Infrastructures for disorder: strategies for intervention in the public space in social housing neighbourhoods. The case of London

Abstract

This thesis looks at the design of the public space of British post-war social housing neighbourhoods. It argues that these neighbourhoods have no urban life and have fallen into a state of obsolescence, and analyses how far the design of their public realm is responsible for this lack of urban life, proposing urban design strategies to transform the urban space of these neighbourhoods into a realm for social interaction and public activities. The analysis focuses on two case studies located in London: Loughborough Estate in Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth, and Gascoyne Estate in Hackney. Both are post-war housing estates designed and built in the 1950s by London County Council. For the urban design strategy proposals, it follows Richard Sennett's approach that cities need "certain kinds of disorder" for people to learn how to tolerate difference and to accept uncertainty. Sennett argues that there is too much order in modernist urban design, which stifles spontaneity and creates alienating public space. This thesis reworks this idea, applying it to the current situation of British housing estates, which are still in need of spaces for improvisation after decades of decay, urban transformations, and socio-economic changes. Revisiting Sennett's work, it finds affinities between his more recent work and the way in which 'assemblage' thinking has been used in critical urbanism. Accordingly, the thesis uses 'assemblage' as a concept to explain how to introduce Sennett's notions of disorder into urban design strategies and bring life to the obsolete public spaces of council estates. Building on Sennett's 'uses of disorder' and using 'assemblage' as a tool to apply this to the design of public space, the thesis proposes the term 'infrastructures for disorder': urban design interventions in the public space of social housing neighbourhoods to create conditions for the spontaneous use of the public space and encourage social interaction. The infrastructures for disorder present two kinds of contribution: a contribution to critical urban theory and a contribution to architecture and urban design. Using 'assemblage' - with its connotations of process, emergence and uncertainty - to implement Sennett's uses of disorder leads to the use of the term 'infrastructure' to describe how the proposed strategies aim to be the beginning of a process, creating initial conditions. In addition, the infrastructures for disorder provide a contribution to architecture and urban design, proposing urban design guidelines using terms commonly used by architects and urban designers: 'surface', 'section' and 'process'. The surface and section strategies propose a physical reconfiguration of the public realm through a series of small changes addressing the problems of the public space described in the first part of the thesis. The process strategies serve as a method to implement the surface and section strategies, placing special emphasis on the need for constant upgrades of the public space of these neighbourhoods. Through these contributions, the thesis offers agents an alternative approach to intervention in the public space of social housing neighbourhoods. The implementation of such contributions must take into account that they are flexible guidelines that need to be adapted to different contexts.

Esta tesis versa sobre el diseño del espacio público de las barriadas de viviendas sociales de post-guerra en Reino Unido. Estas barriadas carecen de vida urbana y han caído en un estado de obsolescencia. La tesis analiza la influencia del diseño del espacio público en esta falta de vida urbana y propone estrategias de diseño urbano que tengan la capacidad de transformar el espacio urbano de estas barriadas en un lugar de interacción social y actividades en público. El análisis se centra en dos casos de estudio localizados en Londres: Loughborough Estate, Brixton, en el municipio de Lambeth, y Gascoyne Estate en el municipio de Hackney. Ambas son barriadas de postguerra proyectadas y construidas en la década de 1950 por el London County Council. Las estrategias de diseño urbano propuestas toman como punto de partida la postura de Richard Sennett: las ciudades necesitan “ciertos tipos de desorden” para que las personas aprendan a tolerar lo diferente y a aceptar la incertidumbre. Sennett argumenta que el diseño urbano moderno se concibió desde el orden, lo cual no permite la espontaneidad y ha construido un espacio público alienante. La tesis revisa esta idea y la traslada a la situación actual de los polígonos de vivienda británicos, los cuales, después de décadas de abandono, transformaciones urbanas y cambios socio-económicos, todavía carecen de espacios para la improvisación. A través de la revisión del trabajo de Sennett, la tesis identifica afinidades entre su obra más reciente y el uso del concepto assemblage (ensamblaje, asociación, agenciamiento) en la teoría del urbanismo crítico. A partir de este hallazgo, la tesis usa el término assemblage como instrumento para aplicar la idea de desorden de Sennett a estrategias de diseño urbano que revitalicen el espacio público obsoleto de las barriadas en cuestión.