Collective Culture: presentation at Columbia University 29.09.11

How do people collectively express their culture? How do they color their surroundings?

In order to find answers, we approached this matter through four types of public spaces –the community space, representative place, streetscape and the virtual realm- inwhich people demonstrate their collectiveness. We considered them as being equally important.

COMMUNITY SPACE

Community gardens require an engagement to be part of the collective culture, which distinguishes it from the general public space. It makes this community space by nature often exclusive. This exclusiveness could also be taken literally because of the fences around the gardens.
What is your influence as a designer? Can you allow the exclusiveness in terms of boundaries but design them differently so that they can be something more inviting?
Could you interfere in something which exists only of an informal group of people and doesn’t want a high end design? Or could you only be a gardener in the community space?

REPRESENTATIVE PLACE

We noticed a shift in representational space in terms of the big classical ideas to the contemporary.

Obviously, nowadays we don’t have institutions with that kind of power anymore and the representation of new public spaces has changed to the local and the temporal. Things that can be built up quickly and go away again. So what can a designer do to create new public spaces? Is it limited to small scale design such as painted public spaces and temporal installations as a container bar?

STREETSCAPE

There is a diverse and active urban culture in the streets of Brooklyn. Whether it is about expressing discontent with institutions, like a mural, or a form of poetry on a large facade, the built environment can serve as an art board for inhabitants. One could say that the streetscape has the capacity to generate urban activity and invite people to interact with their environment.

Could this capability be more profound if a designer was asked to redesign Brooklyn’s streetscape?

Or do sidewalks and streets need to be designed like the great parkways that cross Brooklyn’s grid?

VIRTUAL REALM

The virtual realm is a relatively new public space which supports collective culture in general. People can join online communities, which reflects a feeling of belonging. The Internet is an easy way to reach out ideas to a large group of people and bring them together for a common goal or interest. There are a lot of blogs in andabout the different neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

Sources: 
http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com
http://crowhillcommunity.org/index.shtml
http://maps.google.be/
http://www.brooklyn.com/maps.html 
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
http://www.openwifispots.com/citylist_free_wifi_wireless_hotspotBrooklyn_NY.aspx
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/landusefacts/landusefactsmaps.shtml
http://www.nycgovparks.org/facilities/
http://nycwireless.net/
http://www.prospectpark.org/about/history/historic_places/h_gap
http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/maps/map3.aspx?g=0&mapi=2000+Census+Tract&themei=1
http://www.pps.org/civic-centers/brooklyn_essay/
http://tourdebrooklynplaygrounds.blogspot.com;