Lubomirsavov Popov: What Is Your Definition for Place? How Is Place Different from Space?

Space/Place

LubomirSavov Popov: What is your definition for place? How is place different from space?

AJ: … we did not work with a carefully operationalized definition when using the term in the paper, but I can of course share my view on the issue and how I understand it.

… place is a way of emphasizing the experiential in what comes to be socially or humanly relevant. …difference between a rationalistic, geometrical conception of space versus a more phenomenological one. I read Streek (2010) citing Cresswell about place: "Place is about stopping and resting and becoming involved". This is precisely what we aimed to emphasize in our paper, that whatever practices were involved in getting things done together in an interdisciplinary group, they involved a process of becoming involved, experientially, emotionally, bodily, with the materials and currents going on in a given situation.

I also read Ingold (2011) warning against the difference between space and place in terms of space being a reality substance and place being constituted by subsequent level of abstractions. In my view, experience is not about abstraction, but about involvement. And place is about space as it is refracted in intelligible experience; not about an abstraction over an objective field, but more related to a perezhivanie in Vygotsky's sense.

LSP: …What is the difference between the process of performing an activity in space and developing a sense of place? I personally interpret place in terms of appropriation of space in the process of human activity and the subsequent meaning making which has existential importance for the individual. The phenomenon of place is on par with the phenomenon of meaning and placemaking is a process on par with meaning making. How do you position yourself regarding such conceptualization?

…Who are the placemakers -- the architects or the USERS of designed/created/socially produced spaces?

AJG: …[the] difference between the process of performing an activity in space and developing a sense of place would be akin to the difference between an operation and an action as per Activity theory.

…we must be careful on the distinction between space as a sort of objective geometrical coordinate, or space as not becoming a part of "an" experience (in Dewey's sense). In the first sense, the sentence "performing an activity in space" makes only sense when talking about geometrical practices…BUT still, the experience of being doing such practice, if it has import to further development in the person, it must be refracted through the person's experience; there must be involvement, and therefore placemaking. In the second case, we might think of us performing some activity within taking much of it, without noticing we are doing. It is in this sense that I do the bridge with operations versus actions.

I would not have many problems in associating place with meaning and placemaking with meaning-making, although I personally would be careful if doing so, emphasizing the situational and distributed nature of the process that placemaking attempts to capture.

Larry Purss: [In Alfredo’s introduction, he wrote:]

“In this paper the aim was to consider boundary objects from the perspective of

the participants "bodies" which stood out in our analysis as particularly relevant [and revealing] for the achievement of cooperation despite lack OF "substantive agreement.”

I read "substantive agreement" as referring to a shared "subject matter" The ability to "inhabit" a space and constitute a "place" without agreement on the subject matter at hand. A different way of "inhabiting this space to form a sense of place. …[a] bodily way of "knowing" [tacit or implicit knowing that is "not yet" conscious" as PRIOR to coming to know in a more "substantive" way of understanding…could the focus on trying to come to an agreement on the "subject matter" before "inhabiting" the space becoming "place" be counter productive??.

What about the wall that was "banal" [and possibly therefore more neutral uninhabited "ground"] allowing a "space" to open in which the participants could arrive at a shared place PRIOR to finding subject matter agreement. … This type of bodily "knowing" and its relation to the "subject matter" at hand seems to open a space/place for a lively conversation.

What is forming is an image of the "table" as a metaphor. We gather to

share a meal and wine prior to focusing on the subject matter at hand. The table invites us to share a space becoming place around the meal. Is this "table" banal or significant in arriving at a shared place?

RS: I wanted to pick up on your suggestion of the table metaphor because I think that’s really interesting. I believe you are proposing the shared meal as analogous to the kind of orientation work… that precedes the task at hand….

This shared meal might of course also be considered designed. Ingold( *Making*) actually uses this same table metaphor to demonstrate the facilitation of activity as an aspect of design - *“Everyday design catches the narrative and pins it down, establishing a kind of choreography for the ensuing permanence that allows it to proceed from the moment you sit down to eat. In such a straightforward task as laying the table - in enrolling into your relation bowl and spoon, milk jug and cereal box - you are designing breakfast.”*

There is an improvisational quality to the bodily/performative orientation work that is maybe not captured by the shared expectations of sitting down to a meal. But at the same time, we can also consider the workspace of the multidisciplinary design team as designed in the same way that the meal is designed in order to support the objective of the meeting….

Lubomir, you asked - “who are the placemakers -- the architects or the USERS of designed/created/socially produced spaces?” I think this is difficult to answer because both architect and user play a role in the place-making process. The architects embed possible meanings (if place and meaning are analogous than perhaps these might be considered ‘place potentials’) that only emerge through the activity of the users. I’m only thinking through this now, so feel free to elaborate or to disagree!

LSP: I would suggest that only individual consciousness is a place maker. Exception – the collective consciousness, but this is another aspect. Architects can only facilitate that process, but they are not the main factors. They believe they imbed particular meanings of the environment through the process of design. My position is that they only believe. What they embed as a meaningful physical component or a sign can be and is interpreted very differently by the building users…. Placemaking is an intimate personal process. Even the ugliest environment can make a wonderful place for the individuals that feel at home there, that draw strength from that environment, and really enjoy it.

MC: Lubomir -- Could you elaborate on the following from your earlier note?

“I would suggest that only individual consciousness is a place maker.

Exception – the collective consciousness, but this is another aspect.”

Specifically, this phrasing put me in mind of the circumstance that consciousness isso - znanie, co-knowing.

LSP: …I am referring in my previous mail, as you said, to so–znanie , actually soznanie…a Historical Materialist concept that is difficult to translate.

… Soznanie is not exactly “consciousness” or “mind” but it is somewhere there. …opposite or complementary to soznanie is podsoznanite (under-consciousness). … Soznanie is…human ability to create ideal/mental images…of the material world by the individual, including the mechanisms of this reflection…. In a different way…the subjective perezhivanie of and reflection on the external world by the individual….

… In psychology they emphasize the psychological activity regarding creating mental images of reality as well as building plans for action. In sociology the emphasis is more on the mental life of society….

…Soznanie is a major category of Historical Materialism….adages of Marx is that the Being/Living/Existance…produces/shapes Soznanie.

Michael Glassman: [The] big issue here that I am trying to grapple with…boundary objects… relates to the metaphor of the table…. [I]n the museum should the place be set up as affordances, perceived affordances, or constraints? It seems the museum in the study has potential affordances for the users. The cultural historical moment (unable to think of any other word) of the museum sets the context, meaning those walking through the museum are going to be restricted by the historical and cultural boundaries leading up to the art work, along with the expectations and needs of the individuals moving through the museum, but they will come across objects/artifacts that they think meets the needs of their particular journeys.

…Or should museums should be designed for what Don Norman refers to as perceived affordances?...The focus goes from cultural history setting a general context…to actually setting the trajectory of the act….The object offers an opportunity to make communicative gestures….

Or should museums be designed as constraints. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art… the rooms are set up very, very carefully, so that in many ways the objects…to constrain your thinking, so that you are responding to a certain period or school of art, understanding how it all fits together. The table metaphor fits here as well I think. Does the table constrain our actions, limiting to certain types of behavior (use only certain types of forks for certain types of food).

AGJ: I'd like to follow up on Michael's post by asking a question: Are not affordances presupposed by constraints and are not constraints presupposed by affordances? If so, …[does] it makes sense to ask whether museums should be designed for affordances and constraints.

… whatever EXPERIENCE emerges from being somewhere (i.e. being someone at some time in some place) cannot be INTENDED. And I think this applies both to designers and users….

I think that the big issue that you bring on the table (to continue with Larry's metaphor) has to do with a difference between physical relations and social relations, and the idea of MEDIATION. Gregory Bateson noticed that the relations that are the subject matter in physics are not the same as those that are the subject matter in communication. …physical relations…transfer energy in direct manners…social relations are not direct, but mediated.

So, how can design go about this? If we, along with Dewey and Vygotsky, consider experience to be a unity of person and environment, and we assume as well that this is a social (not just individual) category, and that how a situation is experienced is also refracted through the social relations within which we engage, the most designers can do is to foster social relations go on, giving affordances to processes of signification, without intending to embed meanings. It is about affordances/constraints, but not about how to interpret something, but about going about interpreting. I think.

MG: …I think Bateson was arguing with those looking to apply the more physical/mathematical origins of cybernetics to human or really (pace the pig story) and system that moves beyond simple physical feedback loops. I think his larger point is that everything has a response within the larger feedback system that exists but we cannot go - what Bateson refers to as MIND. Attempts to create and control feedback loops, to try and design a system for specific types of feedback is a dangerous proposition.

…affordances really can't be designed into an ecology, only a recognition of the context in which actions are taking place…. if a designer does in some way design that experience into the action, even without meaning they are taking a large chance, because they do not know the trajectory it will take. We simply need objects that are part of our journey, part of the larger context but not designed for purpose, for feedback. There is no assumption about trajectory.

… it is possible to design objects that meet that need that we are more likely to find in the moment that we need them. But I think that is very different from the idea of specifically guiding feedback loops that even take generalized experience in a certain direction. I am thinking about Dewey, and he makes a similar argument to Bateson with his concept of transactions. Although he does seem to think that it is possible to create a larger field of action so we can see at least local interrelationships. But his idea of experience is also very much one of discovery based on needs at the immediate moment - social relations act as a vehicle for these discoveries….

I think I disagree with you, constraints are not about the journey but about the road. If you build a road on the side of the river you are constrained because no matter what, you cannot turn right. Your direction has already been partially determined by the designer of the road. But the mistake we make is in thinking that also controls the trajectory of the individual's journey. The effect of designers on trajectories of action is important, but limited.

The primary place that designers have influence on affordances it seems to me is by being able to create a unique context for an individual's and a group's that limit possible trajectories on an individual's journey. But we should never mistake those constraints for affordances. I think Bateson might argue it is hubris to do so. Perhaps this is what you are saying Alfredo.

AGJ: I think we are saying the same things, indeed, or at least more or less. …you can not intend the outcomes of a system by addressing only its parts as if they were connected directly, in a linear causal fashion; as if the whole was the sum of its parts.

If I read you correctly, and citing Don Norman (whose work I ignore), you suggest the possibility that the relations between design intentions and actual experience could be thought of in terms of different levels? That one thing is to design for what is general, but that we cannot design for the particular. Is that right? If so, I think that Bateson had a similar argument on prediction, does not him? That we can predict on general levels (e.g. population), but not at the level of the particular (e.g., individual). I haven't gone that way, but seems a promising road to consider this jumps between levels of generality or scales.

Finally, I am not sure if I get what you mean when you say that we can design for constraints but not for affordances. I still see that the one presupposes the other; you can separate them in talk, but, to me, in actual experience, a constraint is an affordance and vice-versa. I don't see how the road has any inherent constraint that could not be an affordance at the same time. Of course, if you take the normative stance that roads are for cars driving through them, you may be right. But if we think of roads as asphalt on the ground, as yet more ground only of a different shape, texture, and color, how is that a constraint but not an affordance? Or an affordance but not a constraint? Of course, culture constrains once you are within the road and you are driving. But then, the constraint is not in the road, as you seem to suggest, but in the journey; in the journeyman that carries some cultural way of orienting and affectively relating to its environment so that particular constrains are taken for granted despite the possibility of being otherwise. …I would like to understand your position here better.

RS: …One issue seems to be this tension between the designer's or architect's role in informing the experience of the user, and the level of intentionality they are able to impart. Are the decisions of the designers introducing affordances to a setting? constraints? meaning potentials?

A second theme is about the social practices of orientation, "inclusion," and perhaps the ongoing nature of these shared performances….

In relation to this first issue...I largely agree. That is, that designers cannot impose particular experiences on users - that unintended affordances emerge and are inevitable. However, I don't think that this is inconsistent with the possibility that a designer can influence the possible experiences of users in meaningful ways. … At the same time, we could perhaps imagine these designers intending to build a place that supports personal reflection at a more general level (by controlling the sound, lighting, physical configurations of the artifacts, etc). The actual "placemaking" is still not realized until the users actually inhabit this space, but I view the designers as a

fundamental part of this development.

I view the role of designers as more imaginative than predictive. They are imagining possible experiences, and then building the spaces that hopefully (but not necessarily) support those experiences.

MG: I think Rolf may have addressed the question of the differences between affordances and constraints in his post. The way he described the designers as possibly setting up [a] corner…at MOMA…I think would be considered restraints…All of these were constraints that canalized perspectives and feelings viewing the paintings….

The painting[s]…though [can be]…affordances, an object at the nexus of [a] journey through the museum….This[is] something that could not be designed I think because nobody [can] think [a particular] moment [is] going to happen. So then what is a perceived affordance…. The designer anticipates a desire to soak in [a] room, to almost get dizzy in the lights, and include…[a] piece of wood that will have the perceived affordance for sitting, changing your concept of time and space.