Abstract
The urban bench has been romanticised as a location of intimacy and benign social serendipity, and problematised with regard to perceptions of unwelcome loitering. In this paper we explore embodied practices of sitting on benches within an urban context characterised by corporate‐led regeneration and impacted by austerity urbanism, imperial history and ongoing racisms. Our schizocartographic methodology enables us to attend to the differentiated and shifting subjectivities and temporalities of bench users, and to emerging counter histories of space. The research is based on the case study of a central square in Woolwich, south‐east London. This involved an eclectic combination of methods, including film‐making, ethnography and interviews, and a cross‐sectoral team of activists, academics and an artist. The paper starts by conceptualising public space with respect to lived experiences of marginalisation, arguing that architectural design is intrinsic to understanding micro‐geographies of conviviality and care. The case study material is used first to provide a visual sketch of sitting and watching others in the square and then to address conviviality and the value of visibility and relative proximity in framing a mostly un‐panicked multiculture. Third, we discuss agentic, yet critically aware, acts of self‐care. Finally, our focus shifts to the design of the benches and the “touching experiences” of bodies sat in various ways, impacted by structural inequalities, yet differentiated by the particularities of individual or collective priorities. In conclusion we argue that attending to the precision of sitting on a bench can illuminate multiple temporalities of urban change in relation to both individual subjectivities and hegemonic structures. Further, the counter histories that emerge can inform policy and practice for inclusive urban design.
Highlights
What does sitting outside mean for people experiencing marginalisation and exclusion in the city? In what ways is this meaning changed by corporate-led regeneration of urban public spaces, and shaped by urban design? This paper explores these questions, keeping at its heart the urban bench
By careful listening to participants’ accounts, we found an alternative practice of collective–private interactions of television watching, one which often enabled conviviality and reduced isolation (Widholm 2016)
Through attending to and participating in ‘bench conversations’, this research has undertaken a embryonic schizocartography of Gordon Square: a positioning of bodies sitting in various ways, a validation of the subjectivity of various moments, and a curating of a conversation between processes of landscape architecture and the daily lives of the square’s users
Summary
What does sitting outside mean for people experiencing marginalisation and exclusion in the city? In what ways is this meaning changed by corporate-led regeneration of urban public spaces, and shaped by urban design? This paper explores these questions, keeping at its heart the urban bench. The paper uses the case study of a specific London site – Gordon Square, Woolwich – to add to literature that takes seriously ordinary, grounded experiences of corporate-led regeneration and gentrification (e.g. Paton 2014). While some have emphasised the historical provision of ‘places to sit’ in urban green space as intended to ‘produce a “kind of regulated, civilised, subjectivity”’ (Brown 2013, 17, citing Osborne and Rose 1999, 744), our multiscalar schizocartography (see Methodology) explores the interaction between design of public space and the subjectivities of people who use it The latter connects in particular to discussions of self-care (Atkinson 2011; Ball and Olmedo 2013). While the broader housing crisis is likely to force increasing numbers out of the area in the future, this paper explores how the ‘improved’ square and its benches are currently experienced by their users, including low-income residents of Woolwich and visitors from neighbouring areas
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