By Marieluise Jonas and Heike Rahmann
 |
| Testing of Sakura tags, 2010. craft+design enquiry Issue 5 |
Abstract:
As products of urban growth and decline, urban voids are spaces in
transition from one stage of development to another. Their interstitial
existence portrays a non-classifiable resistance and freedom to social
and ecological conventions of the city.
This paper outlines our practice and
approaches to working with the natures of urban vacant spaces in the
context of growth and transformation in two cities with distinct
socio-economic and cultural drivers that are mirrored in urban form and
fabric: Tokyo and Melbourne.
Our practice in working with urban voids
through mapping, design interventions, design strategies, virtual agency
and writing are discussed alongside topics of appropriation,
informality, design strategies and ecological processes. We argue that
urban voids can serve as testing grounds for an idea of dynamic urbanism
and a context-driven design practice in landscape architecture.
We also continue to negotiate our roles as
landscape architects in relation to questions of program and the value
of the role of design in the activation of these voids. Hence the
positioning of our practice as an interstitial one where both doubt and
reward are the outcomes. Read complete paper Abstract of Void. Interstitial practices of doubt and reward
Full paper published in craft+design enquiry ; Issue 5 A World in Making: Craft Design
