Greyspace : mapping transactivity between coterminous territories

Abstract

The primary aim of this research is to produce an iterative, participatory 'action research' model that can drive the conceptual and physical manifestation of studio-based enquiry. This model also provides opportunities for ongoing collaborative research into the symbiotic relationship between people and the spaces that they occupy; to replace a narrow, dialectic either/or approach to complex, coterminous relationships, with broader, inclusive strategies that hold explicit and tacit knowledge in continuous tension. I argue that long-term, post-occupancy studies are required if we are to accumulate sufficient multivariate data to negotiate the complex patterns of anthropospatial experience. We now have the tools that we need to manage the mass of data that will become available to us. With these tools we can begin to differentiate between that which is shared and that which is unique, within a given cultural context, locally and across the globe. Boundary is the site from which this research has emerged; it is conceived as a place of transaction where strategies, forces, expressions and experiences weave in and through each other; a place of potential innovation and novel expression where participants meet in a project space that is yet to be defined. My investigation of boundary space stretches from Jacques Derrida's conception of ruptured time to Peter Zellner's interwoven polarities of the virtual and the real; from Henri Lefebvre's dialectique de triplicite through to Foucault's heterotopias and the Contact Zone of contemporary cultural theory. Through this trans-disciplinary immersion, I have attempted to formulate a working hypothesis about an architecture that is both product and process. I have called this Greyspace to describe a dynamic way of relating, rather than a static ontological state. Boundary is also a place of encounter, a moment that connects the architect with the occupant, yet this is a relationship about which we rely almost entirely on tacit knowledge. It may be legitimately argued that explicit knowledge has not been required in the production of architectural space, because architects learned to be universal models for the occupants of their work. In People, Paths & Purpose, however, Thiel argues that to take responsibility for lithe experiential purposes or consequences of our environmental interventions we must inform ourselves in more substantive ways about the events we design and the people whose experiences will be affected by those events (Thiel, 1996:60). In our post-digital age, explicit knowledge has become a necessity because a more transactive relationship has emerged between occupant and environment. In this context I argue that a participatory, collaborative approach to design is now also essential. To these ends, I have developed and implemented data gathering methods that combine contemporary sociological techniques and digital, activity mapping technology. Practically, the experimental component for this thesis has been undertaken in two ways: the first using a series of conceptual 'laboratories', designed and distilled to test new singularities, where it has not been possible to do so within an occupied environment. The purpose of these experiments has been to examine the mutual transformations made possible by the transactions that occur between the occupants and the physical and digital affordances of each environment. The second and more complex experimental mode occurs within permanently occupied spaces. In each project art and technology have been combined in an effort to provoke a conscious and subconscious response from the occupants. Termed ambient intelligence, or 'calm technology', these transactions result from a peripheral awareness of impressions that are registered and processed at a subconscious level (Eisenbrand and Von Vegesack, 2006:140). In conclusion, I argue that future architectural projects will become places of occupation and ongoing research; real-world laboratories for reflection and further experimentation. For change to occur our conception of architectural space needs to shift from one of completion and permanence to one that also allows for evolving mutability. Ongoing, participatory research is now required, where data is continuously gathered in occupied environments that are themselves continuously transformed using new fiscal and contractual structures. Design becomes truly collaborative and distinctions are no longer necessary between simulated and real environments. Architecture finally attains a latent state that is both permanent and mutable; it is never complete; it is simply occupied at a certain stage of its evolution and the occupants become participants in an adaptive design process.