Epistemology of Space: Exploring Relational Perspectives in Planning, Urbanism, and Architecture

Abstract

In this special issue, we start from the proposition that space, its uses and transformations are multi-significant and that their study requires an interdisciplinary approach. However, the elaborate division of labour in the sciences has also led to the compartmentalization of knowledge about space in different disciplinary fields with their associated, often idiosyncratic concepts, methods, and theoretical approaches. As a result, there is no shared conceptual system of space and different disciplines mobilize very different conceptions, perceptions, and experiences of space, often leading to mutual misunderstandings and incomprehension, also on the same terms (e.g. social space, urbanism). The development of a shared and interdisciplinary platform for the analysis of space, its use, and transformation is a way to address conceptual confusion. This special issue on the ‘Epistemology of space: exploring relational perspectives in planning, urbanism and architecture’ aims to contribute to the creation of such platform where relevant questions, concepts, theories, and methods will meet and ultimately synergize into an interdisciplinary relational understanding and analysis of space, its uses, and transformations.