2006 Traveling Fellowship for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design
Public Space

What exactly do we consider public space?

This question is both simple and extremely complex. The public realm can be described as the area outside of private ownership. This then means that the public realm is largely composed of infrastructure and other conduits of transportation between destinations. This relationship is exemplified by places like the London Underground and the sidewalks of Manhattan. What is key about both examples is that they have another primary purpose other than to act as public space.

Public space is basically any place that allows for interaction. This interaction is in essence what supplies the life to the place. When without opportunities for exchange, whether it is of ideas, goods, services, or pleasantries, a place is good for nothing but cold and utilitarian movement. As humans we are a social creature that relies on and feeds on our relationships with other humans and objects to enrich and validate our own lives. This is why places like the Interstate have become “nonplaces” and ones like the Internet have become so integrated into our social lives that they have demanded that we rethink the meaning of words like “space” and “place.”

Now this comparison between an Interstate system and the Internet may seem to be a little vague, especially when we are discussing the topic of public space, but let us look at the intended services of these two and we will see that they, at their most basic, serve essentially the same purpose.

An Interstate is nothing but a street that has gotten too big for its breeches, so let us look at a rough history of the transformation of roads over the last couple thousand years. Streets started out as the space between the buildings of a city, and with the Romans came a series of roads that connected the major points of their empire. These roads were then of huge importance since they were the source of news, goods, safety, and connection to the larger world. The joint between these roads and city streets soon became the most complex and most important place of city-life. The roads became a rich tapestry of people and culture passing each other to and fro, causing all kinds of interaction and exchange that never would have occurred without them.

The next major change for the idea of “streets” came with the invention of the railroad. This new “metal street” allowed for much grander distances to be traveled and as a result also greatly increased the interaction of more people, from even more diverse cultural backgrounds. Then came the automobile, which as it became more technologically advanced, demanded more and more specialized infrastructure. As the popularity and amount of use of automobiles grew, the streets of the city changed to accommodate.

Now the actual street no longer allowed for exchange and interaction, these activities were relegated to the edge of the space where the sidewalks and storefronts reigned. This relationship of fast and slow travel had always existed, but never had it been so exaggerated. This disparity of speed required a segregation of space in order to ensure safety for the slower pedestrian traffic. The rate of speed and limited occupancy of automobiles also negated the opportunity for interaction between them, limiting contact to only a prescribed series of flashing lights, beeps, and assorted hand signals. Even interaction from eye contact became limited to residential districts because of the sheer amount of prscriptive signage.

But vehicular streets of this scale still allowed opportunities for interaction at its edges. Even when these streets grew into highways, there was an opportunity to interact with towns as one slowed down when passing through. This allowed the driver to see the town, and perhaps even stop to sample local goods or services. So, there was visual interaction (albeit one-way) that led to the opportunity for further two-way interaction. This is how the highway still managed to be a place.

After the highway came the Interstate. Earlier we called the Interstate a “nonplace,” the reason for this is that instead of interacting with cities (like the highway), the Interstate instead circumvents the city or divides it into sides or parcels. Where the highway coexists with a city, the Interstate excludes itself, and by doing so removes nearly all opportunity for interaction. The only areas that interaction is allowed at are on and off ramps, and even this interaction is limited to whatever destination is determined by the driver (and this decision is largely based upon more prescriptive signage. As such the Interstate has failed to become a “place,” it is instead a void, a lack of place, which is only useful for traversing between predetermined places.

This is where the Internet can come into the conversation. While air travel is related to this discussion, it also largely follows, or in some cases, replaces the train. Airports and train stations both act as cultural and transportation hubs, and both involve large groups of people at a time. Also, both require down periods between travel events, thus creating huge opportunities for exchange, and the same goes for subway and light-rail systems. The act of waiting and traveling in mass are exactly what allows these places to act as public space, and what keeps the Interstate from doing so. The Internet is related to these places in that it too requires multiplicity and user interaction.

Whomever coined the phrase “Information Superhighway” may never know how apt of a metaphor it was. The Internet as a service has filled the space of the traditional idea of the street, in that it serves as a major conduit of exchange for ideas, for goods, for news, and as it has developed it has become the new major medium of social exchange as well. The average American drives 43 miles and spends 1.25 hours of time in their cars, daily. They listen to the radio for 2 hours and watch television for 4 hours, but as of recent we have seen a massive upswing in the amount of time people spend on the “Net,” on average about 1 hour daily. But people are not just wasting time, they are paying bills, buying presents, renting movies, planning trips, chatting with friends, playing games, reading the news, watching movies . . . the Internet has become a whole new extension of our lives.

The Internet has become the world’s largest and most successful public space. The Internet has become so ingrained in our lives and in the lives of our cities, we are now making places that people go to and log on to interact with some of the people who are sitting next to one another. While there are those who say that this trend will continue up to the point that there is little to no interaction in the world, I would be one to say otherwise. If one is to look at the social behavior of people who “meet” online, many if not most of them, in time, will wish to meet “IRL,” or in real life. This again restates the fact that we are an inherently social creature and as such we crave to be near to others like ourselves. There are whole massive studies on flock and swarm and group and mob and clique systems; I will not go into depth on any of the theory of these, but suffice to say, the average wants to be a part of something larger than themselves, whether this is through national allegiance, sports teams, interest clubs, or just simply which neighborhood they live in.

The idea of being a part of a larger puzzle is what makes public spaces such an important and critical part of our lives. Whether it is the farmer’s market or posting on a Myspace page, it is exchange and interaction with others that makes us a part of something, and in a way begins to define each individual’s life.

Fellow Experience

When I began planning this trip, I anticipated being able to come to a clear and concise point or argument. Now, I have completed this journey and have come to accept the fact that nothing is what we expect and no matter how careful the planning, one can never truly know what it is they found until well after the trip has ended. I now know that this experience will shape my future career in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine sitting here today. This realization is at once exhilarating and overbearing. There may not be a more fragile moment than leaving academia for the “real” or “outside” world.

This opportunity to learn and travel on my own course has been an incredible insight toward directing my own future growth and education. Things change when it is no longer an instructor assigning you a task, from this point on it is only my own personal desire to learn and excel that will determine what I shall become.