words to the encounter of social value by drawing together insights from existing literature and collating personal photography into a research agenda on the condition of leftoverness. I apply interpretative theoretical analysis and fieldwork observation methods.

Interpretative theoretical analysis uses the philosophical frameworks of French philosophers Henri Lefebvre and Michel Serre as an allegorical base, which are primarily supported by, but certainly not limited to, the works of architectural historians Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Vittorio Parisi and Iain Borden, with whom I have found abundant alignment with. This dual methodological strategy attempts to offer a structure and language for the ever complex, fleeting experience of in-between space where architecture, planning, policy, philosophy, nature, animalia, control and economics collide.

Observation and photography are conducted at different stages over 2021 and 2022, primarily in London but also in Athens and Sydney to portray the pervasiveness of these encounters.

I have chosen not to focus my studies on a specific place as encounters can be experienced anywhere, at any time.

Naturally then, encounters with leftoverness cannot be known in advance and thus the camera becomes a fitting device for capturing fleeting and unpredictable moments. My hope is to 10

capture a moment in time and space so that it can be translated and, hopefully, be re-experienced. Hence, the photos I will present are very much a “phenomenon ‘on the ground’, a ‘happening’, or a ‘combination’”.8 I will refer to this phenomenon throughout this essay in what I have called the encounter. These encounters drive and inform the images, however it is meaningless to “evoke some Manichaean idea of a direct, honest, authentic experience” of the encounters “against which to set the manipulated perverse other of the photographic image.”9 Thus, the encounter informs the image and the image informs the re-encounter.

8 9

On Methodologies

The Trace Detective The encounter occurs at the crossover of time, space and trace.

It is almost always unexpected, unpredictable in its location and is generally constituted of traces. Trace is any particle, thing or mere suggestion that indicates the existence or passing of something.10 German philosopher Walter Benjamin saw the invention of the photograph as “no less significant for criminology than the printing press was for literature.”11 His idea of the city as a crime scene underlines the ability of the photograph to enable the permeant preservation and unmistakable traces of a human or nonhuman.12 Like a detective armed with their magnifying glass and notebook (or in this case, her camera), I look for clues throughout cities that reveal the hidden stories of leftover spaces, urban interstices, and redefined architectural typologies. In this thesis, I do my best to relay and elaborate on this encounter, and how it might benefit the ways in which we confront leftover architectural space.

Brighent, M. A. (2013) Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing: XVIll Solà-Morales Rubio, I. (1995) Terrain Vague. In: C. Davidson, ed., Any Place. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.118-123. Online: Accessed 3 April 2022.

10

Collins English dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed 20 January 2021.

11

Benjamin, W. and Salzani, C. (2008) Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in Figures of Actuality (Cultural History and Literary Imagination). 1st ed. Oxford: P. Lang, pp.105.

12

Ibid: pp. 105.

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1.0 | Introduction

Leftoverness

On the Condition of Leftoverness

The term leftover first appeared in 1879 to describe excess food which has not been consumed. Even before this though was the simple notion of left, in essence, being the opposite of right, or what is in fact right or correct. In the 1200’s, Middle Dutch and Low German luchter or luft referred to the left being usually the weaker hand, and in Lithuanian kairys (“left”) yields words for ‘twisted, crooked’.13 Through time, leftness has become pertinent to the obscure, the incorrect or the out-of-place. Something can be out of left field, a person leftist in untraditional in thinking, or perhaps a comment is delivered in a left-handed manner.

Even now, leftover space has no single definition. As the experience of the leftover is such a personal encounter, different vocabularies and ideas have been developed to understand these spaces. Sociologist Andrea Mubi Brighenti, for example, understood the city from a core and a periphery model and that leftover space is “what remains after a single, central planning process, or between two heterogenous and discontinuous plans.”14 Similarly, architectural historian Luc Leveque saw the city as a mosaic of tiles that touched but never interwove themselves, and understood leftover space as the touching of two tiles where assumed city conditions were obscured with the haze of dysregulation.15 Further than this, though, we can view the leftover from a molecular level. Academics such as Jane Bennett and Lars Spuybroek, who align themselves with the New Materialism movement, move into the world of the quasi. This perspective recognises that somewhere in between the cycle of building, using, decaying, demolishing and abandoning, there is a moment where human life – with our ideologies, beliefs and regimes - have left, and the vitality of space reclaims ownership and agency of itself. Sociologist Jane Bennett defines this capacity and agency of things as ‘vitality’; how “edibles, commodities, storms, metals” not only “impede or block the will and designs of humans” but also “act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.”16 This vitality also has the ability to express what Lars Spuybroek calls the sympathy of things – the things and matter that maintain a “reserve of changefulness still 12

vibrating”17 outwards into the world. This vibrating ‘changefulness’, or ‘thing-power’, outlined by the new materialist movement is the “strange ability of ordinary, man-made items to exceed their status as objects and to manifest traces of independence or aliveness.”18 Somewhere in the space of neglect and leftoverness, the agency of matter to self-organise is activated. Thus, I use readings from both an urban and molecular perspective to begin to create a vocabulary to describe this obscure intersection of ideas.

Thus, leftoverness is the condition of being - whether it be for years or just a few fleeting seconds – an unassigned possibility. It is the condition of being what Vittorio Parisi calls somewhere between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’21 and what Michel Serre’s describes as the life-source for the parasite.22 It is an unlucky abundance; a neglected excess, but possessing an exciting potential value, just like one looks forward to leftovers of a meal the next day. This is the same way this thesis views leftover spaces. These spaces are a neglected opportunity to observe and discuss potential value primarily in the architectural sphere from a philosophical, ecological, and urban stance. This is what I am hoping to achieve in the next chapters, via a guide on traces and a proposal for a manual on leftover architectural typologies.

13

Etymology Online dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed 20 January 2021.

14

Brighenti M., A (2013): XVIll

15

Lévesque, L. (2013) Trajectories of Interstitial Landscapeness: A Conceptual Framework for Territorial Imagination and Action. In: A. Mubi Brighenti, ed., Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics

On the Condition of Leftoverness

Thus, within existing literature, two things become clear: it is difficult to settle on a standard definition of what ‘leftover’ space is, and the term ‘left-over’ is most prominently used as an adjective.

Therefore, left-over space is not a place, but a condition in space and time. It is not exactly a non-place,19 but is unlocatable except in the capturing or retelling of encounters. For the purpose of this body of work, then, any time I speak of left-over space, I also incorporate Vittorio Parisi’s idea of the left over as not only pertaining to a certain space, but also an encounter in time.20

and the Politics of the In-between. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing, pp.21-45.

16

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things Book. Durham: Duke University Press.

17

Spuybroek, L. (2016) The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

18

Bennett, J. (2010): Preface.

19

Parisi, V. (2019) Haunting the neoliberal city: Illegal graffiti and the ‘infesthetics’ of urban interstices. Lo Squaderno Journal. 14 (54), 11–15.

20

Ibid: pp. 13.

21

Ibid: pp. 13.

22

Serres, M. (1980) Der Parasit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

13

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2.0 An Exploratory Handbook on Traces

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2.0 | An Exploratory Handbook on Traces

2.0 Introduction to Traces

The Trace Handbook

FIGURE (3.1): Graffiti on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch UK

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Speculating on leftoverness begins with an appreciation of traces. I have observed the graffiti on Brick Lane change and grow - and with it, the story it tells - every time I cycle past (Figure 2.1). I have followed stains on the sidewalk to see where a liquid has oozed from (Figure 2.2) and have seen dust collect on disused members of a building. I have walked London’s Southbank and followed the growth of weeds (Figure 2.3) to tell me where spaces in the city have become estranged from their initially designed purpose. Looked for fingerprints and smears on glass that hasn’t been cleaned for longer than I’d like to imagine (Figure 2.4).

Vittorio Parisi calls these “places of the urban unconscious”23 – we know these places exist, we pass them every day, but they are encounters of discomfort that we look away from or simply ignore. This encounter of uncanniness is “a sudden, disturbing arrhythmia in the urban heart frequency.”24 Traces and the left-over space they inhabit are thus blemishes in the otherwise masterly programmed urban cityscape. The thing is, these traces appear on almost every corner, on the edge of most street curbs and in most dark corners. We cannot plan these spaces out of existence.

They will always find their rightful place and offer evidence of how space is being used.

FIGURE (3.2): Unknown liquids FIGURE (3.2): Vegetation growing oozing in streetscape, Hoxton UK. abundantly at the National Theatre, Southbank UK.

Finally, trace matter possesses little to no productive capital.

The traces I speak of dominate the friche – a place where the city ceases to be functional as a catalyst of the capitalist routine and becomes something different.25 This friche is a result from the over exploitation of space occurring elsewhere in the neoliberal city.

By having no commercial allure, these spaces and the trace matter they harbour elude capitalist logic, allowing spaces more functional freedom and, potentially, offering opportunities of social value.

This is the primary importance of trace in this thesis. Traces allow us to get close. They hint at how space is being used in ways that are not always obvious. This matter becomes a portal to a hidden world. We must look towards the abandoned, the leftover and the neglected for clues of narrator-less stories as the masses “efface all traces of the individual” with crowds and overused spaces becoming “hiding place[s] because in it all traces are lost.”27 Narrator-less stories refer to the moment of speculation which is prompted by the encounter. Imagination, reflection and full presence in the moment of the encounter are key to activating these stories which, strangely, only exist in our minds.

When a graffiti artist leaves behind their spray-cans as litter, there is no narrator to tell us what has or hasn’t happened, but with enough presence and imagination, we can imagine the happenings of the space which the spray-cans inhabit. We speculate on the past happenings, but the traces are the prompt. Perhaps if we look towards these traces, we might discover behaviours that indicate the social needs of public spaces.

FIGURE 2.4 Fingerprints on exit door of a cafe by the beach in Sydney.

Dust

On Dust

Dust occupies leftover space as it generally signifies objects and places of little to no occupational use. Dust is a fine, dry residue consisting of tiny particles of earth or waste matter which lies on the ground, on surfaces or is carried in the air.28 Confrontation with this matter in itself may constitute an encounter. I have found, however, that it is the run-ins with omissions of dust in otherwise dust-filled spaces that stops me in my tracks. It is the trailing of a finger through dust across an old book or the shape of a gripped hand on a dusty object that indicates something more.

In a scene of leftoverness such as this, dust becomes matter which tells a story. In the words of Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani, in Cyclonopedia, a new appreciation for dust is offered: “Each particle of dust carries with it a unique vision of matter, movement, collectivity, interaction, affect, differentiation, composition and infinite darkness — a crystallized data-base or a plot ready to combine and react, to be narrated on and through something. There is no line of narration more concrete than a stream of dust particles.” 29 Dust is an unlucky abundance that may be speculated upon. Whilst we cannot know for sure, suggestions of unprogrammed activities - such as sitting, sleeping, looking out and reminiscing in unused spaces - reveal that dust-filled, leftover spaces may have hidden stories to tell. These particles suggest a much more intrinsic social value which lends itself to a logic beyond that of capitalism; a synthesis of unlucky abundances producing unregulated gathering, exploring, reminiscing, play and escape.

23

Parisi, V. (2019): pp. 12.

Ibid: pp. 12.

25 Ibid: pp. 13.

26 Ibid: pp.12.

27 Salzani, C. (2007) The City as Crime Scene: Walter Benjamin and the Traces of the Detective. New German Critique, 34(1), pp.165-187.

28 Oxford Languages dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed 05 April 2022.

29 Parikka, J. (2012) The New Materialism of Dust. Artnodes, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (12).

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2.0 | An Exploratory Handbook on Traces

a.

b.

c.

a. Dust b. Fingerprints c. Liquids d. Litter e. Weeds

d.

e.

TRACES

On Fingerprints & Fluids

Fingerprints Just after 2 a.m. on the night of September 19, 1910, Thomas Jennings broke into a house in Chicago. He left one very important thing behind: his fingerprints in the paint of a newly decorated banister. This was the first time fingerprints were used in the court of law to make convictions.

In this thesis, the unique identification qualities of the fingerprint are not so much of interest – the indication of the existence or passing of something is. Each fingerprint you leave is a transaction with the built environment,31 and with it, a sign that you have some level – if only for a fleeting moment - of authorship on every object or space you imprint yourself on.32 Think of the child’s fingerprints on the glass of a cabinet filled with sweets and the parent telling them not to touch, apologising to the shop attendant who is trying to make his product look lustrous and desirable. When the socio-economic, transaction-like ideologies have been removed (the parent), what kinds of behaviour are allowed to express themselves (the child)?

Fluids: Air and Liquids Fluids are substances that have no fixed shape and yield easily to external pressure, such as gases, air, or liquids.33 Air isn’t the most obvious indicator of place, but it is a wonderfully sentimental, concise trace which can immediately take us to a specific place and time; an encounter.

Imagine the smell of eucalyptus burning in the haze of the early morning in Sydney after backburning, of the thickness of the air on a humid late summer’s day in London, or the low visibility of the dusty city of Athens.

Polluted, hazy, smelly, fragrant… the air we breathe, see, smell and move through every day is a container of subtle traces that suggest the temporal ongoings of place. It is a less obvious, but highly valuable indicator of how space is – or is not – being used.

18

Liquids tend to have a less romantic aura about them. Water, bodily fluids of sweat, spit and urine or decaying rubbish fluids on a sidewalk fill every pore of the city. These fluids often incrust and collect on surfaces and in

corners of the built environment to reveal how space is being used.

These fluids tend to occupy leftover spaces as they are not scrubbed away by maintenance teams, and often not surveilled.

Litter The definition of litter is curious in the sense that it is usually only applied to abandoned objects in open or public space. This is in quite stark contrast to the etymology of litter, derived from Latin lectus, meaning “bed,”34 insinuating connotations of privacy and vulnerability. The litter was the straw, hay or material laid down as bedding for animals. Thus, it is the objects and materials left behind when humans and nonhumans alike have executed the designed purpose of the object; to eat (wrappers), to read (flyers), to drink (plastic bottles), to contain (packaging), and so on.

Weeds On a Sunday afternoon somewhere on the east coast of Australia, a father and his ten-year-old daughter are outside in the back garden.

I am holding a spray bottle of weedkiller, striking at any green spots between the pavers. I have been taught that these ever-growing green spots are undesirable and must be maintained. This is my first memorable encounter with weeds.

On Litter & Weeds

Since the introduction and mass production of plastics in the twentieth century, the prescence of litter no longer comes as a suprise. The activity taking place insinuated by the disposal of the litter in a certain place is of more interest in this thesis. If litter is the materials left behind when the designed purpose of the object is executed, then where this litter is left hints at the activities which have taken place there. In this sense, litter becomes a gateway to speculating on usage in leftover spaces.

If there was ever a better example of the unlucky abundance, it would be weeds. Weeds are any undesirable or troublesome plant, especially one that grows profusely where it is not wanted.35 They tend to “unsettle the familiar terrain of cultural landscapes, designed spaces, and the organizational logic of modernity.”36 Leftoverness exists where weeds are allowed. They are a ecological melange37 (mixture) which supplements surfaces and volumes; a quality that they share with ornamentation.38 If we follow weeds, as I have done in this thesis, we can find encounters with left-over space.

30

Uenuma, F., 2018. First Case Where Fingerprints Where Used as Evidence. Smithsonian Magazine. Accessed 5 April 2022.

Koolhaas, R. (2011) Junkspace. Paris: Payot & Rivages.

32 Benjamin, W. and Salzani, C. (2008): pp. 103.

33 Oxford Languages dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed 20 March 2022.

34 Merriam Webster dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed March 28 2022.

35 Dictionary.com dictionary (2022). Online: Accessed March 28 2022.

36 Gandy, M. (2013) Marginalia: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Urban Wastelands, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103:6, 1301-1316.

37 Ibid: pp. 1303 38 Parisi, V. (2019): pp. 14.

31

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3.0 Vertical Typologies

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3.0 | Vertical Typologies

3.0 Vertical Surfaces & Walls

Vertical Typologies & Walls An appreciation for traces brings us to our first chapter on vertical surfaces, primarily walls. I will use sociologist Andrea Mubi Brighenti’s idea of walls as an umbrella term for a series of vertical, wall-like artifacts which are primarily aimed at “creating and sustaining some sort of boundary.”39 Although walls are usually seen as “low-tech devices,”40 they carry a powerful ability to arrange humans and nonhumans alike.

This undeniable typological effectiveness arises from the wall’s ability to directly impact the body, hindering or facilitating certain movements, and thus the materiality of the social.41 In this chapter, vertical surfaces or walls may be barriers, fences, gates or barricades. I examine the features of these typologies which allow or prohibit the occupation of traces, such as materiality, territoriality, visibility, rhythm and uses. Further, these features also reduce or emphasise the rights of the population to the city.42 By using this lens, I reveal the link between where traces occupy and ones rights to the city. The question I explore in this chapter is: how do the typological features of vertical surfaces offer social value when they no longer serve capitalist ideologies?

The Abandoned Wall The abandoned wall is a place for ideologies, cultures and values - once quashed by the capitalist system - to take up space. The wall becomes something new when it has outgrown its programmed consumerist purpose; perhaps a canvas for graffiti artists, a place for weeds to grow, or a space for the slowly degrading wall to reclaim its agency to selforganise.

22

But the wall must work hard to ensure its freedom from the entrepreneur’s eye. It must evade politics of visibility (will anyone of value see this?), materiality (how much is this wall physically worth?), territory (what rules does this wall uphold?), rhythm (how does this wall control the experience of this space?) and use (how much is the potential uses of this wall worth?) before it can evade the iron fist of capitalism.

FIGURE 3.1 (left) Wall by day 2PM

FIGURE 3.2 (right) Wall by night 7PM, 99 Upper Ground Road, Waterloo, London

One might think that the blank wall in Figure 3.1 might have done such a thing. But a quick glance at Figure 3.2, taken just five hours later at dusk, shows otherwise. Here, there is no trace to be found of the commodification of the wall. The stakeholder has left nothing behind to incriminate him or herself. The only trace of this phenomenon now is through image or public memory.

The Abandoned Wall

In other areas of the city this process is more obvious – so hard-edged and unapologetic, in fact, it feels almost comedic or absurd. In Figure 3.3, a wall of bright, borderline epileptic lights flash in the darkness below London Bridge Station. This wall is leaning against another so that the screen of advertisements can be angled so specifically that it acutely pinpoints the eye line of drivers and pedestrians alike. Like a ladder leaning against a surface, this digital advertising board approximately three meters high demands the attention of those around it. It takes up the leftover space of the underpass, metaphorically and literally blinding any other activity out of hopeful existence. As Walter Benjamin notes, “glass is the enemy of secrets”43 and so any traces that stick to it, drip down, grow on or take up residence on this wall can easily be wiped away. Here, the materiality, visibility and use of the walls shown have prohibited the occupation of traces, erasing the narrator-less stories that may have existed prior.

FIGURE 3.3 Underpass at London Bridge Digital advertising board leans against existing building on Borough High Street.

39

Brighenti, A. (2009) Walled urbs to urban walls – and return?

On the social life of walls. In: A. Brighenti, ed., The Wall and the City. Trento: Sage Journal, pp.65-72.

40, 41 Ibid: pp. 64.

42 Schmid, C. (2012) Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream. Routledge, pp.42.

43 Benjamin, W. and Salzani, C. (2008): pp. 105

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The Abandoned Wall

3.0 | Vertical Typologies

FIGURE (3.4): A man sitting to read the newspaper in the sun on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch UK

24

What, then, happens when someone stops paying for their advertisements to be projected onto the wall (Figure 3.2) and the digital advertising wall (Figure 3.3) is not replaced? What happens when it becomes an obsolete piece of infrastructure and traces begin to occupy the space?

Perhaps then we can follow Thrasher’s idea of drifting matter.44 In every crack, crevice and cranny, drifting matter collects and cakes.45 In these spaces, encounters of change, spontaneous manipulations, destruction, ambiguity and the risk of exploration seem within arm’s reach for the civilian looking for the chance of adventure.46 Traces found in these places reveal a reality of “playgrounds and adventure prairies… conducive to the exercise of imagination and the romantic ‘question for new adventure’.”47 These playgrounds are what sociologist Vittorio Parisi calls the aforementioned friche, or, an in-between space of fallowness.48 FIGURE (3.5): Litter between cracks in

Perhaps, in the case of walls, this place might look something like the foundations on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch abandoned building carcass mentioned at the beginning of this thesis. UK This warehouse, now abandoned, catches drifting matter, drifting humans and nonhumans, drifting dust, weeds, and litter alike. So much so that the foundations of the abandoned building are cracking open, with empty aluminium cans, weeds, building debris and – if you could believe it – discarded toothbrushes (Figure 3.5). Here I have seen homeless occupation, a semi-secluded place for drug taking, a space for dancing, a delivery cyclist taking a moment to pause, a condition where only the roads are maintained but not the building attached to it and a man taking a seat in the sun the centre of the city (Figure 3.4). I imagine the traces left behind also lend themselves to stories of illegal gatherings, fly tipping, public fornication and urination, and other latenight quests for adventure and disorder.

The decaying building on Grey Eagle Street is a social outlet that does not strike most of us as an inviting place to be or to visit. Vittorio Parisi speculates on why that might be: “The concept of decay evokes the idea of death, along with those of expiration, disappearance, and immobility.

Yet this is true only from a functional, capitalistic perspective, where things have value inasmuch as they can be put to profit and traded: from this point of view, the vacant lot has no value in itself, but only as a prospective building lot.”

- Vittorio Parisi

This is a place for ongoings that are tolerated likely because its owner, Truman’s, will soon demolish and pave over this lot. It is a place between the logic of capitalism – between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’. It is a place that “proceeds from the abandonment of a formerly exploited territory.”49 Thus this leftover space, and these spaces in general, are the only places where space is temporarily not experienced as an element of consumption.50 44

Thrasher, F., 2013. The Gang. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, p.82.

Ibid : pp. 82.

46 Lévesque, L. (2013): pp. 26.

47 Ibid : pp. 26.

48 Parisi, V. (2019): pp. 14.

49 Clément, G. (2014) Manifeste du Tiers paysage. Paris: Sens & Tonka.

50 Parisi, V. (2019): pp. 13.

45

25

3.0 | Vertical Typologies

The Fence

The Fence

Unlike solid walls, fences behave as semi-permeable, often make-shift entities of social control. In the city, they are often used to prohibit the ‘anti-social’ use of leftover spaces or essentially become the left-over entity.

FIGURE 3.6 Temporary fence discourages use of the 45 degree ramp to the left of the stairs at Southbank.

26

The anti-social behaviour I speak of may include the act of sleeping, sitting, painting, dancing, chatting and so on. These acts of being and living I describe can also be listed differently; homeless occupation, loitering, vandalism, raves, unofficial gatherings. In considering this, fences which occupy left over spaces in the city become a “sociotechnical, legal-political battleground.”51 As architectural theorist Iain Borden notes, wall-like boundaries, and therefore fences, are not finite, but zones of negotiation.52 This negotiation is between stakeholder (the ‘rightful’ author) and city dweller (the social author).

Unlike a solid wall, fences and barricades are designed to be moved to negotiate space, but they do not openly invite this movement when insitu. Take, for example, the fence at South Bank Centre (Figure 3.6 & 3.7) which sends us signals; ‘danger’, ‘no trespassing’ or ‘private’. This fence is not only a way of dividing space, but also dividing the rights to space.53 The primary perceived function of this single standalone fence is not to keep pedestrians out, but to stop skateboarders from the nearby ‘officially unofficial’ skatepark from venturing too far outside the space designated by stakeholders. This effect of the fence is an attempt by an institution to control the relation between people and property.54

FIGURE 3.7 Temporary Fence at the National Theatre Southwark: London, UK.

The Fence

This attempt to control, in the eyes of Jane Bennett, would be redundant from a new materialist perspective as matter has the ability to selforganise.55 The ‘thing-power’56 of the fence can be reassigned the moment new matter or energy comes into contact – which, I would argue, is always a constant even if it is not visible to the human eye.

Perhaps a large gust of wind knocks the fence over, rendering its spatial qualities and typological power unrecognisable. Maybe oxidisation of the fence overtime decays its structural integrity and its, quite literal, ability to stand alone as an identifiable architectural element. Perhaps in the night, it becomes an object of public excess for the intoxicated, the bored or the adventurous. Just like a child views objects with wonder, curiosity and aliveness,57 the human who rejects the perceived status of the fence sees an object to climb, to move, to rotate, to dent, to bend, to throw, to pick apart. The agency of the fence’s matter and its primordia58 will dictate the boundaries at which it will transform. As Borden notes, “some boundaries are opaque to one entity, but transparent or permeable to another (i.e., semi-permeable): dry rot or radon can pass through brickwork, whereas pet budgerigars cannot.” 59 Likewise, some city dwellers see boundaries as solid, others as transparent and some see them and choose to ignore their perceived status.

This semi-permeability thus signals how humans and nonhumans alike are encouraged to behave but does not have the capacity to demand this behaviour. When the fence becomes ‘left-over’, when it becomes an unlucky abundance, its potential value is unlocked. The agency of organised matter has the power to unlock this value.

51

Brighenti, A. (2009): pp. 69.

Borden, I. (2000) Thick Edge: Architectural Boundaries in the Postmodern Metropolis. In: I. Borden and J. Rendell, ed., InterSections: Architectural History and Critical Theory. London: Routledge, pp.(2001) pp.221-46.

53 Schmid, C. (2012) Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream. Routledge, pp.42 - 62.

54 Borden, I. (2000): pp. 06.

55 Bennett, J. (2010): pp. 7-10 56 Ibid: pp. 2-28 57 Ibid: pp. 18 58 Bennett, J. (2010): Preface.

59 Borden, I. (2000): pp. 01.

52

27

3.0 | Vertical Typologies

The Fence

FIGURE 3.8 (left) FIGURE 3.9 (right) Fence at Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark UK

This becomes apparent at Crossbones Graveyard nearby in Borough.

Whilst it is difficult to observe traces which have been left behind on or near the fence in Southwark, the fence at Crossbones Graveyard (Figure 3.8) is instead a celebration of trace. The semi-permeability of the artifact, in this case, allows the attachment of sentient objects which add cultural and community significance to this leftover typology. This allotment, which has “no site ownership or even management”, and is thus abandoned by the logic of capitalism, instead becomes a space of “active commemoration” primarily through the fence typology, as can be observed in the following newspaper excerpt: (Figure 3.10). https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/crossbones-saved-a-tribute-to-our-poorer-ancestors/

Crossbones Grave Saved: A Tribute to Our Poorer Ancestors Southwark News

“People also adorned the gates of the graveyard with ribbons, part of what archaeologist Don Henson called the “active commemoration” of the prostitutes who may or may not be buried at the site.

“At Crossbones there is no site ownership or even management; there are merely acts of commemoration. As a result, Crossbones is the most affective [sic] heritage site in Southwark, even if it is the least recognised, least designated and least like a heritage asset.

“It is the one place in the area where purely local significance is really evoked, and where the lives of people in the past can be celebrated and remembered.

Without physical structures to distract the mind, it can be a site of quiet contemplation and communion with past people.”

24 March 2021

FIGURE 3.10 Excerpt from Southwark News online directory.

28

The adornment of fences can be seen in most major cities, at lookout points or in hidden areas in the city. The ‘love lock’ is a classic example of this. In this manner, the leftover space of the fence at a more micro scale – that is, the spaces of perforation and permeability that the fence offers – allows for the sentimentalisation of space in the city that goes beyond a logic that capitalism can rationalise. In this way, the fence’s condition of leftoverness caters for social value in the city by allowing memory to be embedded in architectural artifacts and city alike.

The Temporary Facade FIGURE 3.11 Temporary Facade, Southwark Street.

London UK

The Temporary Facade

Unlike the fence, the façade mainly concerns itself with the feature of visibility and rhythm. Architectural theorist Mattias Kärrholm understands these facades as possessing the ability to “push to the background” or draw “towards the foreground.”60 Facades then – specifically, those which are designed to hide the encounter between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’ - are a spatial mechanism of disguise to deter the use of left-over spaces in the city. As Walter Benjamin notes, “to live is to leave traces, but to leave trace is to incriminate oneself.”61 Thus, the temporary façade becomes a curtain between the built environment and individuals to disguise unwanted leftoverness. Behind this curtain are surely traces – dust, graffiti, weeds, litter, abandoned objects, disused architecture and fragments of past lives – which are hidden before anyone can observe or contemplate them. This type of wall determines the possibilities and impossibilities of encounters.62 The rights to the city and its authorship are taken away from city dwellers and put in the hands of capitalism.

This becomes most obvious in Figure (3.11). The carcass of a building has a temporary façade to shift the attention of the city dweller into the background by printing a standardised façade onto semi-transparent fabric which wraps around the building. More attention, in fact, is given to the word ‘GATHER’, printed in capital letters on the secondary, more solid boundary of the building site façade at pedestrian eye-level. This commodified façade is pulled to the foreground. It has an agenda after all – to sell an idea. There is little to no room here for any other voices, other than that of the stakeholder: the commercial developer in this case.

We cannot visually access the leftover space behind the building site façade (i.e., the carcass of the building) because a new authority is revealed; surfaceality.63 This new type of urban capitalism and entrepreneurialism64 means that all surfaces are up for grabs. Likewise, in Figure 3.12, paid advertisements are postered across a temporary façade on Whitechapel High Street, a busy main corridor through East London which is passed by thousands of pedestrians, cyclists and buses per day. Curiously – or perhaps not, if you are familiar 60

Kärrholm, M., 2007. The Materiality of Territorial Production: A Conceptual Discussion of Territoriality, Materiality, and the Everyday Life of Public Space. Space and Culture, 10(4), p.441.

61

Benjamin, W. and Salzani, C. (2008): pp. 105

62

Brighenti, A. (2009): pp. 65.

63

Brighenti, A. (2009): pp. 65.

64

Brighenti, A. (2010) At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain. Space and Culture, 13(3), pp.315–332.

29

The Temporary Facade

3.0 | Vertical Typologies

FIGURE 3.12 Posters on temporary construction facade, Whitechapel High Street. London UK

30

The Condition of Leftoverness

FIGURE 3.12 (close up) Posters on temporary construction facade, Whitechapel High Street. London UK.

with the area’s outspoken, unrelenting and gritty character – the negative space of the advertisements, or its high surfaceality, becomes a canvas for voices beyond that of capitalism. Spray-painted faces of angst fill spaces between advertisements for drawing classes, new duplexes and authenticity guarantors (Figure 3.12). These surfaces become home to narrator-less stories which are not attempting to sell, to produce or be efficient. Instead, they become a temporary encapsulation of an encounter of expression; a place for public life to speak.65 A “politics of visibility”66 will inevitably poster over this expression, but the trace is left behind – that is, the layers beneath – waiting for others to encounter it.

The authority of capitalism is strong when it comes to vertical surfaces, but for those willing to go beyond the subliminal messages of the temporary façade, a canvas or opportunity for disorder is discovered rather than leftover space or the next prospect.

65 66

Brighenti, A. (2009): pp. 66 Ibid: pp. 66.

31

3.0 | Vertical Typologies

The Framing Window

The Framing Window

If facades act as canvases, then windows are their frames. Windows, both in interstitial spaces and in capital-producing places in the city, hold the potential to romanticise neglected leftover places through their framing qualities. The assumed role of windows, in a more general sense, is to emit light, allow views outside and aid ventilation. In a more capitalist sense within the structure of this thesis, windows become a screen between you and something of value. Windows are spaces of capital, as one can observe in Figure (3.13), where a fraction of surface can be bought up; it “could be yours.”

The window is an architectural framing of a buyable life, or perhaps of a potential lifestyle. Take for example, a collection of objects in the window of a boutique which becomes the reason and the pretext for the gathering of people.67 We are drawn to these scenes taking place behind the window (or perhaps the distance the window puts between us and something just out of reach) and this is where this typology holds its power when it is considered in the context of left-over space.

Even in an abandoned state, the window frames whatever is behind it and harbours the power and potential to romanticise whatever lies beyond. John Berger, author of Ways of Seeing, says that this “frame is like an imaginary window open on to the world.”68 The window, and thus what it frames, suggests possibility by excluding the expansive messiness of left-over space.

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FIGURE 3.13 Vertical advertising on shopfront window at Southwark Street.

London UK

After encountering several windows which possess a sense of leftoverness, it is clear that the feature of transparency or void space is critical to activate the potential social value of this typology as it permits the action of framing. In Figure (3.13), we can see a disused shopfront tagged and covered in graffiti. It becomes a place for the disposal of rubbish which, whilst arguably catering some degree of social value by offering disposal amenities to city dwellers, does not ignite the full potential of the window in leftover spaces. With the culmination of graffiti, the window in this figure actually loses its rich typological qualities and becomes something closer to a wall.

FIGURE 3.14 Abandoned street-level shop on Curtain Road, Shoreditch.

London, UK.

Often this window or frame doesn’t even have to be in physical space.

It can also be reproduced in representation of the city, such as Man Ray’s famous image ‘Terrain Vague’, which later inspired Ignasi de Solà-Morales’ theory fleshed out in ‘Terrain Vague: Interstices at the Edge of the Pale’.

The Framing Window

Thus, the invisible, glossy and charismatic surfaceality of the window which makes whatever lies behind it somewhat exotic, is reinforced by the power of the frame. The excess messiness that the window’s frame cuts out, then, is where its power lies in romanticising and mystifying leftover space.

“The Romantic imagination, which still survives in our contemporary sensibility, feeds on memories and expectations. Strangers in our own land, strangers in our city, we inhabitants of the metropolis feel the spaces not dominated by architecture as reflections of…our vague wanderings through limitless spaces that… constitute both a physical expression of our fear and insecurity and our expectation of the other, the alternative, the utopian future.”

- Ignasi de Solà-Morales’ - ‘Terrain Vague: Interstices at the Edge of the Pale’

In other words, we are drawn to terrain vagues, or leftover spaces, but it is the framing of these spaces which calms our “fear and insecurity” and instead nourishes our “expectation of the other, the alternative, the utopian future.”69 Perhaps the framing window – both architecturally speaking, and in photography - combined with the following of trace, is the second crucial element in creating a portal to hidden worlds and narrator-less stories.

67

Lefebvre, H. (1992) Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, Seen from the Window. Paris: Continuum, pp.27-38.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: BBC and Penguin.

69 Solà-Morales Rubio, I. (1995): pp. 121.

68

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34

4.0 Horizontal Typologies

35

The Sidewalk

4.0 | Horizontal Typologies

FIGURE 4.1 Top left Moss growing in the cracks of a sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

36

FIGURE 4.2 Top right Construction waste from above apartment is funneled into a skip bin on the sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

FIGURE 4.3 Bottom left Litter is strewn & water flows from somewhere indistinguishable in Athens, Greece.

FIGURE 4.4 Bottom right Mopeds and cars parked on the side walk in Athens, Greece.

The Sidewalk

If leftoverness is the condition of being an unassigned abundance, then sidewalks are the mother of these spaces; always a welcome home for the leftover, whilst pushing the trace matter from one place to another, but mostly out into the world. The condition of leftoverness is naturally attracted to this typological space just like Michel Serre’s parasite that we began with. The sidewalk is the hôte (the host and simultaneously the guest) and leftover matter gathers and becomes the “parasite who has the last word, who produces disorder and who generates a different order.”72 Sidewalks become microcosms of a heightened dynamism of give and take. In this chapter, we will look at the power of the hôte; the sidewalk.

The Sidewalk

This section of the thesis moves into the world of the horizontal. These typologies are generally more occupiable, and thus more contentious zones of boundary negotiation. Sidewalks, in particular, are transient spaces where the power of occupation ebbs and flows. These roadside typologies are not merely a “functional conduit, nor simply [a] backdrop for pedestrian and vehicular flows but are important containers of life in cities.”70 It is in their nature to be in the periphery of our mind, despite being the centre aisle most use in their day-to-day experience of the city. Sidewalks are, in fact, the foundation of almost every photo taken in this thesis, and perhaps where you have experienced many encounters with left over space. This interstitial typology connects and negotiates “notions of public and private, planned and spontaneous, and resistance and control.”71 Perhaps from the sidewalk we can encounter private life by momentarily peeking through an ajar street door of a house to see the ongoings of a private dwelling, or maybe a construction site as a worker comes back from his or her lunch break.

There is no better place to begin than in Athens. On a quiet Monday afternoon in February, I arrive in Athens and notice something immediately: I am immensely grateful I have bought a backpack to carry my things rather than a suitcase. The sidewalks are covered in motorbikes, compact cars & mopeds, tree roots crack the surface and usually leave less than half a meter of pavement for circulation, construction disposal dominates any leftover space the sidewalk provides, and the curb is cracked in most places where moss grows and water from somewhere indistinguishable drains down its side. This is what I found to be a normal sidewalk experience in Athens (see Figure 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4).

70

Devine, L., 2018. Sidewalks of Conflict: Ongoing Spatial Negotiations Within a Brazilian Favela. Masters. University of Michigan.

71

Khorshidifard, S. (2017) Reimagining Lalehzar Street: A Tomorrow, far from Dilapidated. The International Journal of the Constructed Environment, [online] 8(2).

72

Serres, M. (1980): pp. 03.

37

4.0 | Horizontal Typologies

These sidewalks have been reclaimed by whoever, and whatever, has the power to stay; to be the parasite which is static. Meanwhile I, a visitor of the city with a fleeting stake in the daily operations of public space, experience the city mostly from the road, sharing this space with cars and standing in between the cracks of parked vehicles to let them through. The sidewalks become a place for construction, disposal, parking, access to buildings and a place for vegetation to exist. Perhaps not what comes to mind when one thinks of sidewalks adding social value, but they certainly offer a fertile ground for such activities.

The Sidewalk

Take, for example, the hollowed-out milk cartons left on a plinth on this sidewalk in Athens (Figure 4.5). I encountered moments like this frequently, first assuming such objects constituted litter. The scene in Figure (4.6) finally revealed why the sidewalks were so commonly besieged with vessels of water, kibble and blankets. If we look closer, the sign on top of the pet carrier says ‘House of Paws; not rubbish, please don’t throw away’. The sidewalk has become a subtle space for encounters of empathy and offerings to nonhumans. Usually in urban areas like this, the allocation of space is heavily regulated by signage, traffic lights, crosswalks and sidewalks, all of which create the sense for each user that the space is their own and they can behave as they choose therein,73 but here, the lack of such tools of programming permit the expression of social value.

FIGURE 4.5 Water and milk left on a plinth on a sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

FIGURE 4.6 Pet carriers with blankets, water and kibble. Sign on top reads: ‘House of Paws: Not rubbish, please don’t throw away.’

38

FIGURE 4.9 Leyden Street, just off Petticoat Lane Market. Spitalfields, UK.

Back in London, sidewalks become a more contentious space of encroachment and negotiation. One of my first conscious encounters with sidewalks was on my own doorstep of Petticoat Lane Market.

The Sidewalk

FIGURE 4.8 Petticoat Lane Market, Spitalfields UK.

The differentiating factor between sidewalk and road on Petticoat Lane Market (Figure 4.7) is not the height difference of the curb (which does not exist here), but rather, a change in materiality from ash fault to pavement. This one deliberate choice of disguise makes all the difference. It takes back the rights of the street from vehicular traffic and hands them to market stallholders and pedestrians. Every day the changing from road, to market, to pedestrian laneway creates order and disorder as unprogrammed activities go mostly unregulated.

Interestingly, the streets off Petticoat Lane are also permitted this same autonomy over the road. In Figure 4.8, we can see an entire road blocked to vehicular traffic for the diurnal storage of market stands which move from this space out on to Wentworth Street every Sunday morning. I have never seen anyone question the position of these objects; they are simply accepted as norm.

The social value of the sidewalk here is clear; when a space of inbetweenness can encroach on programmed space (the road), people, culture and generally unprogrammed activities have room to express themselves.

73

Toth, G. (2009) Where the Sidewalk Doesn’t End: What Shared Space has to Share. Blog. Project for Public Spaces.

Available at: https://www.pps.org/article/shared-space Online: Accessed 4 April 2022.

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4.0 | Horizontal Typologies

The Roof

The Roof

FIGURE 4.9 Woman sits on a roof outside her flat on Bell Lane, Spitalfields UK.

The social value of rooftops is often more obscure than the sidewalk, as they are generally less accessible to the public. This creates less of a sense of ‘playground’74 here, and more of a rebellious adventure.

Rooftop accessibility is a lustrous commodity in the housing market, a selling point in the rental of city office space and a defining feature of hospitality venues. We are drawn to rooftops because we can remove ourselves from the view of the average human. In popular culture, the rooftop is romanticised as a final destination, a moment of reprieve or reflection and a space to escape the social expectations of down below.

None romanticised more so than the abandoned or inaccessible rooftop. These spaces in the city are unintentional apertures to the world below, with access to air from the untouched world above.

40

On Bell Lane in Spitalfields, the rooftop above a row of street facing shops adjoining the flats above (Figure 4.9) offers the horizontal space of the shop roof which tenants often access by climbing out of their windows. The first time I noticed this was during the first weeks of England’s March 2020 lockdown when I first became aware of the way space could be appropriated to suit new needs. It has become common place since.

FIGURE 4.11 Abandoned steel chairs on a rooftop in Hoxton, London UK.

Nearby in Shoreditch, a rooftop with no overly designed access qualities has chairs arranged in a shape which suggests a pair of friends sat there watching the sun set in the west (Figure 4.10). Just across from this rooftop is another, with a stack of metal chairs turned upside down, waiting for whoever left them there to occupy them on a clear afternoon.

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The Roof

I can imagine that the space these rooftops offer forms important memories in the minds of Londoners and offers moments of respite from the usual hustle and bustle of the city. Whilst these spaces don’t feel so much like they belong to the friche, there is an element of dissidence that ironically draws us to the uninhibited roof. Although not completely abandoned by capitalist ideologies as these rooftops are not totally accessible to the public, they express the beginning of an idea; that this horizontal, leftover space offers a sense of connection to place whilst also being a respite from the world below.

Lévesque, L. (2013): pp. 26.

FIGURE 4.10 Chairs left on a roof accessible via window in Hoxton, London UK.

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5.0 Compound Typologies

43

The Corner

5.0 | Compound Typologies

FIGURE 5.1 Concave corner.

FIGURE 5.2 Convex corner.

44

The Corner

This segment of the thesis brings together vertical and horizontal typologies to analyse their compounding effect. Here, architectural typologies can become more or less enclosing, presenting new opportunities for social value. The corner is best example of this as it becomes an urban event.75 Depending on which side of the corner we stand on, this compound typology can offer a sense of public privacy or create moments of total exposure. The two walls of the corner may encase us as they rush diagonally behind us (Figure 5.1), or contrastingly, the two planes may span into the distance in front of us (Figure 5.2). The concave corner signals a space of darkness and antisocialism, whereas the convex corner has qualities of lightness and expectations of communal interactions and choice of direction. In both circumstances, the corner presents opportunities for urban events and social value. The convex corner of Figure (5.2), however, generally has less of a sense of leftoverness due to its overexposure and, thus, lucky abundance of possibilities it offers the city. It may be considered more of an intersection rather than just a corner. For this reason, I have focussed my interest on the concave corner presented in Figure (5.1). This space leaves a limited but real margin of initiative and freedom to inhabit.76 Matter and traces gather and wash away but “always accumulate at the corners then make their way, entangled and disentangled”77 elsewhere.

The way that the wall and the plinth meet, in the case of the concave corner, not only sustains the wall’s quality of creating boundaries, but also produces a semi-enclosed space for public life to occur.

These unprogrammed and unmaintained corners collect – or more importantly, trap - traces of hidden city life that we may speculate on.

This speculation began with an encounter at London’s National Theatre, as photographed in Figure (5.3). Why was this corner here? Why did the meeting of the three surfaces gather in a darker tone? What purpose was it designed to serve? What needs was it truly fulfilling in practise?

75

Goldberger, P. (1988). ARCHITECTURE VIEW; Breaking the Rules To Make a Corner An Urban Event. The New York Times,

76

Lefebvre, H. (1968) Le Droit à la ville (The Right to the City). 2nd ed. Paris, France: Anthropos. Pp. 12.

77

Lefebvre, H. (1992): pp. 30.

Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/09/arts/architecture-view-breaking-the-rules-to-make-a-corner-an-urban-event.html Online: Accessed 4 April 2022.

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The Corner

5.0 | Compound Typologies

FIGURE 5.3 A darkened exterior corner of the National Theatre in Southwark, London UK.

46

The corner is stained with city life. It is a “place in the city which [is] not part of the city” but instead is “bathed in the environment and the exterior liquid.”78 This corner collects fluids and debris from the ongoings of the outside world its solid exterior works hard to keep out. The stakeholders of the building know it too – two surveillance cameras sit, mounted just above the height of the human pointing downwards. They become an around the clock guard of the corner which ushers away and deters antisocial and disorderly behaviour.

The darkened corner still suggests that someone or something has inhabited the space despite the digital night guard. The corner manages to offer a sense of “assurance of anonymity [which] is a powerful factor influencing the kinds of behaviours seen in some found places.” 79 We might begin to imagine Luc Levesque’s adventure prairie80 here and think of scenes of the post-night time economy unfolding; intoxicated people on their way home using the space as a place of public urination, a place of prospect & refuge for someone “deeply engaged in [one’s] own thoughts”81 to take a moment before continuing their journey, or perhaps a place to smoke a cigarette during play intervals taking place inside.

Even in my investigation of this encounter with the corner, it remains saturated with a large sense of the unknown. Perhaps this element of mystery is the same lustrous quality that has allured the humans and perhaps nonhumans who have left the traces of passing behind, soaked up by the corner to be encountered later. Perhaps this is a space of continuous re-encounter.

78

Brighenti M., A., 2013. Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing.

79

Franck, K. and Stevens, Q. (2007) Loose space. Abingdon: Routledge. Pp.44-45

80

Lévesque, L. (2013): XX

81

Franck, K. and Stevens, Q. (2007): pp. 45.

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5.0 | Compound Typologies

The Disappearing Stairs Mystery and uncertainty are also an important element in the case of stairs. The absence of perceived functional firmness in stairwells make them transformative social spaces that we can continually re-encounter.

Staircases have lives that ebb and flow with the rising and falling of the sun, with the passing of events or the routine of daily commuter. The inhabitability of stairs implies that they can be used not only for circulation purposes but also as occupiable space.82 Depending on their physical size, designed purpose and daily usage, stairs can range somewhere between strictly pragmatic (think of leaving the London Underground via the steps during rush hour) or a grand social and architectural statement (the Spanish Steps in Rome, or the Red Steps at Times Square in New York for example).

As we navigate the city, we might encounter the muddied footsteps that track liquids oozing from the city to new places (Figure 5.4), the unkempt weeds and litter of a staircase leading to nowhere (Figure 5.5) or the moss which grows on the stairs leading into the River Thames (Figure 5.6). Liquids, litter and moss become traces of the life of the grey space of stairs, this “connective tissue that constructs the difference between upper and lower, black and white.” 83

FIGURE 5.4 Footprints moving liquids up steps, from one part of the city to the next in Spitalfields, London UK.

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FIGURE 5.5 Weeds and litter growing on a staircase leading to nowhere in Whitechapel, London UK.

Stairs with unprogrammed or loosely programmed uses offer a sense of public amenity without necessarily meaning to. Austrian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim observed that these behaviourally unencoded stairs ignite a childhood sense of curiosity within us, with the preferred places of play being in-between spaces like stairways

or hallways, where a child’s desire to take up activities in line with what a room is designed for is unbound.84 When stairs possess the quality of leftoverness and offer an unlucky abundance, the rules of space fall away and one can take back some degree of authorship of the city.

The Disappearing Stairs

This became apparent during the first COVID-19 related lockdown of 2020, when a set of stairs besides Shakespeare’s Globe leading into London’s River Thames (Figure 5.6) appeared at low tide. Spaces to simply exist and think, pass time and watch the ongoings of life or whatever was left of it – were restricted due to the introduction of health laws which prohibited sitting outside. This staircase, which would disappear (Figure 5.7) and reappear depending on the tide – became a small hideaway for me, disguised by the continuation of the railings but not so much that it discouraged the occupation of the stairs. As a mechanism of access to the shore of the Thames, this staircase offered a sense of privacy in the public domain, with just enough welcoming signals that it beckoned a degree of authorship from individuals as to how the stairs could be used when the tide and the opportunity presented itself.

These stairs, usually covered in moss at the lower portion of the stairs, are alive with algae which uses them as a home at high tide and covered in wet footprints of humans at the upper portion at low tide, indicating an almost symbiotic relationship of the leftover stairs which allows human and nonhuman life to take up space in an otherwise economically unproductive space in the city.

FIGURE 5.6 (right) Stairs allowing access to the Thames Riverbed near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London UK.

FIGURE 5.7 (left) Stairs at higher tide restricting access to the Thames Riverbed near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London UK.

82

Cho, Y., 2012. Urban Stairs. Masters. Massachusetts

Institute of Technology.

83 Khanal, P. (2011) Cultural Inbetweenness and Double Vision in Manjushree Thapa’s Tilled Earth. Masters. Tribhuvan University.

84 Kärrholm, M. (2013) Interstitial Space and the Transformation of Retail Building Types. In: A. Brighenti, ed., Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the Inbetween. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing.

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6.0 Conclusion

51

6.0 | Conclusion

6.0 Conclusion

Conclusion

One cannot predict when encounters with leftover space will occur, but they can happen anywhere at any time to anyone, perhaps without us even knowing it. This thesis brings this often subconscious encounter to our consciousness and gives words to a moment of suspension in space and time. Through this research, I have attempted to show how traces, matter, humans and nonhumans - along with the departure of commercial, capitalist ventures - allow for this encounter.

The scenarios I have relayed in this thesis are a selection of my own moments of surprise, delight and confusion that are facilitated by the encounter of traces in leftover space. You might also feel a spectrum of wonder, amusement, anger, fear, startlement, shock, inspiration, curiosity, disassociation, optimism or pessimism in the face of these encounters.

What potent power these spaces have over us.

Despite their designed purposes, these spaces demonstrate that within the practise of architecture, the architect is never completely in control. In fact, it is usually the moment institutions and industry step out of the way that the rights to the city are returned to its people, allowing individuals and communities to feel connected to place through their own authorship of the city, by hinting at the narrator-less stories that traces suggest and offering unprogrammed space for freedom of encounters and expression. This relationship between people and space steps towards a more intangible and intimate definition of social value.

The use of observation and photography have given this thesis a rich ability to describe a select number of encounters. It is, however, important to reiterate the “manipulated perverse other of the photographic image”85 which will never offer a completely direct, honest or authentic experience of the encounter. This is not a failing of the methodologies, per say, but rather a critical feature needed to make a comment on the subjectivity of encounters with leftover spaces which makes them even more intriguing.

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Experience of the built environment is never universal, but by attempting to describe these experiences we share new understandings and ways of thinking about the space we inhabit, pass or avoid and why. We may begin to recognise our experience of space not just as a product of capitalism, but perhaps, as Lefebvre first suggestions, as a product of social interactions.

Conclusion

FIGURE 1.1 Grey Eagle Street, Shoreditch UK

In the months I have written this thesis, the abandoned building on Grey Eagle Street has resurfaced itself with new graffiti art, has collected and lost litter between its cracks and has seen weeds flourish as we come into Spring. It is the parasite that has stayed and stood its ground. There is a little piece of me in this leftover space in Shoreditch, along with the hundreds of other narratorless stories that weaves themselves into the fabric of the building.

It will offer up its unlucky abundance to anyone who can see its value. Perhaps now, with the vocabulary I have endeavoured to build through this manual, that might be you.

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7.0 End Notes

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7.0 | End Notes

7.0 Bibliography Benjamin, W. and Salzani, C. (2008) Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in Figures of Actuality (Cultural History and Literary Imagination).

1st ed. Oxford: P. Lang, pp.105-106.

Bibliography

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things Book. Durham: Duke University Press.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: BBC and Penguin.

Borden, I. (2000) Thick Edge: Architectural Boundaries in the Postmodern Metropolis. In: I. Borden and J. Rendell, ed., InterSections: Architectural History and Critical Theory. London: Routledge, pp.(2001) pp.221-46.

Brighenti M,, A. (2009) Walled urbs to urban walls – and return? On the social life of walls. In: A. Brighenti, ed., The Wall and the City. Trento: Sage Journal, pp.65-72.

Brighenti M., A. (2013) Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing.

Brighenti M.,, A. (2010) At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain. Space and Culture, 13(3), pp.315–332.

Brighenti, A. and Kärrholm, M. (2020) The Life of Walls – In Urban, Spatial and Political Theory. In: A. Brighenti, ed., Urban Walls: Political and Cultural Meanings of Vertical Structures and Surfaces. Oxon: Routledge.

Cho, Y. (2012) Urban Stairs. Masters. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Clément, G. (2014) Manifeste du Tiers paysage. Paris: Sens & Tonka.

Devine, L. (2018) Sidewalks of Conflict: Ongoing Spatial Negotiations Within a Brazilian Favela. Masters. University of Michigan.

Franck, K. and Stevens, Q. (2007) Loose space. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Gandy, M. (2013) Marginalia: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Urban Wastelands, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103:6, 1301-1316, DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2013.832105

Goldberger, P. (2022) Architecture View; Breaking the Rules To Make a Corner An Urban Event. The New York Times.

Available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/09/arts/architecture-view-breaking-therules-to-make-a-corner-an-urban-event.html Accessed 4 April 2022.

GOV.UK (2021) VCSEs: A guide to working with government. [online] Available online at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vcses-a-guide-to-working-with-government

GOV.UK (2022) Social Value Act: information and resources.

Available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-andresources/social-value-act-information-and-resources Accessed 3 April 2022.

Bibliography

Accessed 3 April 2022.

Kärrholm, M. (2007) The Materiality of Territorial Production: A Conceptual Discussion of Territoriality, Materiality, and the Everyday Life of Public Space.

Space and Culture, 10(4), p.441.

Karrholm, M. (2013) Interstitial Space and the Transformation of Retail Building Types. In: A. Brighenti, ed., Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between. University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing.

Khanal, P. (2011) Cultural Inbetweenness and Double Vision in Manjushree Thapa’s Tilled Earth. Masters. Tribhuvan University.

Khorshidifard, S. (2017) Reimagining Lalehzar Street: A Tomorrow, far from Dilapidated. The International Journal of the Constructed Environment, 8(2).

Available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sara-Khorshidifard/ publication/317297321_Reimagining_Lalehzar_Street_A_Tomorrow_far_from_Dilapidated/ links/614f21b9d2ebba7be748484a/Reimagining-Lalehzar-Street-A-Tomorrow-far-fromDilapidated.pdf Accessed 4 April 2022.

Knowles, K. (2010) From Studio to Street: The Urban Photography of Man Ray. History of Photography, 34(1), pp.29-42.

Koolhaas, R. (2011) Junkspace. Paris: Payot & Rivages.

Lefebvre, H. and Nicholson-Smith, D. (1974) The Production of Space.

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7.0 | End Notes

Bibliography (Continued) Lefebvre, H. and Nicholson-Smith, D. (1974) The Production of Space.

Oxford: Blackwell.

Bibliography

Lefebvre, H. (1968) Le Droit à la ville (‘The Right to the City’). 2nd ed. Paris, France: Anthropos.

Lefebvre, H. (1992) Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, Seen from the Window. Paris: Continuum, pp.27-38.

Lévesque, L. (2013) Trajectories of Interstitial Landscapeness: A Conceptual Framework for Territorial Imagination and Action. In: A. Mubi Brighenti, ed., Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between.

University of Trento, Italy: Ashgate Publishing, pp.21-45.

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Parikka, J. (2012) The New Materialism of Dust. Artnodes, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, (12).

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Parisi, V. (2019) Haunting The Neoliberal City: Illegal Graffiti And The “Infesthetics” Of Urban Interstices. Lo Squaderno Journal, 54, pp.11-15.

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Salzani, C. (2007) The City as Crime Scene: Walter Benjamin and the Traces of the Detective. New German Critique, 34(1), pp.165-187.

Schmid, C. (2012) Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream. Routledge, pp.42 - 62.

Serres, M. (1980) Der Parasit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

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Solà-Morales Rubio, I. (1995) Terrain Vague. In: C. Davidson, ed., Any Place.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.118-123.

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Thrasher, F. (2013) The Gang. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, p.82.

Toth, G. (2009) Where the Sidewalk Doesn’t End: What Shared Space has to Share. Blog: Project for Public Spaces,

Bibliography

Spuybroek, L. (2016) The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

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Uenuma, F., 2018. First Case Where Fingerprints Where Used as Evidence.

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7.0 | End Notes

List of Figures Note: All images and figures are author’s own.

Figure 1.1: Abandoned building on Grey Eagle Street, Shoreditch UK Figure 2.1: Graffiti on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch UK Figure 2.2: Unknown liquids oozing in streetscape, Hoxton UK. Figure 2.3: Vegetation growing abundantly at the National Theatre, Southbank UK.

List of Figures

Figure 2.4: Fingerprints on exit door of a cafe by the beach in Sydney.

Figure 3.1: Digital advertising board at 99 Upper Ground Road, Waterloo, London. 2pm: January 6th, 2022.

Figure 3.2: Digital advertising board at 99 Upper Ground Road, Waterloo, London. 7pm: January 6th, 2022.

Figure 3.3: Digital advertising board leans against existing building on Borough High Street. January 6th, 2022.

Figure 3.4: A man sitting to read the newspaper in the sun on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch UK Figure 3.5: Litter between cracks in foundations on Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch UK Figure 3.6: Temporary fence discourages use of the 45 degree ramp to the left of the stairs at Southbank.

Figure 3.7: Temporary Fence at the National Theatre, Southwark: London, UK. Figure 3.8: Close up of fence at Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark UK Figure 3.9: Fence at Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark UK Figure 3.10: Excerpt from Southwark News online directory.

Figure 3.11: Temporary Facade, Southwark Street. London UK Figure 3.12: Posters on temporary construction facade, Whitechapel High Street. London UK Figure 3.13: Vertical advertising on shopfront window at Southwark Street.

London UK

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Figure 3.14: Abandoned street-level shop on Curtain Road, Shoreditch.

London, UK. Figure 4.1: Moss growing in the cracks of a sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

Figure 4.2: Construction waste from above apartment is funneled into a skip bin on the sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

Figure 4.3: Litter is strewn & water flows from somewhere indistinguishable in Athens, Greece.

Figure 4.4: Mopeds and cars parked on the side walk in Athens, Greece.

Figure 4.6: Pet carriers with blankets, water and kibble. Sign on top reads: ‘House of Paws: Not rubbish, please don’t throw away.’

Figure 4.7: Petticoat Lane Market, Spitalfields UK.

List of Figures

Figure 4.5: Water and milk left on a plinth on a sidewalk in Athens, Greece.

Figure 4.8: Leyden Street, just off Petticoat Lane Market. Spitalfields, UK. Figure 4.9: Woman sits on a roof outside her flat on Bell Lane, Spitalfields UK. Figure 4.10: Chairs left on a roof accessible via window in Hoxton, London UK. Figure 4.11: Abandoned steel chairs on a rooftop in Hoxton, London UK. Figure 5.1: Digital diagram of concave corner.

Figure 5.2: Digital diagram of concave corner.

Figure 5.3: A darkened exterior corner of the National Theatre in Southwark, London UK. Figure 5.4: Footprints moving liquids up steps, from one part of the city to the next in Spitalfields, London UK. Figure 5.5: Weeds and litter growing on a staircase leading to nowhere in Whitechapel, London UK. Figure 5.6: Stairs at higher tide restricting access to the Thames Riverbed near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London UK. Figure 5.7: Stairs allowing access to the Thames Riverbed near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London UK.

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