Abstract
It is in marginal urban areas, borders of states, territories and cities, that marginal urban practices tend to take place. Limits of “normal” behaviour are transgressed and social and political differences become apparent. Such sites, where “other” spatial conditions have emerged, and that are “teeming with suggestive meanings and unexpected potential” (Schoonderbeek 2010), have hardly been analysed and discussed within the contemporary architectural discourse. This paper addresses such marginal urban conditions from an experimental approach to urban analysis and architectural design. Methods such as mapping, navigation, and literary techniques such as character and scenario are brought into play in the analysis of urban fringes, and in the speculative design of alternative urban realities. With this experimental approach comes as well a certain understanding and appreciation of the border as a space of simultaneity, much like the Aleph of Borges. Drawing on this literary connection, the last part of the text proposes a method for border analysis and design by means of seeking the borders between architecture and literature.
Highlights
Spatial analysis and architectural design in border conditions It is in marginal urban areas, borders of states, territories and cities that limits of normal behaviour are transgressed and social and political differences become apparent
Our paper addresses the speculative nature of the relationship between the spatial analysis of border conditions and architectural design by emphasizing and clarifying the “modus operandi” of an architectural project
We argue that an intrinsic relationship might exist between methods of spatial analysis and methods of architectural design
Summary
Spatial analysis and architectural design in border conditions It is in marginal urban areas, borders of states, territories and cities that limits of normal behaviour are transgressed and social and political differences become apparent. Even though the spatial analysis of the city and the territory are seemingly well established practices in architectural discourse, the incorporation of characteristics of border conditions via these analyses have hardly been discussed.
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