Abstract
New planning ideas of diverse types, ranging from new design concepts to large-scale development policies, are inherently challenging because they involve changes to prevailing thought and practice. As they are passed on, though, they are subjected to translation, adjusting them to discourses prevailing in different contexts, and often resulting in conceptual distortion. This article seeks to contribute to the theorization of the translation of planning ideas, by proposing the concept of domestication as a means of understanding such distortion. An analysis of one such challenging idea - Shared Space - serves to illustrate this concept and assess its usefulness.
Highlights
By nature, new planning ideas pose challenges to prevalent thoughts and practices
The realization of the idea is, to a certain extent, marginalized by the definition of boundaries for exceptional cases in which it may be applicable. Concluding remarks This analysis illustrated the use of the domestication concept as a tool to critically examine how through professional discourses, ideas are translated and as a result, lose their critical momentum
In the case of shared space, this critical momentum was to bring a conceptual shift to street design
Summary
The literature has witnessed ideas that are rather radical and may even question the conceptual basis of longestablished and institutionalized practices One such idea is that of shared space for urban streets, which has countered hegemonic discourses and proposed an alternative understanding of streets and the principles on which they should be planned and designed. The idea suggests the reconceptualization of public spaces and argues that the point of departure for such spaces should be urban sociality, not issues such as safety and efficiency (Ben Hamilton-Baillie, 2008a; Engwicht, 2005; Pilz, 2011). These issues are expected to naturally fall into place as beneficial side-effects of sociality-based planning and designing. The idea rejects the marginalization of social spaces to certain areas, opposing the common approach of segregating central urban spaces into functional categories as per transport engineering principles
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