02 november 2009

Are the public spaces for defined groups in society or for the many? And is it the architect or the user who controls the design of public spaces? The future public spaces were up for debate when the director for The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI), Ole Bouman, asked both the presenters and the audience sharp questions at the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC) on October 26th.
By Signe Kierkegaard Cain

”Suddenly it is no longer Rem Koolhaas who designs the public spaces in the city, but his grandmother. She is involved in the process as a user”. This is what Johannes Pedersen from NORD says when he enters the stage in order to talk about how the architect no longer designs city spaces on his own. NAI and DAC have met up as part of the NAI’s 'Debates on Tour' and in connection with the DAC’s exhibition 'New Public Spaces'. Besides the architect from NORD, Charles Bessard, POWERHOUSE COMPANY, Ronald Rietveld, Rietveld Landscape, Stig L. Andersson, SLA, and Jeanne van Heeswijk offer their opinion on the use of public spaces and their design. Ole Bouman is the engaged moderator who brings the debate forward.

Charles Bessard starts by introducing a rough challenge: The lack of integration and the middle class’ demand for safe, public spaces for their tax money clash. He shows an image of his own building in Copenhagen, where an iron gate with spikes separates the yard in two parts – the one with the cheapest accommodations (where a lot of immigrants live, he explains) and the one with a bit more expensive apartments. His point of view is that if the young immigrants and descendants are not better integrated, the era of the safe city spaces of the welfare city will be over. The speakers who follow are more optimistic on behalf of the social meeting. ”We focus on the subcultures instead of putting forward oppositions between immigrants and the native population. People can belong to a lot of different subcultures at the same time”, says Ronald Rietveld.

All eyes on the user

The focus of the evening is not the shape or the aesthetic design of the public spaces. The user is the centre of attention, which is exactly the point, says CEO at DAC, Kent Martinussen, who also participates in the debate: To be an architect or designer today has more to do with understanding the user and less to do with shape and materials. The users simply want to be understood”.

In an attempt at just that, in the process of creating a public space in Sjælør in Copenhagen, NORD has involved the local gang’s symbol in the visual material, says Johannes Pedersen. ”It should not necessarily be included in the final project, but it is important that they feel like they are being seriously considered as part of the user group”, he says.

For Stig L. Andersson it is a success when the users of his city spaces are puzzled, he says in his contribution. He would like to get the users to exchange and discuss what they are experiencing. ”The design of public spaces is a negotiation between us and the users. But in reality it is the users who are the experts”, he says. Jeanne van Heeswijk, who among other things works with creating new life in Liverpool’s public spaces, focuses on how the friction and the conflict can be part of creating life. ”Public spaces are very controlling, and many feel left out. I think we need friction in order to make people seriously feel like they belong”, she says.

When all presentations are over, Ole Bouman turns the microphone to the audience. ”Do you feel like those who design the public spaces understand you?” he asks the people in the audience. There are a lot of architects and city planners present, but Bouman would like to hear their opinion as users of the city. One member of the audience feels that the designers should review the public spaces which they have designed afterwards in order to see how they work. Johannes Pedersen replies that public spaces, according to his opinion, should not be required to last for a long time. Another person in the audience points to the fact that in the old days, public spaces were mostly meant to be pretty, whereas today they are required to solve all sorts of social conflicts. ”What is the limit of what a city space can do?” he asks. Jeanne van Heeswijk replies that the social problems are indeed present in the public spaces:”It is not so much a question of the design as a problem solver. The problems are there and we have to face them”.

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