A Brief Interlude: Place and Space

From "Where the Action Is", here are three consequences for design and designers of taking a place-centred, rather than space-centred, view.

Street urinoir in Amsterdam; Toilets in a cafe in Amsterdam
Same activity, different spatial design; A street urinoir and the toilets in a café, all in Amsterdam.
1) Importance of action “activities take center stage, and the structure of the space in which they happen falls away except in as much as it features as a part of those activities.” This is not to deny the effect that spatial design has on the types of activities and interaction that take place but that taking this view would “emphasize not how to design the space, but how to design for the interaction.”

Cricket in the park in Tustin, CAParty in the park in Tustin, CAOne space, two places; A cricket match and a birthday party in a park in Tustin, CA
2) You cannot design for place “Place reflects the emergence of practice” and that “these practices emerge not from the designers of the system, but from the actions of its users.”

Waiting at the Tube; Waiting by Freddy MercurySpecificities of waiting on Tottenham Court Road,
London.
3) Communities of practice “an idea of place is relative to a particular community of practice. The practice that constitutes the place is shared by a particular set of people. The community of practice might be defined by a particular set of skills or training; it might be defined according to a particular point in space and/or moment in time. But places will be different for different communities in the same setting.”

http://www.prusikloop.org/mrwatson/