Spaces for all Faces

Fieldwork in public spaces throughout Wellington and Hamilton has revealed synergistic interactions between those who may often be regarded as ‘socially undesirable’ and other urban dwellers. These ‘undesirables’ might be commonly identified as homeless, beggars, street workers, the publicly intoxicated, young punks, or skateboarders and are largely seen to be an ‘urban problem’. While a first move of this research has been to recast these groups under a more compassionate light by referring to them wholly as ‘vulnerables’ the focus of this research is looking at these interactions. With vary degrees of intensity and interactivity exploring these interactions hopes to open a practice for designers to design more compassionate and open urban spaces in the context of population increase and urbanization.

The aims of this research have been to demystify these synergistic interactions and break it down to a set of spatial conditions which can be experimented with to uncover some tools and a method which designers can use to help facilitate better interactions. Also looking to others who have tackled similar projects, to study not just the design result but how they approached the process in a non-hypothetical project, how they went about consultation, and what potentially unexpected factors were important for these groups and interactions.

Firstly, studying discovered examples where some synergistic interactions occur and breaking them down to a set of reoccurring spatial factors. Then testing these spatial factors through a design process to understand how they work, what their limitations are, and the processes for implementing them to best facilitate these synergistic interactions. The result of this thesis research is, partly, a set of spatial conditions collected from real examples and tested through a design investigation. However, the method for experimenting with these devices and implementing them is an equally important product of the research.