Producing Publicness

Investigating the Dialectics of Unintended Consequences in Urban Design - Practices in Stockholm and Malmö

ELAHE KARIMNIA

Doctoral Thesis in Planning and Decision Analysis Stockholm, Sweden, 2018 KTH Royal Institute of Technology School of Architecture and the Built Environment Department of Urban Planning and Environment SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Title: Producing Publicness: Investigating the dialectics of unintended consequences in urban design - practices in Stockholm and Malmö Author: Elahe Karimnia

KTH Royal Institute of Technology School of Architecture and the Built Environment Department of Urban Planning and Environment Division of Urban and Regional Studies

TRITA-ABE-DLT-1815 ISBN 978-91-7729-788-8

Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av KTH i Stockholm framlägges till offentlig granskning för avläggande av teknologie doktorsexamen fredagen den 8 juni kl. 09.00 i Kollegiesalen, KTH, Brinellvägen 8, Stockholm. Abstract

The creation of public space is highly intentional, since it is intended to contribute to the civic infrastructure of a city. The conventional dichotomy of intentions versus outcomes in urban design practice posits that, while intentions (as embodied by policies, plans, and visions) represent more abstract thinking about the various facets of publicness, outcomes (as embodied by a three-dimensional built environment) are the manifest realizations of those intentions in public spaces. This study grounds itself in an in-depth exploration of this intention- outcome gap. The overall aim of this study is to explore how urban design can facilitate the production of publicness, by means of which public spaces can enable appropriations, i.e., the practices of togetherness, encounters, and expressions of different publics. To achieve this aim, this study de-layers two major processes and engagements that merit consideration: first, the process of planning and design, by which publicness is produced through larger strategies of urban development and physical construction; second, the process of use, by which publicness is socially experienced and contested. This study treats the appropriation of public space as a consequence of the relationship between these two processes. Elaborating on the theories discussing the socio–spatial and temporal characteristics of appropriations in public spaces, the research identifies the challenges and opportunities in urban design thinking and practice.

To understand the dynamics of appropriations in everyday practice, and the mechanisms by which public space can enable or resist appropriations, this research applies a comparative case study approach. The two cases are examples of brownfield developments in two cities in Sweden: the Liljeholmstorget Transit Hub in Stockholm and the Western Harbour Waterfront in Malmö. Both case studies are meant to embody the Swedish urban design and planning discourses of ‘sustainable development’ and producing ‘city-like’ (stadsmässighet) urban environments. Empirical evidence from primary and secondary sources focuses on three sets of key actors identified in these case studies: local authorities (i.e., municipal planners), designers (i.e., architects working with builders on public land and private property), and users (i.e., observed in space, with regard to the traces of absent users). The data come from interviews with key actors, the analysis of planning documents, official reports, and newspaper articles, as well as visits conducted for direct observation, and spatial analysis.

The Stockholm study examines local authorities’ negotiations of land uses and trade-offs with market actors while being consistent in their intentions to create a liveable urban centre as a transit hub. The Malmö study reveals a designed and determined process to promote the city’s economic growth and image while taking account of individuals’ spatial experiences and well-being. However, characterizing the publicness of these spaces are the emergent actions and unplanned appropriations. The analysis of design and appropriation processes reveals that public spaces were designed without specific consideration of the consequences for the publics’ socio–spatial appropriations. Liljeholmstorget has

i different types of public spaces and a strong spatial order, yet its publicness is transformed through informal togetherness and passive encounters in relation to collective routines of commuting and consumption. The Western Harbour Waterfront was planned for the well-being of a specific type of public, which was later contested by unexpected users and their unplanned expressions and togetherness.

Comparative analysis of these urban development projects in Stockholm and Malmö arrives at the following insights. First, it demonstrates that while intentions are drivers for achieving socially and physically accessible public spaces, they are not enough to enable diverse types of appropriations. Second, the study reveals the potentials of accessible public spaces to stimulate users’ perception of publicness and to provide opportunities for them to practice their rights and desires. However, such potentials are only partially and uncritically applied in planning and design processes. As a third and final point, unplanned appropriations should be regarded as welcome phenomena in urban design, because they emphasize the dynamic and contingent characteristics of publicness, which requires constant becoming. This study – Producing publicness – is an effort to show that our cities’ public spaces require an ongoing conversation between urban actors, in order to support meaningful togetherness, encounters, and expressions for all members of the public.

Keywords: Urban Design Process, Publicness, Public Space, Appropriation of Space, Intentions and Outcomes, Unintended Consequences, Stockholm, Malmö.

ii Sammanfattning på svenska

Skapandet av det offentliga rummet sker alltid med avsikter, eftersom offentliga rum är avsedda att vara en del av en stads offentliga, gemensamma infrastruktur. Vanligtvis uppfattas motsättningen mellan avsikter och utfall inom stadsbyggandet som den mellan abstrakt tänkta intentioner (beskrivna i policies, planer och visioner) beträffande olika aspekter av offentlighet och det fysiskt manifesterade utfallet av dessa intentioner (den tredimensionella byggda miljön). Föreliggande studie tar sin utgångspunkt i en mer djupgående undersökning av denna motsättning. Det övergripande syftet är att utforska hur stadsbyggande (urban design) kan stöda utvecklingen av ett rikare offentligt rum genom att underlätta människors ianspråktagande av rummet i form av olika gruppers gemenskap, möten och uttrycksformer. För att uppfylla detta syfte undersöks i studien två viktiga processer och intresseområden; för det första, planerings- och projekteringsprocessen som producerar det offentliga rummet genom övergripande strategier för urban utveckling och fysiskt byggande; för det andra, ianspråktagandeprocessen, genom vilken det offentliga rummet upplevs och prövas socialt. Denna studie behandlar ianspråktagandet av det offentliga rummet som ett resultat av förhållandet mellan dessa två processer. Med stöd av teorier som behandlar socio-spatiala och temporala aspekter av ianspråktagande av rummet söker studien identifiera problem och möjligheter inom stadsbyggandets teori och praktik.

För att förstå de underliggande krafter som påverkar det vardagliga ianspråktagandet av miljön samt de mekanismer som gör att offentliga rum underlättar eller förhindrar olika gruppers ianspråktagande och användning, tillämpas här jämförande fallstudiemetodik. De två studerade fallen är exempel på omvandling av före detta industriområden i två svenska städer: Liljeholmstorget i Stockholm och Västra hamnen i Malmö. I båda fallen hade man uttalat målsättningen att förkroppsliga den svenska planeringsdiskursen om uthålligt stadsbyggande och stadsmässighet. Empiriska data från primära och sekundära källor samlades in med tre grupper av nyckelaktörer i fokus: lokala planeringsmyndigheter (t. ex. kommunala planerare), projektörer (t. ex. de arkitekter som projekterade de byggda miljöerna på uppdrag av entreprenörerna) och de människor som använder miljöerna (enligt observationer, också omfattande eventuella tecken på frånvarande användare). Data har samlats in genom intervjuer med nyckelaktörer och dokumentstudier av planeringsdokument, officiella rapporter och tidningsartiklar, samt genom besök på platsen för direkta observationer och spatial analys.

Stockholmsfallet visar hur kommunens aktörer förhandlar fram olika typer av markanvändning genom marknadsmässigt kompromissande med för- och nackdelar, samtidigt som de strävar efter att hålla fast vid sina uttalade mål att skapa ett lokalt centrum och transportnod av hög kvalitet. Malmöfallet påvisar en medvetet planerad process för att påverka stadens ekonomiska utveckling och rykte, samtidigt som man var uppmärksam på tänkta boendes upplevelser och

iii välbefinnande. Gemensamt för utvecklingen av de offentliga rummen i respektive fall var de oplanerade handlingar och ianspråktaganden som visade sig. Analysen av planering/ projektering och ianspråktagande visade att de offentliga rummen inte planerats med hänsyn till konsekvenserna för människors sociala och rumsliga användning av dem. Liljeholmstorget omfattar flera olika typer av offentliga rum inom en tydlig rumslig ordning men trots detta karaktäriseras det offentliga livet där i huvudsak av rumslig och temporal samexistens med passiva möten mellan människor, inom ramen för kollektiva rutiner av pendling och konsumtion. Västra hamnen planerades uttryckligen för en specifik grupps behov och välbefinnande, men den målsättningen utmanades senare av oväntade användares aktiviteter och gemenskap.

En jämförande analys av dessa stadsutvecklingsprojekt i Stockholm och Malmö visar på följande. För det första visar analysen att även om goda avsikter är en förutsättning för att åstadkomma socialt och fysiskt tillgängliga offentliga rum så är de inte nog för att tillåta och understöda många olika typer av ianspråktagande av miljön. För det andra visar studien på vilken potential tillgängliga offentliga rum har genom att stimulera människors känsla av delaktighet och gemenskap och erbjuda möjligheter för dem att uttrycka och utöva sina önskningar och rättigheter. Den potentialen utnyttjas emellertid bara delvis och utan urskiljning i planerings- och projekteringsprocessen. Som tredje och sista punkt kommer insikten att stadsplanerare borde se oplanerade ianspråktaganden av det offentliga rummet som ett välkommet fenomen, eftersom det understryker hur dynamisk och beroende på växlande omständigheter den sociala offentligheten är, i ständigt ny tillblivelse. Denna studie-Producing Publicness- vill visa att utvecklingen av våra städers offentliga rum kräver ett pågående samtal mellan stadens aktörer för att understöda meningsfull gemenskap, möten och uttryck för alla.

Nyckslord: Stadsbyggnadsprocess, social offentlighet, offentliga rum, ianspråktagande av miljön, avsikter och utfall, oavsiktliga konsekvenser, Stockholm, Malmö

iv Preface and acknowledgements

I don’t think I am the first nor will I be the last architect to go through an identity crisis! This investigation of the production process started with a desire to explore the gap between intentions and outcomes, to provide one more solution to the puzzle of shaping urban form to take account of human behaviour. This desire dates to my years in architecture school, when learning about creativity in design and form and observing the world through the lens of my professional preferences. In 2008 I experienced another ‘aha moment’ when, as part of a team, we designed the Djibouti Parliament Building to become a symbolic public and democratic platform for citizens. We intended to create a public space as a locus of democracy where everyone was welcome to participate. Looking at the images of the completed building, we were concerned about its impression of democratic authority. Starting in the planning office of Tehran Municipality, continuing as a consultant in an architecture firm, and now back in academia, I have experienced several paradigm shifts in understanding this gap.

In my early contribution to the research project ‘Urban Form and Human Behaviour’ at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, I came across an interdisciplinary understanding of public space as a ‘place’ that is multilayered and value laden. The notion of ‘place-making’ – efforts to reactivate places that had lost meanings with the help of their surrounding communities – drew my attention. The task with which I ended my master’s thesis and began my PhD was to understand how these studies and these knowledges of place could be applied in practice. Having experienced a few years in practice, and having the privilege to call myself a designer while still writing critically about design practice and ‘makeability’ discourses, prompted me to learn more about the process of production, questioning effects, effective roles, and pragmatic choices.

If I were to mention everything that has affected my research in recent years, the intentions and the outcomes, it would probably be a long list. I have experienced many pitfalls while pursuing my PhD, of course, but also endless rewards in gaining new insights, making new acquaintances, and, most importantly, meeting new people and seeing new places, which my research has enabled. Studying and practicing in a different culture and context, I have always been passionate about the tremendous potentials and paradoxes of cities mirrored in the public realm, which this study gave me a unique opportunity to explore more.

For all the great experiences during the journey of doing this PhD, I am most grateful to Tigran Haas, Mahyar Arefi, and Inga Britt Werner as my supervisors. You deserve special mention for providing needed guidance and advice at every stage. I would like to thank you Tigran, for great support and encouragement during this study. You never ruled out any opportunity on my research journey, but rather helped me to discover my own path. Mahyar jan, I am so grateful for our long Skype conversations, for your insights into what research is and writing is rewriting. Inga Britt, thank you for reading the same text several times; your

v detailed comments and belief in my work in the last stage are much appreciated. I express special thanks to division head Maria Håkansson, who also reviewed the quality in a final stage of this work, director of PhD studies Jonathan Metzger, and Susan Hellström in administration for their valuable support.

I had the privilege to discuss my work along the way in seminars with invited discussants who helped me better understand the challenges and develop my thoughts and ideas. Since I started my PhD, many concerns about issues of place, place-making, and place identity have been raised at both the national and international levels. I am grateful to have actively participated in some of the related discussions, presenting my work and getting feedback from wonderful scholars: thank you Kim Dovey, Ali Madanipour, Setha Low, David Canter, Karin Franck, Arza Churchman, Mattias Kärrholm, Karin Grundström, Alexander Ståhle, and Eva Minoura. I am also thankful to my interviewees for providing me their documentation of the cases.

During the fall semester of 2015 I was honoured to be a visiting scholar and International Visiting Graduate Student at the Department of Geography and Planning at University of Toronto. I am very grateful to Virginia Maclaren and Paul Hess for inviting me. This allowed me to see my research through a new lens and strengthen my arguments. I also want to thank Panu Lehtovouri and Tuomas Ilmavirta at Aalto University, Finland, for letting me take part in the IFHP Summer School in Urban Planning and Design in 2013. Finally, I would like to thank ResArc in Lund, which allowed me to take part in the course ‘Focussing on everyday life’, where I met wonderful scholars and had interesting discussions.

I would like to thank my wonderful colleagues at the Division of Urban and Regional Studies for the many eye-opening conversations. Thanks to Zeinab, Marcus, Lina, Asifa, Åsa, Malin, Mats, and Eleni for being there when I was rushing to you in stress. Thanks to my fellow PhD students in the Urban Form and Human Behaviour research group, and to all of you who shared the corridor in the Division of Urban and Regional Studies with me. I am grateful to the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnsons Foundation and to Peter Elmlund at the Urban City Research Program for financing my doctoral studies and inviting me to be a part of the Future of Places conference series.

My greatest thanks go to my wonderful family, maman and baba, Azi and Nazi – you have been always there for me. Thank you for telling me ‘you can do it’, when I was not really able to feel that. With your mental support, I felt you are right here with me! Thanks to my dearest partner Aseem – you are the wind beneath my wings.

Eli, June 2018, Stockholm

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field: I’ll meet you there.

- Rumi

vii Table of Contents Abstract ...... i Sammanfattning på svenska ...... iii Preface and acknowledgements ...... v Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Background ...... 1 1.2 Identifying the aim and research questions ...... 5 1.3 Research setting ...... 6 Brief historical review of Swedish planning and building processes ...... 6 Background of the Liljeholmstorget practice ...... 11 Background of the Wester Harbour Waterfront practice ...... 15 1.4 Limitations and delimitations ...... 19 1.5 Reading guide ...... 20 Chapter 2. Conceptual and theoretical framework in producing publicness .. 23 2.1 On spatial production ...... 24 On knowledge/action ...... 25 On roles ...... 30 2.2 Publicness in becoming ...... 33 On appropriation ...... 34 Appropriating publicness ...... 36 2.3 Unintended consequences: a dialectical observation in production process 57 Relief or a solution? ...... 57 Chapter 3. Research design and method ...... 63 3.1 Research framework: combining strategies ...... 63 Case study ...... 64 Comparative analysis ...... 69 3.2 Data collection ...... 70 Document analysis ...... 75 Interview ...... 76 Observations and spatial analysis ...... 78 3.3 Methodological reflection ...... 80 Chapter 4. Liljeholmstorget: analysis and findings ...... 83 4.1 Designing publicness ...... 83

viii Designing spatial order ...... 85 Designing public territory ...... 89 Publicness beyond intentions ...... 96 4.2 Appropriating publicness through spatial practices ...... 99 Levels of publicness ...... 100 Liljeholmstorget in everyday practice ...... 108 4.3 Producing publicness ...... 127 Chapter 5. Western harbour waterfront: analysis and findings ...... 133 5.1 Designing Publicness through place branding ...... 133 Designing the process ...... 135 Designing public spaces ...... 138 Publicness beyond intentions ...... 149 5.2 Appropriating publicness through spatial practices ...... 153 Levels and types of publicness ...... 154 Western Harbour waterfront in everyday practice ...... 162 5.3 Producing publicness ...... 170 Chapter 6. Discussion and conclusions – towards transformative practice ... 175 6.1 Comparative Insights ...... 175 Urban design stages and influences ...... 177 Types of appropriations and levels of publicness ...... 182 6.2 Transformation of publicness ...... 187 6.3 Mind the gap – contribution of the study for urban planning and design .. 191 Enabling appropriations ...... 191 On engagements ...... 192 Looking ahead ...... 195 Chapter 7. References ...... 197

x Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Cities are complex phenomena that arise and evolve through deliberate actions and practices. Post-industrial cities, particularly in north-western Europe, have been significantly transformed through strategic spatial planning since the 1990s, in contrast to earlier times, when transformation was project led and based on land-use regulations (Albrechts, 2004; Healey, 2004; Olesen, 2014). In such practices, the intentions are politically constructed to stimulate economic growth and the strategies are social constructs. Multiple actors and myriad forces have become interested and involved in spatial production, giving rise to tensions, conflicts, and agreements in the production process. Major critiques of urban design, the field of practice responsible for designing the spatial outcome, address the gap between intentions and outcomes (or the reduction of publicness to public space). This study grounds itself in this critique, conducting an in-depth exploration of this gap as a phenomenon.

One of the major criticisms of urban design concerns its contribution to the political economy, in which urban design is considered a tool of neoliberalism, paving the way for cooperative and regulated competition, particularly regarding the demands of the service economy and the private sector in framing their perspective (Lefebvre, 1991; Harvey, 2000; Madanipour, 1999, 2006; Cuthbert, 2010). In this matter, place branding and city marketing are major strategies for responding to economic and cultural globalization, enabling flows of capital and people, to re-identify city identity and image (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2010). New attractive and safe public spaces have appeared, developed using high-quality materials and design elements to enhance the image and liveability of cities.

The field of practice is also the subject of discussion concerning its knowledge as related to its scale, situated between architecture and planning (Koolhaas, 1995)

1 or defined as the architectural will ‘to create’, translate, and give material form to long-term social values (Harvey, 2000, pp. 200–206), limited to the physical form as an end-product by partially and uncritically applying theories (Banerjee, 2011; Gunder, 2011; Madanipour, 2006; Marshall, 2012). Soja (2009) argued that urban design has limited itself to the concerns of physical form and accordingly been isolated from emerging literatures attempting to make sense of new urbanization processes. Since urban design is part of the social process of producing space in which many actors are engaged, understanding its wide range of roles and tools reveals its ‘knowledge in action’ through the potentials of and decisions made in the process (Childs, 2010, Madanipour, 2006, Carmona, 2017; Carmona et al., 2010, pp. 269–329).

The intention–outcome gap can be also considered in terms of the antithesis between understanding cities (‘substantive–descriptive’) and designing cities (‘normative–prescriptive’) (Moudon, 1992), putting urban design (as a field of practice) in the latter category. The former is well supported by urban sociologists and human geographers debating the nature and future of cities by examining the relationship between societies and their spatial forms. These scholars have a particular focus on changing social and cultural values and how they affect the supposed loss of public space in contemporary society (Sennett, 1977, 1997; Harvey, 1996; Soja, 1980; Castells, 1996). These criticisms offer broad descriptions of contemporary cities and public spaces, raising concerns regarding social consequences, such as privatization, commodification, and exclusion (Madanipour, 2010; Mitchell, 2003; Low and Smith, 2006; Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1998; Fainstein, 2001). To these scholars, the social production of space and its material outcome stands in contrast to the social construction of space, in what is known as the space–place dichotomy (Graham and Healey, 1999).

This observation casts a negative light on urban design and draws a sharp distinction between spatiality and sociability, on one hand, and objective versus subjective approaches, on the other, resulting in a division between the physical and social worlds for urbanists (Madanipour, 1999; Talen, 2001). Lefebvre (1991) has discussed ‘product’ and ‘production’ at greater depth, emphasizing that ‘ the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 26). In other words, ‘while space is socially constructed, the social is spatially constructed’ (Massey, 1993, cited by Dovey, 2010, p.6). Although scholars interested in the publicness of space have no common conceptual framework, they may be linked by the view that material space provides opportunities for the public to (re)produce publicness in their everyday practice (Crawford, 1995; Low, 2009). In this view, the outcome (i.e., physical space) is a means of production that has an effect, and urban design’s contribution could be explored as if the built environment and its socio–cultural, spatial, political, and psychological factors have effects on people’s levels of participation and experiences. This observation could support users of space in their various interactions with space and others, as mutual way of producing publicness. Understanding publicness in ongoing production helps navigate the

2 process in a dialectical way, by which actions and their consequences can be both effective and transformative. Both experts and users of space, in the context of this study, are analysed as producers whose participation affects the publicness of space in different ways.

The publicness of urban space has been examined in various ways as a multidimensional quality, measured, for example, in terms ranging from: ‘access’, ‘agency’, and ‘interest’ (Madanipour, 1999); ‘ownership’, ‘control’, ‘civility’, ‘physical configuration’, and ‘animation’ (Varna, 2014); to ‘ownership’, ‘management’, and ‘uses/users’ (Németh and Schmidt, 2011). These concepts are ‘multiple and sometimes have contradictory meanings’ (Kohn, 2004, p. 11), yet they address the fact that the publicness of space is produced, perceived, practiced, and reproduced (i.e., transformed). In this respect, public space is understood as lived space or a place of experiences (Tornaghi and Knierbein, 2015) where complex tensions between different needs, meanings, and users arise (Stevens, 2007), and public life unfolds (Madanipour, 2010). If space is understood as both product and means of production, then the publicness of space should be understood as a ‘double illusion, each side of which refers back to the other’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 27). This approach influenced the discussions on territoriality, as an activity of boundary-making; and territory, not as an object or the opposite of flows, rather in a relationship with the agent who undertakes the activity (Brighenti, 2010a, pp. 60–64). In this perspective, public space should therefore be understood as ‘constituted by a territorial complexity’ and not so much about a strategy, rather as a ‘spatial actant’, which ‘brings about a certain effect in a certain situation or place’ (Kärrholm, 2007, p. 440).

This discussion has introduced new typologies of public spaces and even expanded the definitions to encompass, for example, the ‘public domain’ (Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001; Brighenti, 2010b), ‘fourth places’ (Simões Aelbrecht, 2016), and ‘embodied spaces’ (Low, 2009). The socio–spatial and temporal characteristics of everyday practices cast light on how publicness is transformed through users’ spatial practices, though as a consequence of produced public spaces. Analysing these practices reveals the complexity of concepts and of applying them in practice. To move beyond predetermined conceptual choices, and act beyond limited public/private territories, urban design requires more theories for practice. Considering the production process as on-going, users’ appropriations of public space, simplified as unintended consequences, are possibly driving forces for transforming publicness. This approach suggests new observations and consequence-based actions as theory of urban design for producing publicness.

To add to the understanding of transformation of public spaces, this study utilises an approach of de-layering two major processes and engagements that merit consideration: first, the process of planning and design, by which publicness is produced through larger strategies of urban development and physical construction; second, the process of use, by which publicness is socially experienced and contested. This study treats the appropriation of public space as a

3 consequence of the relationship between these two processes, as a way to avoid divided epistemologies. Appropriations are observed practices in space, revealing users’ perceived publicness materialized in levels of practiced togetherness, social encounters, expression and contestation. Accordingly, three groups of actors (i.e., planners, architects, and users) together with their actions (i.e., translating publicness into strategies, land-use policies, land allocation to developers, spatial orders, and interactions with the built environment and other users) are investigated here. Such translation reveals the tensions between experts’ responsibility and the consensus required to design space and exclude choices, highlighting the actual driving forces of spatial production beyond abstract concepts. It also addresses the tensions among different users and their practiced choices.

Case study methodology is an approach to understand complicated processes in a context. Urban design for production of publicness and public spaces is laden with challenges, which happens in a specific context. To understand the process and engagements involved in producing publicness, case studies are highly suitable. This study accordingly examines two Swedish practices: the Liljeholmstorget transit hub in Stockholm and the Western Harbour Waterfront in Malmö. Both case study areas had long industrial histories and were developed through densification and mixed-use ‘city-like’ (Swedish, stadsmässighet) strategies in the late 1990s. The research entailed studying the period of design and implementation, as well as conducting observations of the project areas in use from 2014 to 2017. The cases differ in many ways, for example, in their contexts, objectives, and forms of public spaces, yet comparative analysis show the similarities and differences of urban design processes and its effects on types of appropriations and levels of publicness. Swedish urban planning and design offer an informative setting due to its relatively democratic planning processes and resulting public spaces. In this context, people are allowed to legally use any accessible physical spaces if they have not obviously been privatized for specific use. The scope of this study therefore encompasses all accessible places in the two projects, illustrating how different types of ownership, control, and management rules would affect appropriations.

The Stockholm study shows how local authorities were consistent in their intentions to create a well-structured transit hub. They negotiated land uses and trade-offs with market choices, thereby influencing the type of publicness of place. The Malmö study reveals a specifically designed and determined process to promote the city’s economic growth and place-branding strategies, which affect the publicness of the place. According to the planning objectives, the physical public spaces have been designed with defined territories and responsibilities. The effects of these practices were observed through examples of appropriations in each case. There are tangible signs of conflict between the residents and users in each place, as both cases attracted socially diverse users. In Liljeholmstorget, users’ adaptations to the dominant functions have resulted in an in-between space supporting informal togetherness in spaces of everyday practices. In Malmö, users’ unexpected presence in the space and their collective actions created a

4 symbolic meaning for the place, going beyond the city’s intended image and discourses. The results of a comparative analysis of the two cases demonstrate that the publicness of space is shaped in early project stages and through larger political and economic strategies, but keeps being transformed at different levels through individual or collective practices.

The appropriated spatiality, functionality, and temporality are not compatible with the intended and produced ones, yet both cases reveal the importance of material space in enabling or constraining appropriations. The publicness of space is plural, contingent, and progressive, and is transformed through collective desires in everyday practice. High accessibility and social diversity are necessary, though not sufficient, resources for the transformation of public spaces.

This study acknowledges the complexity of producing publicness and supports integrated approach to the planning and design of public spaces, problematizing current practices in urban design and scrutinizing unintended consequences that are considered essential steps in enabling the transformation of public spaces

1.2 Identifying the aim and research questions

Analysing urban design process exposes the politics of positions and, accordingly, the structure and history of engagements, so as coordinated and self-conscious actions affecting the publicness of space. This is in line with the integrative approach of this study, which addresses users’ interactions with and participations in space as well as experts’ policies and plans. By not resolving the mismatching ideas or territories of publicness in each production process, but revealing driving forces as well as conflicts and tensions in the urban design process, the study highlights the challenges of the field, which is both responsive to various tasks and responsible for more publicness. Retaining the criterion that all individual and collective users should be able to address space for their rights and desires, this research regards different types of appropriation of public space as dialectical processes. At the core of this research is a qualitative and explorative inquiry employing a wide range and various sources of data.

The subject matter of this study is the potential of ‘urban design thinking and practice’ to contribute to the transformation of public spaces. The overall aim of this study is to explore how urban design can facilitate the production of publicness, by means of which public spaces can enable appropriations by various groups of actors. To achieve this aim, this research argues for the complexity of the publicness of space, which requires a heterogeneous assemblage of actors engaged in production, namely, the professionals and users of space. The implication of this study for urban design thinking and practice is to consider plural engagements and consequence-based actions to enable diverse appropriations so that public spaces in our cities can be effective in transforming publicness.

5 The research objectives focus on formulating an understanding of the intention– outcome gap and of what constitutes valid reality or legitimate knowledge in practice, in order to develop a framework for shifting practice from production to process of producing publicness. More specifically, the research questions that frame this study are:

- What are the challenges in the urban design process for the production of publicness? - How and by whom is publicness appropriated in everyday practice, and how and why does public space enable or resist appropriations? - From the comparative analysis of the two cases, what lessons can be learned from the unintended consequences for urban design thinking and practice?

1.3 Research setting

In this section a brief history of Swedish urban planning and intentions for development is reviewed. In this context, there is no room for lengthier investigation of the history of building and land-use planning, which dates back to 1874 (a review of milestones in Swedish planning history can be found in Nilsson, 2017, pp. 314–316). However, it is necessary to consider the role of Swedish municipalities in cooperation with the state and society, where regulations about land use and ownership are determined. This section is followed by brief introductions of the two cases of Liljeholmstorget transit hub in Stockholm and the Western Harbour Waterfront in Malmö. For each case, the background of the project area is presented, after which the political and economic conditions in each city are addressed as background for identifying the intentions underlying these spatial planning and development projects.

Brief historical review of Swedish planning and building processes

The modern Swedish planning regime can be divided into different periods since the welfare state emerged in Sweden in the mid 20th century (Engström and Cars, 2013, pp. 11–21). During the industrial era, which led to urbanization, town planning dominated Swedish cities. After World War II, when Sweden experienced strong demand for housing, the Social Democratic Party built a strong welfare society based on ‘a clear policy of supplying good quality, affordable housing for everyone regardless of income’ (Nilsson, 2017, p. 128). The political intention to build a welfare society established the municipal monopoly on planning in the late 1940s, which was based on functionalism in thinking about and operationalizing the city. Large-scale development as well as mass production, segregation, and mono-functionality were consequences of zoning plans recognized only years after the fact. All these decisions highlight the prevalence of a rational planning ideology supported by quantification and engineering (Nyström, 1997, 2001). The municipal monopoly on planning and

6 master plans was initiated in 1947 (in the form of the Planning Act and Building Code) and evolved up to 1987 when the Planning and Building Act (PBA) and the Natural Resources Act (NRL) came into force (Nilsson, 2017). Since then, the municipalities have been involved in production processes, and controlling the quality of construction became a governmental concern subject to regulation.

In 1987, a new Planning and Building Act (PBA) was introduced to improve fragmented legislative programmes in planning and take account of environmental resources as well. The PBA articulated a new model of public management in which many different interests and conflicts were to be taken account of, coordinated, and resolved early in the planning stage. Planning processes underwent a paradigm shift of deregulation and decentralization as power was devolved from the state to individuals, while municipalities were struggling with economic issues and had to cut public-sector budgets. This change in governance diminished the power of local authorities and the role of the municipal city planning offices1. On one hand, the new governance regime invited citizen participation and introduced compulsory consultation into the planning process; on the other hand, market and other business interests in development became part of the planning and building process. Many believe that the resulting public–private collaborations supported neoliberal planning, marking the end of the welfare state.

From comprising multiple plans, planning came to emphasize the formulation of comprehensive and detailed development plans. Besides formal consultation by engaging citizens in early phases of planning, municipalities were also responsible for reporting on the use of land and water, and on their approach to the ‘national interests’ (riksintressen) of the state (Nilsson, 2017, p. 130). The ‘areas of national interest’ are areas of ‘particular value with regard to nature conservation, cultural heritage, recreation, agriculture, forestry, fishing, herding and defence’ (Blücher, 2013, p. 53). Since then, Swedish municipalities have played an essential role in ‘proactive’ planning practice, exercising active political leadership, formulating alternative strategies, and promoting creative dialogue (Engström and Cars, 2013, p. 21). Municipal engagement in the planning process connects economic and growth-oriented politics to governance. The associated regulations are supposed to be flexible enough to be influenced by requirements and individual decisions regarding planning practice (Wänström, 2013). Given the wide range of local authority responsibilities in Sweden, a critical understanding of pragmatic

1 The City Planning Office (CPO) consists of city planners whose practice entails translating the local politicians’ vision of the city, presented in the form of implicit ideas and ideals, into the master plan, decisions on land-use regulations, and spatial arrangements. The plans are open for public consultation, and interactive discussions are held with other authorities, such as the Real Estate, City Engineer’s, and Street and Park offices, which influence the detailed development plan.

7 processes is very important in order to de-layer the engagements by which regulations are translated into norms, and by which individuals are commissioned to collaborate in financing, owning, or developing projects.

The process of developing a comprehensive plan entails collaboration and dialogue between the municipality and the state, and the primary plan is always presented to the public for input and consultation with the aim of influencing its content. This content regulates the boundaries between public and private land, and where, how, and for what purpose land can be developed or protected through a detailed development plan (Hedström and Lundström, 2013, p. 74) by which the levels of control and publicness are identified. This plan is formulated with reference to three sources of regulations: ‘zoning regulations’ (användningsbestämmelser) governing functions and uses; ‘quality regulations’ (egenskapsbästemmelser) governing size, features, building heights, and pedestrian paths; and ‘administrative regulations’ (administrativa bestämmelser) governing the implementation of the plan (Hedström and Lundström, 2013, p. 74). The use of public land ownership as a strategic tool for promoting and steering urban development has a long tradition in Sweden. Figure 1.1 presents a simplified diagram of the Swedish planning hierarchy according to the Planning and Building Act.

The municipal role and the practice of producing plans and working with developers are flexible and evolving, yet a political decision is needed before proceeding to the next step. Kalbro (2013, p. 89) has identified different project implementation outcomes based on the consequences of different types of land ownership and on the participation of developers, with the municipality, in plan preparation. Aside from the detailed development plan, area regulations and building permits are needed before construction. According to Hedström and Lundström (2013), area regulations have no specific implementation rule, and ‘do not provide any direct rights for property owners to use the land as stated, nor any guaranteed construction rights’ (p. 78).

8 Figure 1.1. Simplified diagram of the Swedish planning hierarchy according to the Planning and Building Act (source: the author). Meanwhile in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sweden made a serious move towards sustainable development, which continued at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. A government financial report in 1997 stressed the consideration of ‘environmentally sustainable development’ in ‘physical planning, technical development and investment’ based on ‘architectural quality considerations and [the] safeguarding of cultural values’ (Nyström, 1997, p. 29). In 1999, the Environmental Code came into force. ‘Smart growth’ within the urban system was accordingly the aim of urban development, in line with decisions on densification, public transport development, and brownfield transformation. The expected outcome was liveable neighbourhoods2 inspired by and imagined as low-rise and dense old European towns. In the last nearly two decades, as part of political objectives, efforts have been put into integrating sustainability concerns with spatial planning. In the last decade specifically, interest in urbanization has increased, which is also related to a large influx of refugees and a shortage of housing. Eliminating the duplication of steps in planning processes to make them more efficient is a political struggle because of the risk of losing sight of the main issues in long-term planning.

2 Improving the ‘liveability’ of places was emphasized by British planning and design in the late 1990s. The establishment of the Urban Task Force (UTF) was a response to the decline of regional inner-city areas and communities. The intention was to promote sustainable lifestyles, social inclusion, economic development, and environmental infrastructure based on the design of the physical environment. Regarding urban design, the UTF emphasized master planning as a leadership role. Public space became an important element in creating attractive environments to overcome the social and experiential challenges of industrial areas.

9 With reference to the above history of Swedish planning and building, the following aspects are essential in relation to the two case studies: First, during the 1980s and 1990s, a paradigm shift happened in the governance, planning, and building processes and in public management. Since then, individuals, including both interested citizens and business and private actors, have been empowered in the involved processes. A remaining question, however, concerns the publicness of space affected by the types and levels of engagements. Second, Swedish urban development, from a broader perspective, is also affected by globalization and by competition among European cities,3 so individual entrepreneurs and their development strategies, such as place marketing, have been introduced into planning processes and practices (Engström and Cars, 2013). As parts of entrepreneurial strategies, projects are defined based on the distribution of capital’s influences on planning, specifying domains in which to reinvent, reproduce, and reimagine places with new identities to attract capital. The challenge would therefore be how the local values of these places can confront global values, and vice versa. Third, sustainability issues affect how the social and political values of public spaces (i.e., the social pillar of sustainability) have been understood, addressed, and designed for in these two cases. Fourth, reflecting on studies highlighting that planning in Sweden has been generally affected by policy changes favouring the market economy and public–private collaboration (Khakee and Barbanente, 2003), it is important to go beyond idealized engagement in planning processes, to understand how the publicness of urban spaces has been affected by such engagement, to identify whose actions and decisions have been prioritized, and to expose the driving forces and so-called hidden hands in the projects.

The general guidance about building the publicness of space offered by the Planning and Building Act concerns building ‘with respect to individual freedom, promoting a society with equal and good living conditions and a sound and sustainable living environment for the people in today’s society and for future generations’ (from PBA, chapter 1, quoted by Hedström and Lundström, 2013, pp. 69–70). This recalls other urban policy documents addressing the public realm implicitly as a public good, and the message of individual equity, freedom, and well-being is translated within the framework of PBA and the Environmental Code. The promotion of these values, and their consequences, is often a preconceived assumption rather than a conscious understanding among various influential actors.

The revenues from land sales cover the city’s expenses incurred in making land available for developmental purposes, including land acquisition and the development of infrastructure (e.g., streets, sewers, and public spaces). These revenues are the main financial resource with which municipalities balance their

3 Sweden joined the EU in 1995, upholding the European Spatial Development Perspective and other international programmes.

10 expenses and achieve their goals. Therefore, in recent decades, municipalities have been dependent on developers, whose decisions have powerful effects even on future projects. Even the future users of public spaces are somehow ‘designed’ by investors when building residential or mixed-use blocks. By claiming to employ participatory methods and dialogue among actors, the city tries to hear various stakeholders, experts, and citizens, to ensure user equality and good living conditions. But who is to judge whether transformation has happened, whether the environment is equally accessible and liveable? Fainstein (2010) has stated that to create the just city, it is more important to have interests fairly represented than to value participation in and of itself.

In Swedish terminology, the sense of being in public concerns individuals’ sense of togetherness (gemenskap), and it is considered by asking ‘where’ (i.e., public or private) but not ‘with whom’. The Swedish sense of togetherness or being in public at the societal level is a strong bond between the individual and the state (Trägårdh, 2012, cited by Grundström, 2017). Publicness therefore largely concerns planning laws and regulations. Given the goal of equality and well-being, however, regardless of the ownership, every piece of land people have the right to access and use is public (Grundström, 2017). According to Swedish planning and building law, ‘a public place is a street, a road, a park, a square or other area, which according to a detailed plan is intended for public use’; places that are not public are kvartersmark (blocks where construction is permitted), defined as ‘land which, according to the detailed plan, is not a public place or body of water’ (Plan-och bygglagen, 2010, cited by Grundström, 2017, p. 3). Grundström (2017) emphasized that the notion of publicness and the threats to it, such as ‘gated communities’, should be discussed contextually.

Background of the Liljeholmstorget practice

One urban development approach used in Stockholm has been brownfield development (i.e., the renewal of industrial land) to integrate the suburbs with denser built-up areas around the subway lines. Liljeholmstorget transit hub was developed using the same approach. Underlying this project were conflicts around expanding the boundaries of Stockholm’s inner-city zone since the city reached its outer limits in the late 1970s and was in need of new housing. The main aim was to relocate industrial areas and redevelop them into less car-dependent, more liveable neighbourhoods (Nyström, 1997). This philosophy of ‘city-like’ (stadsmässighet) development was applied by many municipalities in Greater Stockholm in the late 1980s. The case study project was sited near an existing subway station in the Liljeholmen municipal district. Liljeholmen is the first suburb outside Stockholm’s inner city4 in the southwest part of the city. It is one of the twelve industrial zones earmarked by the city for gradual transformation and

4 The meaning of the term inner or central city has changed with the expansion of the city over time. It refers to the densest urban part of Stockholm, known as ‘inom tullarna’.

11 infilling (see Figure 1.2). The Liljeholmen area has a long industrial history, and major industrial expansion began in the area in the 1860s when SJ (the state- owned railway company for long-haul train traffic) built its operational headquarters there. The area has various industrial buildings as well as railway tracks facilitating industrial activities. Besides densification strategies, the environmental concerns of the 1990s led the development process and building standards to take account of environmental impacts. The idea to expand what was considered Stockholm’s inner city by moving its boundary outwards gave rise to various concerns and conflicts, and the intention to integrate the industrial site into the city centre in practice remained limited to densification strategies.

By 1996, a new plan was made to develop the Liljeholmstorget project; the implementation decision was made in 2001, and the development was completed in 2009. The project site was a big parking lot beside the existing Liljeholmen subway station and Trekanten Lake. Cars could reach the area via Essingeleden and Södertäljevägen (see Figure 1.3 for a historical map and image of the site). The planning objectives of this project called for the construction of mixed-use housing blocks and retail facilities, the development of public transport (i.e., improving the existing subway station and adding a bus terminal and light rail trains to the system), enhancing public life by creating defined public spaces, and improving and expanding existing public services. By the time the project started, planning discourses had gradually shifted their emphasis from ‘city-like’ to ‘sustainable development’ and architectural qualities were displaced by environmental considerations.

The identified needs served by this project were based on the lack of certain functions in the existing neighbourhood plus future requirements for new housing in Årsta and Marievik. Stockholm Municipality (Stockholms Stad) requires cooperation with the private sector for financial support and collaboration among the architects, engineers, and developers of each block. Stockholm Municipality is the project owner and landowner in the area. It also has the political power to shape the project’s goals and finances from beginning to end. The Liljeholmstorget transit hub project has been described as ‘high-quality urban transformation, integrating functions and realizing the vision of safe, pleasant, and vibrant urban spaces; an excellent example of a solution to an important planning task in sustainable urban development’ (Sveriges Arkitekter, 2010, author’s translation). According to the comprehensive plan, roughly 1600 new housing units have been built around Liljeholmstorget and in the adjacent Årstadal area (Stockholms stad stadsbyggnadskontoret, 2008, p. 60). By the time the Liljeholmstorget project was almost finished, other developments had slowly started in the former industrial areas of Lövholmen and Nybohovsbacken. When Liljeholmstorget was almost finished, the other developments had slowly started in the former industrial area of Lövholmen and Nybohovsbacken. The cement mill in Lövholmen has been active since the 1940s, and the tracks of the trains transporting raw and finished materials runs along Liljeholmstorget.

12 Today the Liljeholmstorget area has become an important transit hub where subways, buses, and light rail trains (i.e., trams) converge. The Liljeholmstorget shopping galleria, according to its developers, is one of the most popular malls in Stockholm. Figure 1.4 illustrates the situation of the project today.

13 Figure 1‎ .2. Infill development zones in Stockholm, with the Liljeholmen area marked in red (source: Stockholm Stadsbyggnadskontoret).

Figure 1‎ .3. Left: the site before development in 1996 (source: https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se, last update May 2017); right: the old subway platform, (source: http://www.kynerd.net/Tunnelbanan/Liljeholmen.html)

Figure 1.4. The situation of Liljeholmstorget in Liljeholmen district (source: Stockholm Stadsbyggnadskontoret; annotations by the author).

14 Background of the Wester Harbour Waterfront practice

Labelled a ‘labour city’, Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city, located at the southern tip of the country and having 300,000 inhabitants. The city’s 60,000 citizens with a foreign background, representing over 170 nationalities, doubled as a share of the population between 1995 and 2012 (Salonen, 2012, cited by Nylund, 2014). The city’s dockyards were developed on reclaimed land in the 1840s, and Malmö evolved into a thriving industrial city. In the 1950s and 1960s, Malmö was considered one of Sweden’s most prosperous growth regions; this success did not last, however, and in the 1970s Malmö went through a process of deindustrialisation. In that period of economic decline, major companies shut down or relocated; accordingly, many people moved elsewhere, resulting in social crisis (Dannestam, 2008). By the early 1980s, the shipbuilding industry was in decline and in the 1990s vanished completely from the Malmö dockyards. In the early 1990s, Malmö lost almost 25,000 jobs, mostly in the industrial sector; unemployment increased, and the city rapidly lost 30,000 inhabitants. ‘The municipality tried to solve the crisis of the industrial city with the tools of the industrial city, and understood too late that it was the industrial city as such, that was in a crisis’ (Dannestam, 2009, cited by Holgersen, 2015).

This economic decline resulted in an urban crisis. The government was under pressure from a strong immigration influx, which was also related to problems of unemployment and social exclusion (Mukhtar-Landgren, 2012). The City of Malmö decided to restructure and recapitalize the socio–economic landscape of the city. In January 1995, the municipal government initiated the ‘Vision work’ project, which served as the basis of a new comprehensive plan in 2000. The resulting vision was the outcome of eight thematic working groups considering the economy, business, education, the environment, urban development, culture, social affairs, as well as youth and the future. In June 1995, these groups presented their proposal to the municipal government. In February 1996, the material was compiled in an integrated report under the title Malmö Vision 2015; the report was presented to the municipal government, the vision even being translated into a staged portrayal (Mukhtar-Landgren, 2012). The transformation vision, entitled Towards a Knowledge City, was intended to foster an identity shift, remodelling the city’s industrial image into one better aligned with the new knowledge and information society (Malmö, 2001).

City politicians decided to take advantage of the city’s deindustrialization, initiating related visions, marketing strategies, and neoliberal processes. This took the form of a range of spatial practices promoting the emergence of an ‘entrepreneurial city’. The initiative came from then mayor, an architect who was the Social Democratic chair of the city council from 1994 to 2013. He played an important role in focusing the local politicians’ attention and convincing them that the city had to move on from its industrial origins (Reepalu, 2001, cited by Jansson, 2005). He coordinated the operational management of transforming Malmö into ‘the city of tomorrow’. This intention became a political force for the

15 socio–economic transformation of Malmö, reconstructing its uncertain identity and public image, and putting it again on the map.

In January 1995, the municipal government initiated a comprehensive visioning effort, Project Malmö 2000. The intention was to quickly formulate a feasible and positive image for Malmö, to promote in-migration and entrepreneurial start-ups through strategic spatial planning. The head of the municipal planning department stressed the importance of implementing various spatial strategies as keys to success in this transformation (Interview with city planner, 6 March 2015). Three main strategies (illustrated in Figure 1.5) were formulated to realize these city-scale transformation goals, to help government forces restore Malmö’s prominence:

- Cross-border connections were established via the Öresund Bridge, a road and rail bridge connecting Sweden to Denmark and the rest of Europe, positioning Malmö in the newly defined Öresund region (July 2000). - A new university with 25,000 students was established to provide a knowledge basis for the new city vision (July 1998). It is located in central Malmö, near the train station and the Western Harbour area. - Comprehensive spatial planning transforming the Western Harbour area into a complete mixed-use district was initiated for the European Housing Expo Bo01 – City of Tomorrow to encourage sustainable ways of living.

According to Malmö municipal planners, spatial strategies and negotiating the site of the project were important tools. Another site had been suggested for the Housing Exhibition, but the city changed it to the Western Harbour industrial site, closer to the city centre and central public transport station, to better integrate the site into the city. In 1996, the Malmö Municipality acquired the 175-hectare artificial island, Western Harbour, for the development of a new ‘eco-district’. Malmö’s period of industrial decline overlapped a number of environmental disasters that had particular impacts on Sweden. This was concurrent with new political interest in sustainability, spurred by the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992, which highlighted the important role of local governments in tackling climate change.

Planning for the European Housing Expo – Bo01 was initiated by Bo01 AB. Bo01 AB was a subsidiary of the non-profit organization, Svensk Bomässa, which is owned jointly by the Swedish state, the Swedish Association of Municipalities, the Swedish Association of Municipal Housing Foundation (SABO), the City of Malmö, and other cities and municipalities. With the support of the mayor of the time, determined visionary and strategic work was initiated to promote impressive change, promising attractive living and urban environments as part of ‘an ecologically sustainable information and welfare society’ (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999). The aim was to draw people’s attention to Malmö

16 in the wake of its severe immigration and financial crisis, to create hope for change.

After the adoption of the plan in 2000, developers had one year to prepare the Expo. The identity crisis symbolically ended in summer 2003 when the Kockums crane, the world’s largest of its kind and a Malmö landmark (see Figure 1.6, left), was exported to South Korea.5 The industrial land of the Western Harbour had entered a new era of gradual spatial and functional change which has continued up to the present. In 2000, the planning and political discussion in Sweden concerned the human living environment, or habitat, and everyday life. The theme of the housing exhibition in Malmö consequently became that of creating an ecologically sustainable information and welfare society, in an effort by Malmö to create a leading example of the environmental adaptation of a densely built urban environment.

Bo01 Expo consisted of three parts: a housing fair (featuring 40 architecture and interior design concepts), including an international section called the ‘European Village’, a landscaping display in the eastern part of the site, and an art exhibition focusing on questions of housing and urbanism. While the art exhibition and certain parts of the outdoor environments were temporary, all the housing facilities and urban structures were to become part of the new neighbourhood. In total, about 350 housing units were built (of 500 planned) in the exhibition area by different European architectural firms. After the housing exhibition, development of the area continued according to the same plan, though with some changes in design. The right-hand panel of Figure 1.6 shows the area of study before development, while Figure 1.7 illustrates the current condition of the project.

5 The Koreans call the Kockums crane ‘The Tears of Malmö’, after the sadness of the people of Malmö to see it go.

17 Figure 1.5. Right: Malmö in the Öresund region; left: the Western Harbour industrial area, showing the university, Malmö Högskolan, and Bo01, the case study area (source: Google maps, illustration by the author).

Figure 1.6. Spatial transformation of Western Harbour; left: the Kockums shipyard and crane as Malmö’s symbolic landmark, 1974; right: Aerial view of the area before development (Source: Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret).

Figure 1.7. Bo01, Western Harbour Waterfront, Malmö (source: Arkitektur, 2011, p.23)

18 1.4 Limitations and delimitations

This research has been conducted within the scope of a doctoral programme in planning and decision analysis at the Department of Urban and Regional Studies, of the Royal Institute of Technology. While the study presents its findings separately for the case studies, each of which has its own project-based considerations, it starts and ends by considering urban design from a broad perspective. Few examples from different contexts highlights that urban design can benefit from empirical studies and ‘observations’, not limited to the physical outcomes but the mechanisms that enable or constraint participation in space.

One of the important delimitations of this study is the selection of studied cases. Both cases are located in Sweden and are framed by a Western European theoretical perspective. In most societies, urban design approaches have evolved over time and reflect indigenous social, economic, and political challenges. In Sweden, the period since the late 1990s is the present focus. It is an important era for particular decisions, with the current situation or reality of place in which I have been living since 2010 being a consequence of that time: first, citizen collaboration and engagement have been emphasized in planning during this era; second, collaboration between the private and public sectors in the development process has been acknowledged; and third, both cases are aligned with the ‘sustainable development’ stream. Both cases are assessed as embodying best practices for different reasons, and the criteria for making this assessment are central to the discussion of the study. The Stockholm case won awards for the collaboration between urban and traffic planners, while the Malmö case is internationally acknowledged for developing renewable energy resources, green building practices, and upholding environmental values. As is clear by stated intentions and outcomes, neither case is outstanding for its public realm, and this fact intentionally shaped the choice, to enable exploration of the influence of general intentions and larger strategies on the design and appropriation of public spaces.

Besides deliberate personal choices as limitations of this study, other limitations were beyond the author’s control. There are several voices and intentions in urban design that can be studied. The development and implementation process of urban design comprises various activities and stakeholders – related to both the context and project – such as landowners, investors, developers, managers, and future users. In exploring their engagement, I delimited the research to considering the local authority, particularly the city planning offices of the Swedish municipalities of Stockholm and Malmö, the projected and real users (and non-users) of the public spaces, as well as the landscape architects and architects involved in designing the space.

As a researcher, I am also aware of the complexity of engagement, which makes it difficult to deny one’s pre-existing knowledge and experiential background. As a

19 practicing architect, I was aware of the influence of my understandings of ‘objective truth’, formed within a positivist school of thought. I tried to keep a critical distance from my preconceptions and pre-existing interests.

1.5 Reading guide

The study is structured into seven chapters. Chapter one presents the background (1.1) of this study, including overall reflections on the intention-outcome gap observed between urban design theory and practice, and outlines the aim and research questions (1.2). Then I present background information on the Swedish planning and building process (1.3), i.e., social and economic conditions in Sweden in the late 1990s, and on the overall intentions and strategies of planning and development in each case. The scope and limitations of this research are described (1.4), followed by an overview of the study and its structure (1.5).

Chapter two formulates the theoretical positions taken. It starts (2.1) by reviewing the literatures on urban design as a process, which helps us understand the intention–outcome gap through the lens of knowledge–action dialectics and roles taken in a process. The chapter continues by addressing user’s engagements in the production of publicness (2.2), exploring different types of the appropriation of public space, and, accordingly, re-identifying publicness. This section argues for the potential of appropriations, which can transform publicness of space to become more democratic. The chapter ends by shedding light on lessons of unintended consequences for urban design in the production process (2.3).

The study continues in chapter three to identify research design and methods. Through combining strategies (3.1), the reasearch introduces case study methodology and the choice of cases, and justifying comparative analysis as a source of validity when generalizing the findings. The data are accordingly collected through studying both experts’ (planners and designers) and users’ engagement. Various data sources are introduced (3.2) in detail in this section. This chapter ends by reflecting on the research methodology and the limitations and delimitations of the data collection (3.3).

The findings regarding the Stockholm and Malmö practices are analysed and described in chapters four and five, respectively. The production process of each case starts by revealing stated intentions and strategies to highlight experts’ engagement in the Stockholm (4.1) and Malmö (5.1) cases. The roles and actions in materializing publicness are presented. In the following sections on the Stockholm (4.2) and Malmö (5.2) cases, publicness is described through examining places of everyday practice. Revealing appropriations as the socio– spatial consequences of designed publicness in the Stockholm (4.3) and Malmö (5.3) cases discusses publicness through dialectic processes.

20 Chapter six discusses the findings regarding the two cases in light of each other through comparing the similarities and differences in the urban design processes and reflecting them on the appropriation of space (6.1). The next section (6.2) presents the concluding remarks, revisiting publicness and its transformation process and the challenges of applying in practice in applying such knowledge. The last section (6.3) presents contribution of this study for urban planning and design.

21 22 Chapter 2. Conceptual and theoretical framework in producing publicness

In this chapter, first I describe in section 2.1 the intention–outcome gap through discussing urban design knowledge and processes in relation to their outcome, considering matters that affect the publicness of space in everyday practice. This section discusses the driving forces of spatial production, and the dynamic engagements between the actors involved in different stages of the process, by which certain decisions influence the level of publicness. The discussion sheds light on the importance of the knowledge–action dialectic in this process. In line with this, the appropriation of space is introduced in section 2.2, which within the context of this study brings a dialectical approach to producing publicness and expands the discussion and practice of urban design to encompass such understanding of public space. Appropriations are micro-practices, tangible in public space, that enact forms of democracy in being; they are togetherness, encounters and expressions of selves, including (dis)satisfactions, that become tangible as the adaptation, leaving the space, or contestation of produced publicness. The theoretical approach frames appropriations in relation to the produced space (regulated and built form) and therefore de-layers and analyzes them in terms of different types of experiencing publicness. These appropriations reveal a socio–spatial and temporal relationship that is not necessarily compatible with the produced or given one and can be formulated as unintended

23 consequences. The call for a dialectics of unintended consequences, in section 2.3, is intended to show that the outcome of urban design is complex and can be effective for constant production. How and by whom publicness is appropriated in everyday practice, and how and why public space would enable or resist appropriations will be discussed further through the case studies in chapter four and five.

2.1 On spatial production

The production process, in relation to urban design, is a practice of designing cities that has influence on the quality and character of the public realm. In such a practice, human values such as ‘vitality’, ‘access’, ‘sense’, ‘control’, and ‘justice’ (Lynch, 1981) should be fundamental, and are generally discussed in and through public spaces. There are several specific divergent definitions of public space in light of which spatial production could be critiqued. A major one is assigning urban design the task of producing space, with public space accordingly as its product. The questions such as ‘how public is public space’ (Németh, 2012), or ‘whose public space’ (Madanipour, 2010) are intended to highlight this heated debate, including the urban design process in spatial production because then its product (i.e., public space) can be better understood as social space.

This section argues for the role of the urban design process in identifying levels of publicness, which are usually regarded as different types of democratic manifestation. Views of such matters differ among democratic philosophers, as Goodsell (2003) has reviewed some of them to define public space in various ways6. He identified the potentials of urban planning and design to promote democracy in public space through ‘creating open physical places … that will adequately function as sites of public use and citizen interaction’ (Goodsell, 2003, p. 363). While giving a political interpretation to architecture, he also discussed how buildings can symbolically reinforce political power. Accordingly, spatial production has been identified as the main urban design intention, but facing different contextual challenges, for example, provision of urban vitality and well- being, making spaces more human in scale and multi functional, and maintaining participatory democracy. In his review, he shows that the concept of public space is either being romanticized in terms of nostalgic and classic interactions or in decline.

6 According to Goodsell’s (2003) review of public space, views vary among democratic philosophers: Arendt (1958) regarded public space as an arena and sphere of public action and speech on public matters, essential to democratic citizenship; Habermas (1989) envisioned a common world with universal access where matters of public interest are discussed by private individuals, with public space being a medium; Benhabib (1996) pointed out the function of public space to foster consensus and enlarged mentality; and, finally, Deutsche (1996), a feminist theorist, regarded public space as liberated discourse, not as an outcome inherently empty of substantive content (Goodsell, 2003, pp. 362–363).

24 The human values in public space or levels of publicness are designed in planning and building processes. Therefore, discussing actors’ knowledge and their roles in the process of spatial production is required. The engagement of urban design in the process of production relates it to diverse intentions, i.e., the political and economic will for change. There are two major ways according to Madanipour (2014, p. 102) that production of space plays role in economy: space production for use, or space production for exchange. The former process responds to human needs and the latter responds to the market. This shows the significant role of urban design because of its connection to the financial sector and their mechanisms of spatial production and involvement with private space as much as with public. Therefore, understanding the challenges of urban design in this process benefit the discussion of everyday public space and its publicnessUrban designers are considered actors of change whose knowledge has the power to exert influence. When democratic governments aim for change under centralized planning structures, they accept the risk of something new while providing sufficient enabling knowledge and research. Even the process of commissioning experts, including designers and developers, is part of the choices and decisions influencing the process.

On knowledge/action

Urban design’s driving force in project-based practice is intentions, including either the implicit values of cities or elaborated aspirations, which are idealistic yet too abstract for urban design, while its actions are merely to ‘secure a commission, gain support and/or acceptance for a project, obtain funding and/or secure permission for a development or proposal’ (Carmona et al., 2010, p. 331). There is still great ignorance about implementation processes, which involve the market and private sector as well as their intentions for investments in public space. However, some scholars have stressed the importance of process in designing the spatial outcome. Punter (2007, 2003) addressed the pressure exerted on urban design by the forces of globalization and neoliberalism to initiate and advance economic development. From his perspective, ‘the entrepreneurial city’ is the driving force of a practice of image-making, place-making, and the creation of a city of events and festivals. In his extensive work, he highlights the importance of design review as an additional control process, while revealing the legal challenges in the process. He suggests developing a set of principles of best practice for assessing existing systems by conducting complex design negotiations. Punter (2003, pp. 317–345) has recommended changing architects’ attitudes and knowledge, raising overall design quality, and making the design process fair and democratic. Hayden (1995) emphasized the history of places and spatial struggles, based on her experience in Los Angeles’ urban communities. In her practice, experts interact with the dominant paradigm through collaboration between historians, planners, designers, and artists to address narratives of power relationships and how social life structures territory, and vice versa, in relation to a politics of experiencing places as contested territories. She has discussed the political–economic structure expressed through design, and suggests revisiting ‘the history of urban cultural landscape’ (Hayden, 1995, p. 43).

25 These knowledges also require a reflective process to allow actors to be pragmatic about their visions, engendering alternatives and even offering a chance for redoubled reflection to correct false expectations (Forester, 2012a, 2012b). Planning practice also applies a critical approach to urban theory and sheds light on actors’ political and moral decisions, as articulated in their reflections, which should be taken into account in addition to their normativity. Reflective practitioners discuss how informative processes are not always enough for making change or addressing major concerns (Campbell, 2012; Schön, 1991). Through pragmatic rationality, actors constantly search for the truth, which helps them avoid the facts–values dichotomy, in which it is impossible to separate the rational objective choices and subjective desires involved in the process (Verma, 2011, p. 8).

The approaches that urban design applies in the design process can be related to the knowledge–action relationship. Broadbent (1990) classified different normative theories of urban design based on their philosophical approaches as rationalism, empiricism, and pragmatism. The form of knowledge in urban design is different, however, as it inherently integrates various fields and, in practice, entails including/excluding needed knowledge of various kinds On one hand, it is interdisciplinary applied knowledge (‘know-how’) dealing with the complexity of urban phenomena; on the other, it comprises the disparate knowledges, perspectives, and desires of its actors, which concern knowledge of practice, learnt through their engagement in the process, addressing the challenges and potentials that emerge. The former is discussed as empirical knowledge and the latter relates it to pragmatic rationality; this means that understanding the process requires analysing the knowledge–action dialectic and de-layering actors’ engagements.

The application of knowledge is related to modernist planning and rationalist philosophy. Within rational planning and design, problem solving constitutes the experts’ ability, through applying their (interdisciplinary) knowledge. This approach is criticized for seeking universal truths or indulging in reductionism in practice, and merely instrumentally using knowledge. The postmodern approach to knowledge instead considers the relevant knowledges (Rydin, 2007). Within this perspective, instead of merely borrowing them, urban design should be able to integrate multiple knowledges. Schneekloth and Shibley (2000) articulated a similar challenge in relation to ‘implacing architecture into the practice of placemaking’, as a more objective and expert-knowledge-driven architecture could learn from placemaking driven by local knowledge as an ‘everyday practice of making and transforming the world’ (p. 130). On one hand, the authors emphasized going beyond the dualisms that divide expert from local knowledges and privilege the objective over the subjective, while, on the other hand, acknowledging that accepting complete relativism and multi-knowledges makes it difficult to take action (Schneekloth and Shibley, 2000, p. 135).

26 The science of urban design is embedded in social and political choices that include/exclude knowledges/actors in the process. Such practice-relevant knowledge relates urban design to pragmatic philosophy, according to which the elements of a process must be understood in terms of their practical consequences. In urban design, Inam (2011) emphasized practical theory, or ‘theory as practice’, which is a more ‘instrumental conception of knowledge’ for accomplishing the task. He introduced a pragmatic understanding of design expressed in terms of the knowledge–action dialectic. Then the question is what knowledge should be specified, as a thread running through the process, to make urban design more ‘meaningful’ (Inam, 2002) or its practice into a democratic project. Inam (2002) recommended three fundamental milestones that should mark the urban design process: being ‘teleological’, based on the real purposes and critical challenges of cities rather than abstract intentions; being ‘catalytic’, considering the policy making and private decisions (i.e., political and market intentions) that shape cities so that design will have long-term socio–economic impact; and being ‘relevant’, considering normative theories of urban form regarding human values.

One challenge of urban design is applying empirical and interdisciplinary knowledge deductively, while many of the involved relationships vary between and within different times or contexts. There is an impressive body of knowledge evaluating publicness from subjective perspectives, seeking collective values and shared meanings. For example, in research on downtown Tampa, Florida, Mehta (2014) defined the five elements of public space as ‘inclusiveness, meaningfulness, safety, comfort and pleasurability’ (p. 58), observing whether the public space (i.e., the layout, design, and type of supported activities) supports social activities and behaviour, becoming ‘responsive, democratic and meaningful’ (Mehta, 2014, p. 57). Another example is the research conducted by Carr et al. (1992) categorizing five basic needs of people in public spaces: ‘comfort’, ‘relaxation’, ‘passive engagement with the environment’, ‘active engagement with the environment’, and ‘discovery’. These authors claimed that ‘in a well-designed and well-managed public space, the armor of daily life can be partially removed, allowing us to see others as whole people’ (Carr et al., 1993, p. 344, cited in Amin, 2008).

By emphasizing human experiences of space and built form, Sternberg (2000), among other scholars, emphasized the need for a substantive (not just procedural) theory of urban design and to identify concepts such as ‘form’, ‘legibility’, ‘vitality’, and ‘meaning’ in terms of economic rationales. The values of the built form and spatial conditions supporting human perceptions and accordingly publicness of space have been overlooked (such as design principles by Whyte, 1980 and Gehl, 1996), yet the process of achieving or sustaining them in relation to other challenges of design process has been insufficiently discussed. Sternberg (2000) encouraged the urban designer (in practice, and within the field of planning) to ‘make her way within the organizational contexts of professional practice, negotiate and resolve disagreements, muddle along within the constraints of human knowledge, grapple with complex ambiguities, survive in a world of power

27 imbalances, and present ideas with rhetorical force’ (p. 276). It is important that urban design knowledge take account of complexity and how things flow and evolve rather than focusing simply on producing products, the values of which are by-products. These examples illustrate the various dimensions of the knowledges that urban design borrows in practice.

In a provocative 2012 argument, Marshall accused urban design of being ‘pseudo- scientific’ and questioned some of its underpinnings because they are uncritically applied (Marshall, 2012, p. 267). On this matter, Dovey and Pafka (2016) conducted a useful review of urban scholars in the 1960s and 1960s – Jacobs, Alexander, Lynch, Cullen, Sitte and Cerdá – whose nuanced observations of cities are applied by urban design. The authors observed that for urban design practice responsible for questions and concerns associated with ‘how to make’, knowledge is broader and more reliable than theory, encompassing natural and social sciences, besides the art and humanities. Based on their observation, ‘ “knowhow” is a capacity to get things done’ (Dovey and Pafka, 2016, p. 8). So, urban design requires knowledge based on detailed observations of how cities work. Producing publicness should have an ‘abductive logic’ to explain a set of observations ‘backwards from effect to cause by educated guesswork’ (Dovey and Pafka, 2016, p. 8). This observation of urban design is open to different ideologies. Publicness is accordingly seen as arising out of interaction between experts, their roles, knowledges, actions, material outcomes, and consequences. Dovey and Pafka (2016) observed that ‘knowledge is to be found in understanding that we do not know; in no field is this more pertinent than in the study of urban design’ (p. 9).

Another important concern in the production process is time, as the actors, including builders, developers, financers, landowners, and architects (as well as users, as discussed in the next section), all have different contract-related actions. Their approach to the place, although supposedly defined by project intentions, is divided into fragmented sequences and separated objectives. In reality, architects or urban designers commissioned for long-term development projects never meet the end users, even though putting people and their needs first has been the ‘primary loyalty of urban design’ (Madanipour, 2014, p. 8). Carmona (2014) has acknowledged that the process of shaping and reshaping space involves use and management (and their concurrent processes). As Carmona (2014, p. 11) illustrates, this continuum of space is shaped for use (through the design and development stages) and then shaped through use (through the use and management stages). Although his study of London provides a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of each production phase, bringing users of space as shapers of space into the image, the publicness of space is not discussed in a relational manner as an interaction between the fragmented shaping processes. The elements of publicness (including its territory), although produced and practiced in different stages and through fragmented actions, influence one another, and not in an essentially sequential way. For example, the management of space is initially related to regimes of control that are decided on and designed earlier through land ownership, plot size, or types of public functions. This is not to ignore that management is a practice related to the everyday use of space, in

28 relation to maintenance or safety. Therefore, the outcome of production processes, or the place, evolves according to different unintended consequences, therefore the process of production should be discussed through dialectical processes.

In the production process, the concepts ‘lived space’, ‘everyday space’, and ‘place’ fundamentally address the spatiality of those who inhabit the space, as well as their senses, meanings, and experiences. Yet in production processes, public spaces are considered sites that are made places by those inhabiting them, but without considering how this happens and without designing sites specifically to become places. Agnew (2004) discusses place in different scale and relations: as a geographical ‘location’, the relations of everyday life activities (‘locale’), as well as the unique sense of that place. Therefore, a public place is not only a site or geography controlled by humans and institutions, it is also a place for perceptions, meanings, behaviours, and social encounters. The former matter is discussed in this section in terms of the urban design process, while the latter is further addressed in the following section. The point here is to stress that the production process does not end with the physical site and the physical outcome of urban design; rather, a physical space should incorporate considerations of transformation, i.e., how the site and its relationships encourage (or restrict) a set of meanings and actions.

This review illustrated how the publicness of space is discussed in terms of separated production processes, through larger policies and visions as well as design regimes of control that encompass public land, infrastructure, and access. This section also briefly reviewed urban design as a social process shared between actors (e.g., planners and architects) who inevitably combine and confuse the serving of both public and private interests. These actors can empower publicness through different ways of engaging in the process, ranging from designing public territories (in master plans) to designing everyday experiences. As part of this process, however, urban design must clearly discern whose intentions are driving the process, to determine whose interests are or are not being served in the public space. Urban design occupies a crucial position in producing publicness, mediating between actions and using its spatial creativity to discuss the consequences of various choices and alternatives.

The spatial outcome and the process that creates it matter for the quality of publicness, but this requires substantive understanding and critical involvement in the process. Therefore, the tendency to provide/produce space is a political engagement that urban design cannot uncritically take part in and adopt, combining and using theories. In other words, the knowledge that urban design practice requires is not only an integrative theory (see, e.g., Sternberg, 2000) of spatial form incorporating specific social or perceptual considerations, but also a set of general values to be applied in the process. The general performance of public spaces, taking account of human values in the context of this study, is the right to practice the space and accordingly participate in producing publicness, which is described later (in section 2.2).

29 On roles

The process of spatial production varies depending on the role that urban design takes, which is significantly important for the transformation of our cities. Madanipour (1999, 2006, 2014) argues that urban design has an internal part of the production of the built environment, and its spatial knowledge and visual skills are necessary, the communication among its actors are also very important for communicating ideas. This role, as Child (2010) has explained, varies depending on the level of engagement with individual or civic good, from being the ‘author’, ‘editor’, or ‘fellow’ of cities. For example, urban design becomes less civic by taking roles in projects and less individual by taking national and local roles (Child, 2010, pp. 6–8). In addition, cities are confronting new political, economic, and cultural changes that urban design is expected to accommodate spatially (Madanipour, 2006). These changes drive new projects and, accordingly, new design intentions arise as utopian visions for shaping the future. Visions are important in order to attract resources and to ‘ensure a degree of control over what are often felt as uncontrollable forces’ (Madanipour, 2006, p. 182), such as the economic and political influence of the financers or owners of projects. De- layering urban design processes and the applied tools and strategies reveals that enhancing the city image goes hand in hand with place marketing (Madanipour, 2006; Punter, 2007). Studies have drawn attention to the challenges that the provision of public spaces confronts due to the increasingly mixed and multicultural nature of public spaces, where the use or interests of one social group can challenge another group’s or individual’s values or activities (Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht, 2009; Zukin, 1998).

Inadequate communication or imbalance power relationship among the actors might result in some actors dominating the process. Engagement of private and public actors in the process either at the ownership level or in governing the space affects the level of publicness (Németh and Schmidt, 2011; Németh, 2012). Besides, the developers and financers of private buildings are interested in symbolic architecture to attract investors and economic activity, which might threaten publicness by producing privatized and commodified public spaces. Therefore, the intention–outcome gap is related to the role of urban design and its critical approach to considering the fundamental values of public spaces.

In project-led urban design, the experts are under pressure to produce proper outcomes in order to build a good reputation and manifest their success to politicians or financers. From this perspective, the outcome is a site with defined standards that govern the professional practice of urban design (Baer, 2011, pp. 277–287). The threat is that the outcome of the production process, i.e., the material space, will be favoured for economic improvement (Cuthbert, 2007; Madanipour, 2006) and branding strategies (Marshall, 2012) in the interest of global relations and competitiveness. It is therefore possible that intentions may not represent the dynamics of the implementation process, and that mainstream urban design may act instrumentally in designing publicness.

30 Lang (2005) described the urban design process as ‘a rational step-by-step procedure that moves from perceptions of a problem to post-implementation evaluation of a completed work’ (p. 26). In addition, Lang (2005) has discussed how urban design simply does not fit in the sequence of ‘intelligence’, ‘design’, ‘choice’, ‘implementation’, and ‘operation’, acknowledging ‘the degree of control that a designer, as an individual or as a team, has over the creation of a product’ (p. 27). The challenge of a production process is often related to experts’ self- conscious interventions in (Lang, 2005) and associations with project-based practices of exercising knowledge and power. Production process should therefore be seen through the lens of ‘the agency model’, which highlights the importance of the dynamic interaction of all involved actors. According to this model, the production process is about the knowledge–action relationships of its actors or decision-makers, which ‘constitute an organisational framework for the evolution of the built environment’ (Knox and Ozolins, 2000, p. 4). According to Lang (2005), participants in the design process learn as they go along, while arguing about the variables and considerations required for ‘good design’ (p. 27); moreover, he identified four generic types of urban design work that vary in their processes (pp. 27–28):

- ‘total urban design’, in which the urban designer is part of the development team; - ‘all-of-a-piece urban design’, in which the team devises a master plan or set of parameters or guidelines for developers; - ‘piece-by-piece urban design’, in which general policies are applied to steer development in a specific direction; and - ‘plug-in urban design’ to create the infrastructure to support development.

Lang’s categories illustrate the importance of process, which, even though it varies between types of practice, nevertheless identifies the essential role of actors in identifying the values in the process. By positioning urban design as a mediator between planning and architecture, Lang argued that the flow of decision-making is one way and that urban design is expected to translate planning decisions into design decisions (Lang, 2005, pp. 59–60). He contested this process and emphasized that the knowledge, creativity, and the effects of decisions should be interwoven at different scales.

Producing publicness in a pragmatic manner means that urban design needs to be engaged in political and market decision-making processes in order to reflect on the spatial consequences of the decisions reached, such as privatization, exclusion, segregation, invasion, and many other social consequences. Cuthbert (2007) stressed four levels at which urban design functions, each level being complex and irreducible to a single formula (pp. 76–78): - the processes of land allocation, land exploitation, and efficient use of land, in which urban design is a mediator resolving conflict among actors; - spatializing needs and demands, and accordingly mitigating outcomes such as social conflict;

31 - facilitating commodity circulation for transport functions and for city branding; and - fulfilling ideological and symbolic requirements to appropriate the needs of the state or the market.

This is where urban design is subject to the most criticism: where the spatial design process takes a back seat, intentionally or inevitably, to parallel economic, political, and technical processes; where it needs to deal with planning departments, private-sector firms, engineers, and many criteria for evaluating outcomes (see the exchange between Gunder, 2011, and Talen, 2011). Cuthbert hints at important considerations in producing publicness; for example, actors should be involved in allocating land, and this entails designing the actors of the development process. Even though his criticism of urban design is in a broader sense related to any practice involved in the political economy, a critical perspective on the process is important, to shift its approaches away from ‘production of urban meaning in certain urban forms’ (Cuthbert, 2007, p. 25). Increasing the level of publicness should be regarded as the value of the process; as Lynch (1981) emphasized, values are the overall guidelines of the process:

Decisions about urban policy, or the allocation of resources, or where to move, or how to build something, must use norms about good and bad. Short-range or long-range, broad or selfish, implicit or explicit, values are an inevitable ingredient of any decision. Without some sense of better, any action is perverse. When values lie unexamined, they are dangerous. (Lynch, 1981, p. 1)

While highlighting publicness as a value in the process, urban design should apply its knowledge for the spatial outcome and its underlying rationale, in addition to the creativity, ambiguity, and complexity to which design and its irrational character contribute. However the spatial outcome, as Lynch (1981) emphasizes, is not an object; rather, it performs a role in the city; it is not pure and there is no predictable relationship between physical concerns and human satisfaction, relationships with others, cross-cultural values, and the public interest (pp. 99– 102). Lynch’s insights into the complexity of city design suggest designing the process by which the value is achieved while considering plurality and alternative solutions and achievements in this process.

Many scholars with faith in the potential of good urban form to strengthen the quality of cities (and publicness of space) have discussed the narrow, instrumental approaches of urban design, preoccupied with physical outcomes as end-products (Inam, 2002). They advocate a shift in discourse towards the ‘urbanism’ movement, which, broadly and simply stated, calls for less design and more ‘urban’ when it comes to knowledge of and actions in the field (Madanipour, 2014). However, this shift will not prompt any change if it falls into the trap of

32 simply providing a new definition used in justifying old actions. Or this shift might entail a call for professionals to make a new commitment to the city, based on new demands, such as restoration or place-making (Krieger, 2009). The shift to the urbanism discourse is in fact a call for critical observation of urban design rationality and its objectivity doctrine, even if this leads to ‘different theories, strategies and design actions’ (Krieger, 2009, pp. 113–130).

The impact of urban design processes on levels of publicness is crucial, particularly in project-led design, which involves tight programming as well as multiple actors, ownership types, financers, landowners, and many others. Therefore, discussing the gradation from public to private is crucial in these projects, in which public space is frequently discussed among the actors. Marcuse (2005, p. 778) argued that the different levels of publicness in relation to ownership, function, and use are each identified at different times in practice and by different actors. Regardless of innovative and democratic concepts in urban design practice, the methods or strategies for identifying social needs, regulating public space, and enabling public engagement are mostly the same. Nevertheless, zoning plans still distinguish ‘public’ from ‘private’ in the provision of open space and public functions, while paying less attention to the various levels of publicness and their consequences.

2.2 Publicness in becoming

Users’ production of publicness (or co-production, referring to the iterative process) is seen as a consequence of produced space, which can have tangible effects. Here I briefly recall Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of space or the ‘spatial triad’ (coined by Soja, 1980) as a ‘social construct’. Lefebvre’s concern with The Production of Space – the title of his book – was with capitalism as the means of spatial production. In his view, space serves the capitalist system within economic class structure, and everyday space is a place where capitalism reproduces itself. Lefebvre, through problematizing capitalism, noted that the market and accordingly experts prioritize the ‘space of representation’, which includes both the representation of space and spatial practices. The power of the market and capitalism in identifying public good can be seen, felt, and practiced in public places and everyday life. Lefebvre related levels of performance and continuity of production (i.e., spatial practice) to orders, knowledge, signs, and formal relationships (i.e., representation of space) and to complex symbolism (i.e., representational space). Public space is a realm that produces the public, similar to social space, which incorporates individual and collective actions; within public (social) space, the public (i.e., the subjects) develop, ‘give expression to themselves, and encounter prohibitions; then they perish, and that same space contains their graves’ (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 33–34).

By emphasizing the power of users’ spatial practices, and scrutinizing those in relation to intended and produced space, I argue that appropriations of space are not outcomes but consequences of both design and use of space. By this argument,

33 appropriations are observed actions in space that shed light on actors’ desires and rights or both, which cannot be fully rationalized. Although urban designers as discussed in the previous section decide on and build the levels and types of publicness, recognition and experience of these levels and types vary according to time, users, and the unforeseen consequences. If we frame the appropriation of space in the context of this study in terms of Lefebvre’s words, it refers to ‘lived space’, and addresses individuals’ or the social group’s use and experiences, yet as a dialectics of conceived and perceived space. Appropriation as social practice happens in many different types and levels. However, due to the interest of this research, unplanned (unintended) adaptations and changes, which are materialized in space, are taken into consideration. If these intentions become tangible in space, they can mobilize, or contest, and generally transform publicness, physically, socially, symbolically, and/or politically. The question would be: How do we observe user’s engagement that appropriates the publicness of space? To answer this question, this section presents two discussions concerning, first, what appropriation means for producing publicness and, second, the forms of practices that appropriate the space and accordingly its publicness.

On appropriation

Lefebvre’s concept of ‘trial by space’ calls into question the established form of spatial power and sheds light on the production of space, as ‘groups, classes and fractions of classes cannot constitute themselves, or recognize one another, as subjects unless they generate (or produce) a space’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 416). Different individuals become actors in space through different reasoning, by which they address the space and produce it by their own publicness. What Lefebvre addressed with this concept is the ‘dramatic moment, when whatever is being tried – philosophy or religion, ideology or established knowledge, capitalism or socialism, state or community – is put radically into question’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 417). He followed up the concept by stressing that it varies between contexts depending on the concerns involved, yet ‘it does not occur in identical fashion every where’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 417). The concept obviously is crucial for discussing public spaces as exclusions, regimes of control, and democracy – spaces that are not simply someone’s everyday space (Hou, 2010a, pp. 1–17). There are examples of such ‘insurgent public spaces’ around the world, particularly during the last decade (Hou, 2010b), also addressing insurgent citizenship (Crawford, 1995). That dramatic moment when groups generate the space (cf. Lefebvre’s ‘trial by space’) is the ideal from democratic perspectives.

The meaning of this concept, from an urban design point of view, is a dialectical question and articulates an immanent critique of urban daily life, as an outcome of practice. Claiming the ‘right to the city’ through daily spatial practices can be done through acts of rejecting spatial forces; these acts could also be mixed with or emerge from regular reiterations of practices. Some practices are individual or collective time–space routines that collective practices in such spaces cannot necessarily interpret as desires or dissatisfactions. Through discussing the concept

34 of ‘trial by space’, the physical outcome of urban design (public space) becomes the place of everyday practice and experiences. Public space is part of a network either enabling users to practice their right (Lefebvre 1996), or excluding them from doing so. Trial by space is a political status for users of space. Even using the term ‘user’ might affect the effort of highlighting the ‘right’ given to inhabitants to become political citizens. The physical form of public spaces plays a crucial role in inhabitants’ right to participate in public life. Materializing rights and publicness in space has legal and political dimensions, and urban practitioners must recognize the legal implications of spatializing publicness in public spaces. However, instead of simply reiterating the struggles between experts and users, urban practitioners could be enablers, helping socio–political intentions become visible and materialized in physical space. The physical space, which might be the designers’ contractual outcome, is thus the essential condition or realm in which social and political intentions become tangible.

In the context of this study, appropriation is both an expression and driving force of production, so it is a process by which users of space configure themselves, their rights, and their space, which are the main prerequisite conditions. Spatial practices that allow adaptation or resistance to the prevailing functions of public space are therefore important consequences of abstract space if they welcome users and allow them to flourish – in another words, to pass the ‘trial by space’. Certeau (1984) drew the experience of walkers, the ‘ordinary practitioners of the city’ (p. 93), to our attention; the embodied experiences of these practitioners, according to him, are ‘shaped out of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: in relation to representations’ (p. 93). To Certeau, the practice of everyday life is about tactics, and different ‘ways of operating’ constitute the countless practices whereby users ‘secretly structure the determining condition’ (p. 96). Spatial practices, in Certeau’s view, are fragmented and isolated actions, not interactive sequences happening in everyday spaces. They are also divorced from their background, or given setting (e.g., the adaptation or common use of space).

Appropriations have space/time relationships and also include practices of everyday life in relation to rhythms (Lefebvre, 2004). Some public functions create mobility and flow with more urban rhythms, such as commercial activities, open markets, and shopping streets. Some functions are temporary by nature, for example, lunch places. Even everyday life has its own rhythms, and not necessarily daily ones; for example, some activities change depending on opening hours, time of day, weather, or seasons. The public realm therefore embodies different rhythms depending on types of functions or managerial rules, which support people with different senses of time who seek different patterns of absence or presence in public for unexpected political, social, or economic reasons. Some users become publics and appropriate spaces, while some others disappear, and some public places become closed. Appropriations should therefore be studied through the lens of the mechanisms that create them and in relation to their rhythms. In this way, we can understand the complexity of appropriations, their levels and changes with time, in producing publicness in a more democratic way.

35 Kärrholm (2007) identified these practices as ‘territorial associations and appropriations’, which are unintended practices, i.e., not planned or designed for specific uses, but rather the consequences of established territories. Through discussing the concept of ‘territoriality’, he criticized the fact that somehow the two different aspects of the concept, i.e., ‘human territoriality’ and ‘politico– geographical territoriality’, seem unaware of each other. The former is intended to address social or behavioural matters, while the latter addresses intentional power strategies. One important aspect of appropriation, in the discussion of territory, concerns establishing ownership. In the everyday use of space, Kärrholm (2007) identified practices of ‘territorial appropriation’ that produce territory ‘through a repetitive and consistent use of an area by a certain person or group who, at least to some extent, seem to perceive this area as their own’ (p. 441). ‘Territorial associations’ represent identifiable areas, characterized by certain usages and specific conventions and regularities that underpin these usages: ‘These areas do not necessarily have to be considered by any person or group as “their own”, but are nevertheless associated by others as pertaining to a certain function or category of users’ (Kärrholm, 2007, p. 441). In his study of territoriality, Kärrholm illustrated how territory produced either strategically or tactically either by design or by use can be reproduced through ‘appropriations or associations’. In the following, I will further describe user’s appropriations and their relationships to the produced space/publicness.

As discussed above, the types and levels of appropriations vary in relation to actors and their intentions; however, the spatiality they produce overlaps or is related to the produced appropriations. The following section continues by discussing the levels of appropriations and how they (re)produce the space and its publicness.

Appropriating publicness

Aappropriation, through the lens of everyday practice, can enrich, alter, or resist the publicness produced through space; cf. ‘trial by space’, the spatial practices that re-identify public spaces, and the spatiality of everyday spaces. Accordingly, appropriations emerge based on the possibilities that space offers or refuses to individuals and collectives, but can be observed in a tangible and repeated practice. Users’ intentions might therefore be actions based on both positive and negative attitudes. The material space evokes meanings either by presenting a clear concrete image and/or through levels of perception and use. Some of people’s preferences come from their perceptions of the built environment and some come from their social, economic, and political status. This means that a public space could be a place of embodied meanings for one person, yet could be a non-place for another person or at another time.

Korosec-Serfaty (1976) described the relationship between appropriation and the individual’s activities as literally entailing domination and taking ‘ownership’ for one’s own use. The sense of ownership and domination exists in a relationship

36 with the spatio–temporal environment that could ‘arouse, foment, afford, and sustain environment-related intentionality’ (Graumann, 2002, p. 104). However, appropriation of public territory, given its dialectical nature, is complicated because of objective constraints and subjective liberties. The constraints in a public territory are not equally effective for everyone but are dependent on different modes of being in space; even an area that is objectively free from any function can be experienced as restricted (Korosec-Serfaty, 1973). Therefore, appropriations reveal the politics of place and respect among the individuals vying for the ownership and use of material wealth.

Lefebvre used the concept of appropriation in relation to power and the production of ‘domination’ (Lefebvre, 1991), bringing the discussion of ‘right’ into the picture. Dovey (1999) described domination and cast a negative light on architecture and urban design, seeing domination as a threat of force (p. 10); for example, manipulating how people perceive the publicness of space so that they cannot imagine other alternatives or changing the given (i.e., the spatial order). He clarified that the domination and manipulation of space and spatial behaviour are about ways of mediating power via the built form for various uses and experiences of place, which accordingly rule out other possibilities in space and legitimize authority (e.g., of planners and designers) by serving the ‘public interest’ (Arendt, 1986, cited in Dovey, 1999, p. 12).

Dovey (2010) regarded the ‘flow of desires’ as an event of becoming and of attaining identity. The ‘power of desires’ is productive and positive, producing subjectivity as an advantage that can be applied objectively by connecting the material and experiential, physical location and qualities, and things and people (Dovey, 2010, pp. 13–30). Such ‘micropractices’ are potentials to reproduce ‘ideas, goods, services and identities’, allowing the appropriation of space through ‘complex dynamics of adaptation and transformation’ (Dovey and Wood, 2014, p. 1).

Users’ appropriations of publicness can have different rationales and materialize different types of practices, for example, by taking the physical space to sustain individual identity, by experimenting with the range of possible activities and discovering the self and the outside world, by individually allowing the self to go beyond norms and obligations, by acting upon what is forbidden to test the tolerance of others and the levels of democracy, or by explicitly and publicly claiming a place as one’s own. Actions are complex because they include users’ subjective intentions and desires but in relation to materials, objects, signs, other actors, and ambient power represented in space through a process incorporating accessibilities (physical and social), functions (public resources), and regimes of control (physical and symbolic). Therefore, I intentionally frame user’s engagement in terms of appropriation to embrace its relationships, complexity, and time, which cannot simply be assessed by observing the manifested outcome. According to this argument, appropriations are criteria in discussing the production of publicness of space, not public space per se.

37 On togetherness and shared meaning in public space

Urban spaces has been discussed generally means of providing togetherness. A worthwhile example is Jacob’s (1961) observations of city streets and sidewalks, as important spaces where the public life of cities occur. Togetherness is also discussed in relation to others surrounding, and to the tolerance of letting strangers in differences establish theory own being (Jacobs, 1961, p.72). Togetherness can be discussed at both individual and social levels. For the former group public space acts as a shared space, providing spatial togetherness, and for social togetherness, public space establish a shared meaning, and these socio- spatial meanings can overlap.

Public space can be discussed in relation to the sense individuals get of the place; these individuals evaluate the space, based on their perception and determine their actions accordingly. In the field of architecture, notable phenomenologists have identified place as a ‘concrete phenomenon’, putting effort into giving architecture the authority to illuminate the visual and aesthetic qualities of urban spaces and manipulate the perception of urban space (See, for example, Norberg- Schulz (1980). The visual qualities of the built environment evoke meanings for places, and these meanings can even arouse behaviours and actions (Lynch, 1960; Altman, 1975; Nasar, 1998). Nasar (2011) described human behaviour in relation to the physical form as the basis of environmental response. An individual’s behaviour in a public setting (e.g., public life), according to Nasar’s theory, incorporates feelings about and meanings of the place; the feelings result from various perceptions of the attributes of the place, while the individual’s attitudes and intentions influence the meanings. Yet individuals’ behaviours in space vary in types and levels, for example, resulting in spending time in a place, avoiding it, or defining public approaches. Individual perceptions are the first stage of action, and other factors, such as weather, culture, and other people, might have a stronger influence than does the physical setting.

Lessons from environmental perceptions suggest three theories of urban design: ‘adaptation-level theory’, ‘the ecological approach to perception’, and ‘probabilistic functionalism’ (Nasar, 2011, pp. 164–165). ‘Adaptation-level theory’ says that people adapt to ‘the prevailing level of stimuli’, yet because of the stress of unpredictable and uncontrollable settings, spaces that people perceive as controllable or offering escape from stress are preferred (Nasar, 2011). The ‘ecological approach to perception’ considers users to be ‘active observers’ who functionally detect the environmental structure that supports their activities and explorations. This is similar to the concept of ‘affordances’ (Gibson, 1979), which concerns the user’s experiences of the functional opportunities of a place. Nasar (1998) described the last theory (i.e., probabilistic functionalism) in terms of probabilities deriving from individuals’ experience of functioning. In his studies, Nasar (1998) stressed that people (though not vulnerable groups) prefer the following: defined ‘openness’ and mystery; ‘natural’ or more natural elements to ones perceived as artificial; restorative or calming experiences (Kaplan, 1995; Nasar, 1994; 1998); well-maintained places that reflect social order and control

38 (‘upkeep’); vernacular and ‘historical’ styles; and coherent, legible, and moderate uncertainty, i.e., a ‘mix of complexity and order’.

From environmental design perspective, people’s environmental preferences have stability over time and can be predicted (Nasar, 1999). In relation to affordances, the size of the physical objects, types of materials, and possibility of being manipulated are important for the perception of opportunities, experiences, and, accordingly, the chance of appropriation. For example, a step that is too high is not easy to sit on, chairs with metal seats are not inviting in a cold climate, and movable chairs allow more freedom to establish personal distance. Affordances can encourage spontaneous and informal interactions that can enrich alternative experiences and enable new opportunities.

Although physical and socio–cultural aspects affect individuals’ perception, their personal intentions, such as territoriality as well as claims and defences of privacy, are generally important in taking action (Sommer, 1969). Hall’s (1966) phenomenological contribution to personal territories and distances shed light on the perception of intimacy in space. He contributes to four main distances, i.e., public, social, personal, and intimate, reflects his close observation of public to private distances. However, people adapt themselves based on the conditions of their environment, and some of these social codes are eliminated in certain contexts, for example, because of necessity, culture, and climate.

So, one important observed preference in public space is about spatial distance and preferences for privacy. This preference was acknowledged by the theory of ‘refuge and prospect’, which suggests the spatial and geographical mechanisms by which humans maximize their security. People seek a setting that allows them to have control over the environment, letting them see a broad vista, or prospect, without being seen (i.e., the setting offers refuge as well) (Appleton, 1975; 1988). These settings allow anonymity in public as long as their users can perceive diversity without fear of being among strangers. Such preferences increase people’s chances of safety. Urban edges, among other possible locations, offer places where one’s back is protected and have been acknowledged as ‘favourable’ locations for people watching. Perceived safety and security are observed in various spaces that offer public activities for a diverse range of people. For example, places around playgrounds where adults with children can stay are generally perceived as safe. Parents perceive places with low visibility and surrounded by dense vegetation as unsafe for their children to play in, but such places attract others who seek privacy in public.

Many places that provide a high level of togetherness and are inclusive in this sense are places deliberately designed to be ‘friction free’. Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) addressed the ‘implicit cultural policy of functionalization’ in such places, such as airports, shopping malls, and even museums and cities in general (p. 96), where a smooth flow of people is the successful outcome of design. Places such as

39 airports or malls can have characteristics that allow togetherness to emerge. It has been questioned whether these spaces are ‘places’ because of their lack of authenticity, private ownership, and lack of unique image or contractual identity. Augé (1995), among other anthropologists, has criticized the effects of globalization on the authenticity of place, giving birth to the ‘supermodern’ condition and resulting in the rise of the ‘non-place’ phenomenon. In his definition, a ‘non-place’ is where the ‘relation’ of the person is a ‘contractual relation’: if the place does not have ‘organic social life’ it is not authentic (Augé, 1995). Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) emphasized that the functionalization of the city is a phenomenon not limited to ‘non-places’ per se; rather, functionalization is about the idea of the city making passive users into consumers with no specific relationship to the place.

From a social perspective, appropriations could be defensive acts by which people establish their personal territory and privacy as ‘a selective control of access to the self or to one’s group’ and their ownership of the self-boundary (Altman, 1975, p. 18). This could happen through non-verbal communication and social mechanisms, for example, by becoming bodily engaged with certain objects, activities, or actions. It could be also happen by presenting the self-boundary through practices such as checking the phone, orienting the body, and walking quickly. These appropriations are about ‘others’ in relation to the co-presence of strangers, as ways of escaping interaction and creating invisibility (Lofland, 1998), similar to the concept of ‘civil inattention’, as discussed by Goffman (1966), which means that co-presence with unknown others can happen anywhere without any implications for their presence or interactions.

The sense of place and its publicness affect the attitudes towards and will to encounter others, as discussed by geographers such as Tuan (1977) and Relph (1976) in terms of individuals’ intentional interpretations of affordances. Relph (1976), for example, took a different approach to the perception of objective reality as going beyond only the physical environment. Relph (1976) shed light on place as ‘our immediate experience of the world’ and ‘important sources of individual and communal identity’ (p. 141). For Relph (1976), the sense we get of a place is not only about repeated activities and practices but also about the ‘intensity of experience of place’ (p. 141). In this approach, understanding levels of relationships to a place (i.e., outsideness vs. insideness) affects senses and, accordingly, experiences of publicness, resulting in multiple meanings and multiple types of appropriations.

All these theories essentially consider the salient attributes of places, through meanings and values preferred by most individuals. Individual’s perception and experience of public spaces can be different; however they share the same realm with perhaps different approaches. Therefore publicness of space can be identified through the dimension of togetherness in space, as a shared value, while having different experiences and perceptions. In this regard, there are researches conducted based on certain values that are shared among many individuals

40 (Lynch, 1960; Nasar, 1998). A functioning environment is therefore good enough for individuals. Producing a functioning environment supports shared meanings, yet individuals with their multiple perceptions can appropriate a space in different ways. Considering individual’s perception of publicness, no public space is perfect for everyone. This is the major challenge of creating public spaces that are intended to support high level of publicness.

Unintended outcomes have been studied in the literature of environmental psychology through evaluating the place from its users’ perspective (read more on post-occupancy evaluations in (Nasar, 1999). This discipline studies the socio– physical characteristics of places and human responses to and conceptions of them (Canter, 1977), which seeks to have an ‘effect on users’ evaluation and behaviour’ (Nasar, 2011, p. 162). Environmental psychology is ‘evolving a knowledge base for urban design decisions about the context and characteristics of places’ (Nasar, 2011, p. 162), while the disciplines of environmental psychology and urban design have limited territories in their theory and practice.

Phenomenological studies of the shared meanings of public spaces in the 1960s and 1970s provided valuable knowledge for urban design in relation to evoking memories, experiences, emotions, and favourable locations for social life (Lynch, 1960; Whyte, 1980). The visual structure of space affects people’s senses and emotions (Tuan, 1977), and creating different visual features in the environment allows labelling and classification (Low, 2000, p. 154, cited in Arefi, 2013). In addition, studies aiming to highlight the role of public space in fostering social interactions have addressed visual qualities (e.g., size, scale, and enclosure), spatial distributions, and proper access to public spaces (Lynch, 1960; Whyte, 1980; Gehl, 1996). The ‘new urbanism’ approach took the potential of public space and its visual qualities even further in enriching the sense of community (Haas, 2008). However, public space is also required for social diversity and the presence of others, so collective images and shared meanings put public space at risk of sameness, loss of plurality, and loss of meaningful places.

Table 2.1 presents details on some of the discussed public settings along with individual preferences and needs. By de-layering these shared meanings to form a network of socio–spatial relationships, actions, and temporality, these values are revealed to be emergent and relational. Based on individuals’ cultural attitudes, these meanings also create varied images, making contextual interpretations important. De-layering individuals’ interpretations to form a network of tangible practices in everyday patterns, such as presence, togetherness, use, interactions, and adaptations, demonstrates that the publicness of space achieved through individuals’ shared meanings concerns a level of satisfaction, acceptance, and collective culture.

41 Table 2.1. De-layering the characteristics of places with shared meanings (selected from theory; source: the author).

Characteristics Appropriations Socio–spatial relationships Actions/rhythms (i.e., access, diversity, and physical attributes) Comfort: Presence Visible, ordered, and legible alternatives for Enjoyment/ optional (with liberty) privacy; Safety and security; Freedom of bodily Alternative sitting options (e.g., benches, action – free, climate grass fields, steps, and ledges); protected Alternatives for proximity Relaxation: Presence Off the street; Individual enjoyment; Escape urban crowding; (with privacy) Natural settings; Optional activities; Escape threats from Climate-protected zones; Less socially diverse; others; Landscape views No behavioural code Planned Flexible: Use and In comfort situations (mentioned above); People watching; Dependent on togetherness Where other people are; Watching other amenities; Interfaces – stairs, edges, bridges; activities – e.g., games Anonymous; Catchment zones – sidewalks, corners, and performances; Temporary; gates, and entrances; Optional activities – Unplanned Around physical objects (props) – e.g., e.g., reading and columns, fountains, trees, and sculptures; eating; In third places; Waiting activities – e.g., Towards visual qualities, e.g., natural stopping, standing, features; phone calling, and Within public distance of one-way looking around communication; Settings with flexible proximity and alternatives for change – e.g., moveable chairs; Near necessary objects – e.g., WiFi zones, seating zones, and charging stations At ease – the quality of Interactions Due to passive engagement (above); Social encounters with props and social objects (with Related to necessary though temporary strangers, for small-talk in supporting desires; expressions) activities – e.g., bus stops, train platforms, and passing time; Spontaneous; laundry rooms, and elevators; Testing social skills; Dependent on social Related to catchment zones; For making friends; attitudes; Related to recreational and participatory Exposure for reclaiming Dependent on cultural activities – e.g., urban gardens, urban reasons – e.g., preferences games, festivals, and performances; flashmob; Related to social objects triggering human Reaching others for senses such as noise, smell, and touch – economic reasons – e.g., food stalls and flower markets; e.g., vendors Occupied by shared interests (necessary or optional) – e.g., playground and theme park Complexity: Adaptation Diversity in architecture, materials, colours, Involving users Ordered disorder; (with tolerance) scale, and views; unconsciously – e.g., Challenge and risk – Different scales and frequencies of open by means of intellectual e.g., using new spaces; activities; technology; Historic contexts; Bridging social norms; Surprise/new; Social differences Discovery; Change – messy image; Inclusive space – social Informal; mix Interpretative

Larger relationships (e.g., socio–economic status, gender, cultural aspects, and political role) that affect people’s perception of public space in terms of the distinguishing features of the environment should be considered (Arefi, 2013). This is in part derived from Lefebvre’s (1991) argument that space is a social product that eventually, as social space, in turn shapes social and political behaviours. Arefi and Meyers (2003), in their study ‘What is public about public space: The case of Visakhapatnam, India’, demonstrated that for their respondents, environmental qualities of space such as ‘health, serenity, uncrowdedness, cleanliness and lack of pollution’ were the most fundamental motivators for entering public space. They revealed that socio–economic status has a major influence on people’s expectations of public space, so planners should address the absence of adequate-quality public space as a ‘public good’ rather than simply providing access to or distributing existing public space, which is the challenge, the authors claimed, facing planners in American cities. Such studies show that the perception of physical space as a driving force of being in public varies between societies based on the need level. This is fundamental if we think of the political role of public space (discussed in the following section) in providing rights, with different groups having different perceptions of access and performance in certain spaces (Mitchell, 1995). Therefore, people’s perceptions of and behaviours in public spaces cannot be easily universalized and applied in urban planning and design. For example, people generally feel more attracted to dense areas, though this feeling varies between contexts, and density can sometimes be perceived as undesirable crowding.

Those addressing affordance using the ‘ecological approach’ stress the importance of the perception of affordances, produced as the result of individuals’ interactions with the world (Yaneva, 2009). So the range of possibilities that the environment offers, should be visible and available for perception. Besides the built environment, the meanings of place and representations also affect perception of affordances. This section examined shared meanings based on perceptions of space, and by de-layering some examples of these meanings (table 2.1) highlighted their complex socio-spatial relationships, which have challenges for being applied in practice (Latour and Yaneva, 2008; pp. 82–83).

On encounters

The publicness of space cannot be simply defined by individuals’ togetherness in terms of romanticized liberty, freedom, and democracy (Parkinson, 2012). Collective actions and encounters reveal negotiations over the use of space and its challenges. Being in public is about being with others, and about the publics who become improvisers of everyday life. The relationship between encounters and publicness is about being active in the world and being actively engaged with others around us. Like the interactions with the built environment that make space perceptible as dwelled in and in use, encounters with strangers increase the meanings of publicness and construct social capital. Individuals establish their space, the timing of their activities, and their distance from others to avoid

43 conflict, yet being in public brings a ‘we’ question to mind, as ‘appreciation of the fact that my exercise of personal freedom can impact on others’ abilities to do the same thing, or impact on the collective resources that we all need to draw on’ (Parkinson, 2012, p. 26). So encounters can be consequences of perceiving public space as a realm for negotiations of such senses and conflicts (Low and Smith, 2006). Places of social and public life should be considered in terms of the mechanisms that control, enable, or constrain intentions of being out in public, particularly due to technological changes and their effects on social communication. In the academic literature, particularly in a Western, post- industrialized context, public life is understood in terms of the challenges of privatization, commodification, social threats, and conflicts.

Togetherness and encounters overlap in public spaces at different levels. Gehl (1996) has characterized outdoor activities as ‘necessary’, ‘optional’, and ‘social’, depending on their rationale and the quality of the physical environment. Necessary activities are what we have to engage in; we choose optional activities if the time and place are favourable, and social activities depend on the presence of others in public space and happen spontaneously as a result of the other two categories of outdoor activity. In contemporary societies, these activities overlap in everyday space, meaning that places for necessary activities are under pressure to become multifunctional. Users are unconditionally in public space, and the quality of the space cannot eliminate their presence. Access to public space is also necessary for well-being, allowing individuals to escape their daily routines and establish distance from the world of everyday working/living and even from others. Gehl (2010) observed that people engaged in necessary activities spontaneously seek places where they can stand alone, getting support from and defining these places in interaction with features such as furniture, corners, columns, or niches (see the ‘piano effect’ on p. 139). Physical objects and urban furniture therefore play more than their functional roles. Whyte (1980) introduced the ‘triangulation’ mechanism by which a physical object shared (i.e., watched or used) by strangers enables social interaction among them. Empirical studies have found that the environs of social objects such as ponds or trees are favourable locations where individuals occupy themselves. The emerging characteristics of social encounters have attracted scholars to consider the values of ‘less tight’ urban spaces, as interactions in the public realm are rule patterned and relate to one another (Lofland, 1989).

In recent decades, the conditions for user’s engagement have arguably been determined by the decline of public life, which called into question the nature of public space while users were becoming more heterogeneous and increasingly fearful (Sennett, 1977; Harvey, 1996). There has been a vast change in the spatiality of the public realm, and publicness is now regarded as going beyond the dichotomies of public–private, open–closed, and indoor–outdoor spaces. In theory, more innovative spaces that mix public and private territories have been introduced and practiced to provide alternative meaningful and inclusive spaces. The scholars of micro-level urban sociology have noted that spaces such as interfaces, urban commons, and everyday spaces can enable social encounters.

44 Interfaces are associated with informal and flexible togetherness and encounters – i.e., ‘loose spaces’ (Frank and Stevens, 2007). Common spaces offer opportunities for sharing opinions and construct a sense of belonging among people engaged in similar activities – i.e., ‘third places’ (Oldenburg, 1989). Everyday spaces, i.e., ‘loose spaces’ (Low, 2009), are ‘the location where human experience and consciousness takes on material and spatial form’ (Low, 2009, p. 28). The quality of these places is constructed by user’s space-time activities and also influenced by the presence of others, while their location in and integration with the context are important. The characteristics of some of these places and conditions are de- layered in Table 2.2.

Places of micro-interactions have become a new type of public place, with micro- interactions being observed to happen in such places when people make choices. The spatiality of these places is acknowledged, concerning, for example, where people strategically converge and diverge (see ‘nodes’ in Lynch, 1960) or boundaries and edges where the rhythm and type of activities change. These places also provide social invisibility (Henderson, 1975, cited in Lofland, 1989) and the possibility of escaping unwanted attention (Snow et al., 1987, cited in Lofland, 1989).

Table 2.2. De-layering the characteristics of places of encounters (selected from theory; source: the author).

Characteristics Appropriations as Socio-spatial relationships Actions/rhythms (i.e., access, diversity and physical attributes) Interfaces Micro-interactions, Places for making choices and Mixed/spontaneous (e.g., paths, edges, walls, anonymity in presence, conducting necessary

connections, props, and encounters, and activities; zero-friction places

thresholds) performance with dominant functions Common spaces Presence, encounters, Indoor places; places with Planned/planned (inducing return; e.g., sense of belonging, and limited visibility and functions; ‘third places’ such as membership places for social encounters bars, cafes, libraries, and and meeting strangers laundry rooms) Everyday spaces Presence, spontaneous Small scale and enclosed; Mixed/dependent on (e.g., in-between and encounters, possible socially mixed, for mixed network of loose space) adaptation, modification, activities, for a mix of privacy relationships and the and resistance and spontaneous encounters reiteration of practice

Classic loci for everyday movements and pauses are urban edges, interfaces, and entrances. Urban edges have been treated by urban designers as sites of social and commercial exchange: displaying goods (e.g., in shops and storefronts), leisure and consumption (e.g., in street cafés), meetings and social exchanges, and safety enforcement (e.g., ‘eyes on the street’, Jacobs, 1961). However, urban edges are also places where established ownership, functions, and rhythms of life change, giving rise to newly defined territory. ‘Active edges’ (Bentley et al., 1985) or ‘soft edges’ (Gehl, 1996, 2010) have been stressed as fostering public life in which interior life is externalized, being shared with urban life: ‘If the edge fails, then the space never becomes lively … the space becomes a place to walk through, not a

45 place to stop’ (Alexander et al., 1977, p. 753). Urban edges have the potential to become places of visibility, encounters, and presence, yet their consequences for experienced publicness have not been seriously acknowledged in architecture or urban design. Economic interest in urban edges has instead resulted in their becoming merely places of leisure through commodified experiences.

Common spaces offer opportunities for strangers to meet and encounter one another. ‘Third places’ were acknowledged by Oldenburg (1989) as essential locations that structure social behaviour in public spaces. The social functions of these places, such as libraries, cafés, and laundry rooms, are inclusive and accessible to various publics, allowing their members to feel social comfort and at home (Oldenburg, 1989). The primary function of these places is to support togetherness, fostering informal conversations among strangers who have common reasons for their presence. The life of such places is therefore contingent and dependent on management processes. The publicness of third places can be questioned in view of their limited functions and fairly homogenous users. Some of these places are not physically visible, in which case invisibility becomes part of their character and their life happens mainly in the private realm. The publicness of these places is produced through management processes, steered by their owners’ ideas of who should be the publics served. Third places are in theory specifically intended to become potential public nodes for cities and to support social integration, yet such tendencies are typically reduced to public functions by means of codes and zoning, and their values might become lost amidst economic rationales.

Common spaces raise concerns of privatizing public space and resulting in social exclusion. These spaces are becoming more popular for providing security and safety, while several pieces of evidence point to the prioritizing of private interests that is transforming public space into regulated and monitored sites. Privatized publicness is the biggest threat to individual and group liberties (Graham, 2010; Low and Smith, 2006; Németh, 2012), particularly regarding the political role of public spaces. Even minor tangible or visible control elements of public spaces, regardless of ownership, affect political assembly and communication (Kohn, 2004). However, the public ownership of space does not necessarily guarantee perceived publicness either (Németh, 2012).

Many scholars define everyday public spaces in terms of multiple relationships and emergent publicness. They have in-between characteristics in terms of spatiality, temporality, activities, management, and/or sense of publicness (Simões Aelbrecht, 2016). In-between spaces incorporate diverse people whose high interaction intensity jointly creates their own public space. Everyday spaces include spaces that are less fixed in nature and are not physically limited or controlled in terms of activities or territories (Franck and Stevens, 2007, p. 23). They are not considered examples of traditional socially experienced public space; for example, authenticity and attractiveness, which many urban sociologists

46 require for public experience (see, e.g., Zukin, 1995), do not have major roles in such spaces.

‘In-betweenness’ seems to be more of an inclusive condition allowing publicness to be shaped and transformed by the public. The dominant function, temporary experience, and a kind of consensus among the users of in-between spaces provide enough flexibility for social and cultural exchanges to flourish. This is the condition of contemporary publicness, in which inclusive settings have potential for informal social interactions among strangers. Simões Aelbrecht (2016) has defined these in-between public spaces as ‘fourth places’ to address their spatial, temporal, and managerial in-betweenness and to acknowledge their potential for informal social use. These spaces are in-between or loose because of their characteristics: spatially, they incorporate ‘indeterminacy of form and function, flexibility and adaptability of uses’; temporally, they allow for ‘unplanned uses that can develop outside or in-between the times of planned uses’, and managerially, they witness the ‘overlap of different regimes of control and access’ (Simões Aelbrecht, 2016, p. 135). Hajer and Reijndorp called the ‘public domain’ a realm between freedom and friction, confronting the unfamiliar and experiencing varied approaches (Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001, p. 117); they saw the new public domain as ‘where the different worlds of the inhabitants of the urban field touch each other’, claiming that it developed ‘in and around the in-between spaces in the archipelago of homogenous and specialized islands, in surroundings that belong to different social, economic and cultural landscapes’ (p. 128).

The question is how urban planning, whose intention is to create controlled and ‘friction-free’ spaces, and urban design, whose intention is to create ‘good outcomes’, can contribute to creating, enabling, and sustaining such spaces. Hajer and Reijndrop (2001) have called for policy that supports the maintenance and management of such spaces. Managing heterogeneous public life without romanticizing it is itself a difficult goal, setting aside the challenges of ensuring security and a sense of safety, for example. Hajer and Reijndrop (2001) stated that the public are those who rule the space and appropriate it collectively, even causing the privatization of the public domain. Public appropriations are helpful in democratizing the use of space, not to exclude anyone but to remind ‘others’ that they are ‘guests’ whose presence in public is subject to certain rules. By exposing the complexities of territorial production, Kärrholm (2007) has revealed that merely removing territorial boundaries to accessibility is not the same as making things (i.e., space and its actants) public; in his view, more territorial orders and subdivisions indicate more possibilities as long as they are ‘territorial layers of equal importance at a place’ (p. 19).

By de-layering places of encounters, I have illustrated the complexity of publicness in relation to others and place. The process by which social encounters produce place and by which place is produced through encounters indicates a shift from static meanings to process-oriented places (Cresswell, 2004, p. 7). Encounters, even though not purely rational or emotional, are therefore the consequences of

47 networks. The appropriations discussed above are matters of empirical knowledge, subject to the analysis of preferences and actions in transforming public space. They reveal the spatial potentials as well as the complexities of other relationships in place. However, being in public is a political statement in support of claiming rights, practicing differences, and expressing emotions. These uncertain and temporary outcomes can be seen as unintended or informal, meaning that they can be unauthorized or simply surprising and unexpected.

We are living in societies that are becoming more heterogeneous, and public spaces should reflect such differences. According to Borden (2014), a dynamic public realm should accommodate ‘differences’ – in human beings (e.g., in background, race, gender, and class), in physical space, and in time (allowing temporality in relation to public spaces), and in experience – in an unknown world to allow users to encounter both otherness and sameness (Borden, 2014, p. 23). According to Borden (2014, pp. 15–24), urban design needs to ‘take risk’, which should foster new attitudes towards the world and encourage the widest possible range of positive human actions.

Several researchers have revisited and re-evaluated urban experiences and now acknowledge the relationship between environment and perception. However, as Stevens (2006) has lamented and Forsyth (2007) discussed, the problem of urban design is that it applies the results of these studies for normative prescriptions rather than analysis (Stevens, 2006, p. 805) or, in the rather narrow palette of urban design, they become newly revised ‘styles’ or ‘types’ (Forsyth, 2007, p. 462). Applying empirical knowledge, for example, of appropriations or of place as a process, through the same conventional avenue of thinking in urban design focusing on creating a good end-product, is a challenge facing urban design. No one ignores Jacobs’ theory of ‘functional mix’ or the ‘permeability of blocks’, but how much mix, what kind of mix, and the type and size of block all vary between New York City and a city like Stockholm, where another solution might create the vitality that Jacobs was seeking. She herself emphasized the importance of ‘observations’ in identifying problems: ‘the ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations’ (Jacobs, 1961, p. 50). The ignorance of the practice allowed critics, particularly from the field of planning, to question the epistemology of urban design as narrow, partial, and reduced to numbers and concepts, unfortunately doubting its subject matter and expertise. Urban design obviously needs a conceptual shift in its practice, from being a tool for achieving good outcomes.

On expressions

Aassuming institutionalized democracy in public spaces in Western context, appropriations address social exclusions wherein certain users and functions dominate a space and create an ambient power that systematically, though not physically, excludes others. Appropriations then are practices for recognizing ‘others’ and generally for promoting social justice (Fainstein, 2014). The key

48 points of ongoing political debates about (European) public spaces concern democracy and the sense of ‘we’, in the political form of inclusiveness, freedom of speech, and multicultural assembly. Such democracy is practiced through forms of regulation. These regulations in public spaces entail rules governing functions and the presence and interactions of others (i.e., strangers).

As building and facilitating public spaces use common resources and provide public goods, classically liberal ways of identifying public space distinguish between the public (common) and private (individual) realms (Kohn, 2004; Madanipour, 2003). Space is a common good, shared among its users (Parkinson, 2013). Within this political frame of public and space, democracy is identified at two levels, i.e., the individual and social, which means that in common space, both individual and social needs must be met. Public space should therefore provide both anonymity and integration at the same time. For sociological purposes, a city may be defined as a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals (Wirth, 1938). Public space includes territories of control and domination where civil society and ‘civil inattention’ are refined (Lofland, 1989, p. 462; Young, 1990; Zukin, 1995), including possibilities for display, cultural expression, celebration (Mitchell, 1995), identity construction, social encounters and practicing civility (Sennett, 1977).

Individual and collective acts can therefore co-appropriate dominated or manipulated space, designed territory, image, and behaviour. Such domination is the result of everyday micro-practices and adaptations that are shaped and evolve consequentially. As individual freedom and liberty are the key characteristics of public spaces in a Western context, appropriation is not simply a question of ‘why’ or simplified as an unintended consequence; rather, it is a question of ‘by whom’ and ‘for whom’. Such claims for the domination and emancipation of space emerging out of emotions or desires, needs or rights, are in fact signs of dynamism (Madanipour, 1999). Users’ engagement then implies challenging, eliminating, and re-establishing dominated socio–spatial relationships.

Appropriation is therefore the practice of constantly determining power, structure, and order. The power, out there in public space, emerges from the meanings people get from the place, from the macro-political economy that creates it, from the forms, materials, and possibilities of the built form, and from the dominated public. According to Korosec-Serfaty (1976), a category of people is excluded when the given practices of a space are ambiguous. The space then becomes selective and people do not, on their own, adjust to the space and its implicit meanings, dictated indirectly by the form or material substance of the spatial elements. Appropriations are therefore less possible where there are no constraints or immediate functions. They are effective practices of regulated liberty.

49 As discussed in terms of the concept of ‘trial by space’, appropriation can be revolutionary from the political point of view. Examples of collective occupations of public space illustrate how space can become public by giving exposure to social and political voices. The importance of revolutionary appropriations or contestations in the public realm is that they require institutional recognition. Certeau (1984) was a pioneer in demonstrating that everyday life is full of unnoticed appropriations going beyond expectations, norms, and conventions. Individuals in everyday life are agents of change who appropriate the ‘proper’ physical, social, or symbolic meanings of space. For agents of change, public space is contested space, offering a potent description of everyday reality, a temporal venue for ‘resistance’ (Certeau, 1984).

By means of her ethnographic definition of ‘embodied space’, Low (2009) has avoided dichotomies in the production of space. Her ‘co-production model’ stresses that spatial practices engage in contestation: they contest the built environment, its use and meanings, and accordingly all the power relationships that have produced them, including intentions, ideas, and political–economic forces, while the built environment, its use and meanings are continuously appropriated by human agency. In her argument about space–time relationships, collective movement patterns are seen as producing locality or embodied spaces: ‘(embodied space) incorporates metaphors, ideology, and language, as well as behaviors, habits, skills, and spatial orientations derived from global discourses and far away places – especially for the migrant – and yet is grounded at any one moment in a specific geographical location’ (Low, 2009, p. 22). According to Low (2009), urban (design) practices involving physical interventions in the landscape therefore ‘attract opposition because they produce sociospatial forms that reference deep and still unresolved or unresolvable conflicts among political economic forces, social actors and collectivities’ (Low, 2009, p. 25).

Many years back in the field of development planning, Hirschman (1970) tried to avoid simplifying the challenges that planners needed to address. He recommended that the way out of these problems was for planners to re- characterize the problems that are useful for effective planning practice (Sanyal, 2005) based not on what experts know, but on their need to acknowledge the limitations of the complex process of development. His observations, not of large investments in urban development but of how individuals reacted to institutions in the case of conflict, are thought provoking in relation to discussions of the decline of public space (Sorkin, 1992; Mitchell, 1995). As regards the individual’s reaction to institutions (or the built environment), Hirschman’s exit, voice, and loyalty (EVL) model underpins a theoretical understanding of unintended consequences. In his theory, dissatisfactions are responses to market relationships, political voices, and institutions. He made an effort to address the ‘problem of development’ (Hirschman, 1970, p. 12) and the need for ‘reparation’ when organizations face decline. His model is briefly explained in following to stress on the types of expressions, as reflected in various appropriations in relation to the levels of publicness.

50 In Hirschman’s model, ‘exit’ is a decision by members of the public to leave an unsatisfactory situation (Hirschman, 1970). Even though it may be too late to fix the situation, ‘exit’ is still beneficial because of its active nature, which can be observed and yields feedback that can inform later efforts to improve the situation. Discontent with public space or the practice of exit can be observed in destructive reactions such as broken windows or graffiti created by public users, or fences and gates erected by local and regular users or residents. The exit level of appropriation and its tangible practices in public space can be observed in the management of space, which is usually assumed to be the responsibility of the state/government but is often actually undertaken by the private sector or the inhabitants who control the space by means of domination. These actors either ignore the signs of discontent or promptly address them (e.g., by passive- aggressive practices such as erecting gates): the former could give the impression that no one cares, while the latter could lead to the repetition of such practices to gain recognition, both of which ultimately cause decline. ‘Exit’ practices could therefore give rise to apparently neglected or ‘scary’ spaces and, accordingly, to rapid decline in public spaces (Carmona, et al., 2008, chapter 3). In Hirschman’s (1970, p. 22) view, the exit strategy is ineffective for making change unless it occurs at the mass level.

Figure 2.1. Levels of users’ appropriations, derived from Hirschman’s (1970) exit, voice, and loyalty (EVL) model (source: the illustration, arrows, and examples in brackets are the author’s contribution). In urban practice, public space is produced as a ‘site’ or location governed for the absence of conflict and intended to promote overall public satisfaction. However, in reality public space is far from a simple manifestation of urban life, and conflicts and dissatisfactions might well arise. One conceptual example is the ‘broken windows theory’ (Wilson and Kelling, 1982), which focuses on the presence of certain undesired groups of people or on undesired consequences such as vandalism and crime. Such consequences are immediately remedied to avoid fostering fear and a sense of threat at the site and, accordingly, to prevent any decline in the use of the place. This illustrates how public space as a site is

51 governed by ‘zero-friction’ policies allowing dominant users to exert their power over the space, for example, through CCTVs, community policing, or privatization (Atkinson, 2003). Notions of the particularity of a certain ‘time’ or era and of change in the prevailing quality of publicness are not well considered by designers whose outcome is the site.

As an alternative, those involved in the unsatisfactory situation could instead communicate their concern and have a ‘voice’. Voice is an ‘attempt to change’ that can exert an impact ‘alongside or instead of the exit option’ (Hirschman, 1970, p. 30). The concept of voice immediately sheds light on the political aspect of public space as a place for public expression. Researchers such as Kohn (2004), Low (2009), and Crawford (1995) have outlined the conditions in which ‘voice’ or public expression is allowed or restricted, in relation to planning and design practices that limit public space for democratic expression (Parkinson, 2013) as well as larger power relationships with citizens’ democratic rights. Both ‘voice’ and ‘exit’ could constitute important levels of appropriations that transform public space, if they can successfully challenge the status quo, changing policy regarding the ownership, design, or management of public places. Voice, according to Hirschman, is a better reaction than exit, because it is a constructive effort to achieve change from within and therefore gives some hints to management on how to rethink the situation (Hirschman, 1970, pp. 35–39). Voice could even be very important to those benefitting from user presence rather than absence.

Concerned with the certainty of no-exit but uncertain about having a voice, Hirschman (1970) introduced the concept of ‘loyalty’ to an organization (or a public place) as a form of ‘special attachment’ (pp. 76–77). Loyal users might be eager for positive change yet not be clear whether their voice will actively promote that change, or whether they should just wait and hope that things change with time. Voice is therefore a tool that helps prevent ‘exit’ and assists voice (Hirschman, 1970, pp. 77–78). Hirschman (1970) believes that ‘loyalty’ is ‘multilayered’ and depends on how a user experiences the situation, leading her to be either constructively or destructively eager to change the situation. Users’ perceptions of a place affect their behaviours and actions, and greater potentials for experience and discovery in a place result in greater chances of appropriation. Accordingly, loyalty can constructively create positive change, for example, by means of community-based practices; on the other hand, by creating a strong feeling of attachment among some, others may feel exclusion or the urge to exit. Destructive passive reactions result in ‘practices of ignorance’ in relation to the institution (in this case, public space), while constructive active reactions result in ‘loyalty’. The concept of ‘loyalty’ is similar to the sense of attachment, which creates ties to the place.

On the other hand, in certain conditions some users of public space, despite not feeling attached to a place, may not wish to or be able to exit. This is one criticism of Hirschman’s (1970) model, and an additional dimension of ‘neglect’ was recommended (Rusbult, et al., 1982) in order to make this model more applicable

52 in the climate of the time. Neglect is a passive way to address an unsatisfactory situation that entails making no effort to change the situation and implies no interest in doing so. I can relate neglect to being present in public space but without any particular sense of or desire for place. Behaviours of neglect are most likely to occur where users are observed in a place, but, due to changes in social communication or in temporary and contractual relationships, for example, they ignore the physical conditions of the place and even others present there. Observing the time users spend in public spaces, noting their bodily orientations and degrees of communication, as well as conducting mental mapping (and other ethnographic techniques) could help us explore users’ sense of care for public space. The risk is that neglect may reduce users’ interest in improvement and change, as well as their desire to be present in public in order to be among others. Observing the users and their appropriations can help us investigate the absent users.

The concept of neglect (i.e., passive destructive practice) deserves more discussion in contemporary society where togetherness is based on laws, interdependency, and contracts. In the 20th century, authors such as Simmel (1903) depicted the decline of public life resulting from the increased heterogeneity and diversity of relationships, pertaining to density and population. In Simmel’s view, intense multiplicity of social and physical experiences leads people to become more detached, rational, and individualistic. Such a structural behavioural change in society results in a decline in relationships and accordingly no strong ties with ‘strangers’ or with places. Places experiencing loss of meaning, identity crisis, and a sense of ‘nowhere-ness’ affect the human relations in them, somehow contributing to a sense of ‘neglect’ or lack of care. However, as these senses are not materialized in space (i.e., do not pass the ‘trial by space’), it is not easy to observe them or bring them into the discussion. ‘Neglect’ or practices of ignorance could be interpreted as practices for achieving privacy in public spaces, where individuals’ togetherness is not related to others (e.g., not for encounters or expressions).

Obviously Hirschman’s analysis of responses should be contextualized because of its reliance on economic–political relationships. Perhaps we should understand the importance of managerial responsiveness and of the feedback required in the urban design process. Observing users’ practices, either constructive or destructive, provides valid knowledge for urban designers, facilitating or reining in the production process of publicness. The levels of unintended consequences, i.e., voice and exit, include important micro-practices and everyday experiences that can be observed and enabled either through tactics and incremental interventions, or strategically and systematically through fundamental changes at larger scales. The major levels of spatially tangible appropriations based on dissatisfaction, such as voice and exit, can change the status quo if they are conducted collectively at a massive scale. These appropriations, which have effects beyond everyday use and everyday space, making changes in the larger structure, are important (unintended) consequences because of their high level of effectiveness.

53 Examples of appropriating publicness

Observers of users producing publicness have noted that users’ engagements are of different degrees and types. Appropriations illustrate how the public can surprise designers and planners through their various uses and practices. There are also excluded, dissatisfied, or absent users who use appropriation as a tool for creating a situation in which to participate, to become visible. Appropriations can therefore be analysed in terms of the informality of everyday life as either adapting or breaking predefined and controlled publicness. These active forms of appropriation have the informal potential to induce ‘the others’ to become public, to produce publicness, and even to affect the actors, plans, and policies leading the production process. For the sake of democracy or for more meaningful public expressions, the public should reclaim public spaces. From students occupying streets to protests against gun violence and individual women performing on the street to transgress social norms or dress codes – in all these we can observe how publicness is practiced and socio–cultural ties are produced in public space. As mentioned earlier, the actors of such practices have passed the ‘trial by space’, meaning that they had (authorized or not) access to the space. The examples above show that appropriations might be the consequences of larger political, social, or economic dissatisfactions. Regardless of political hierarchies and levels of democracy, cities around the world are experiencing conditions wherein voices and things become public and tangible through the public realm. What we should add to the discussion is how designed publicness (physical space, people, rules, and functions, as well as socio–cultural and political relations to public space) contributes to such public (informal) actions or appropriations.

Below, I cite a few examples of appropriations and de-layer them as micro- practices, presenting the material qualities that enable them. These examples (see Figure 2.2) illustrate alternative public spaces, degrees of practicing rights, desires, or needs, and the qualities of predefined public space. Though beyond the scope of this study, these examples shed light on alternative practices for producing publicness, refreshing our minds the better to observe and assess publicness. These examples illustrate the transformation of urban walls/edges. Walls are ‘among the primary boundary-creating objects’, strategically built to separate people and control behaviours yet ‘subject to tactical uses, too’ (Brighenti, 2010c, pp. 322-323). The wall is an artefact, allowing changes running counter to the purpose of its design. While different types of walls support different practices, certain intentions and needs together constitute the wall as a place.

The first example raises the notion of need in contemporary public spaces with reference to infrastructure (e.g., free WiFi). Such needs bring people together to share space with strangers, for example, when standing at a bus stop with others. By the entrance of the Apple store in Munich, people use a privately provided public service while leaning against a wall, a transparent edge (see the top image in Figure 2.2, in Munich city centre), making it a place of (unintended)

54 togetherness. The middle image in Figure 2.2 shows people donating books and other materials that could be useful for someone else. This new configuration of public space was socially mobilized and people contributed to its functioning. Initiated in Iran and called the ‘Wall of Kindness’, it started in low-income neighbourhoods where people offered clothes and things to homeless people, as the absent public. This relationship remained constant over time, stabilized, and was even exported to other contexts whose urban walls addressed private needs exposed in public, such as sharing books (e.g., in Rio de Janeiro). Such appropriation of space is also related to a sharing mentality among citizens who share city space and materials, as stated in the message on the wall of kindness: ‘Leave if you do not need’ and ‘Take if you need’.

55 Figure 2.2. Examples of appropriations and producing publicness (source: bottom, http://www.adamflath.com/photoblog/subway- therapy).

56 Urban walls also provide a surface for practices of visibility and expression, for either creativity or reclamation. By allowing such practices in democratic contexts where people’s self-expression is welcomed, highly visible urban walls provide opportunities (a surface) for visibility and for drawing other’s attention. As Borden (2001) has discussed, for city managers and planners this is akin to taking a risk, given that city spaces should be friction free. The bottom image of Figure 2.2 shows a wall in a NYC subway station, where everyday commuters were disrupted by an artist’s unusual use of urban walls. People’s peaceful expressions and thoughts written on Post-it notes are bodily expressions making them part of a diverse group of actors who produce publicness by writing notes of various colours. Initiated to promote reflection on the presidential election, ‘Subway Therapy’ is a kind of symbolic practice. In both examples, the wall has become a place, random users of space become agents of change allowing things, messages, or even others to become public. The public space mediates a relationship between actors, location, physical objects, desires and rights thus creating a public realm that not only facilitate spontaneous expressions but also constitutes public discourse. Collective expressions provided an opportunity to use the public space to raise issues of inequality and injustice. The effects of these engagements touched the political level and resulted in new political insight into public spaces as ‘insurgent planning practice’ and as ‘counter hegemonic’ (see more in Hou, 2010a).

2.3 Unintended consequences: a dialectical observation in production process

It is necessary to highlight that the discussion in section 2.1 and 2.2 treated two modes of production process. Both are socially constructed yet their intentions and types of actor engagement differ. Avoiding contradiction between these processes when discussing (public) space requires that physical space be seen neither as an outcome of urban design nor as a mere container for people’s practices: ‘social and spatial relationships are dialectically inter-reactive, inter- dependent … social relations of production are both space-forming and space- contingent’ (Soja, 1980, p. 211). To oversimplify, if the goal of urban design is to promote human values and help the public flourish in space and practice their rights, a public space as a site with a set of defined functions and coded meanings cannot be its outcome. True publicness is about how inclusive a space is, to what extent users are given opportunities to be visible and practice their desires in space. Hence, observing unintended consequences is not an excuse for urban design to excuse its engagement, nor does it offer a solution. Rather, it shows that the outcome of urban design practice should not be observed merely objectively.

Relief or a solution?

If the production of public space is an open-ended outcome, this does not mean that there should be no criteria or values applicable to urban practitioners in such

57 an institutionalized form of public space. Different types of appropriations facilitate various practices of publicness, not only those subject to destructive dramatic practice (cf. ‘trial by space’, Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 416–417), by which people constantly evaluate the environment to practice their rights, enact democracy, and confront uncertainty (Gabrielsson, 2006). The notion of democracy in modern societies is left in the hands of individuals and their subjective desires as a spontaneous idea. This does not mean that individuals are capable of managing publicness or democracy on their own. The beauty and necessity of uncertainty and conflict in public space differ from the subjective modern democracy designed into public space. Flexibility of urban space does not necessarily make us more efficient consumers, and even if it does permit the ‘appropriation’ of urban space for informal uses, this does not in itself give birth to new (or better) public space. Public space and cities in general, even if they do not express the ‘possible’, do express what is ready to be reclaimed. Therefore, the other two types of places discussed above, i.e., places of realizations and of encounters, are also appropriations of space. The space emerging from social and behavioural practices (i.e., social space) overlaps the space chosen by specific actors as a medium for certain expressions. However, one of the controversies in understanding ‘the public’ and ‘the public interest’ concerns their democratic state and how expressions are filtered or enabled in public space.

Mitchell (1995) has written about public space and democracy, describing two dominant ways of looking at public space: as a place for free interaction without institutional involvement where the unexpected can happen and where there is room to perform democracy and manifest the political; or as a place of recreation and entertainment governed by predetermined ideas of which modes of use are tolerated (p. 118). I believe that this distinction is overly clear-cut and does not take account of the continuum of production or of the potential of co-presence, collective appropriations, and even counter-efforts, which do not require separate territory. Classic types of public spaces, such as streets, retail spaces, parks, and squares, have undergone historic evolution and been the subject of long debate between advocates of political manifestation and the defined recreational character. Regarding such potentials, Goodsell (2003) argued for a unified concept of public space positioned between political philosophy, urban planning, and architectural interpretation. This concept would include not just the power of the state, physical space, and architecture, which usually dominate the relevant public discourse, but would also consider the potential of physical public space (i.e., place-based or electronic) to exert constructive influence. He claimed that pessimism regarding the notion of public space and its deteriorated democratic value does not facilitate any effective effort. While theorizing about everyday space reveals its emergent publicness, its temporality in terms of territory and actions, it does benefit from the physical space, from the access or presence of others. Burk (2003), for example, explained the process of installing two monuments in parks in Vancouver, BC, Canada, both addressing issues of violence against women. He described the process and the unintended consequences of installing these monuments, consequences such as private emotions, tensions, and public absence that illuminated dimensions of public space that had not previously been part of the involved imaginations and discourses. This example briefly illustrates the

58 various levels of publicness that can be produced, whose spatiality is reduced and simplified through the concept of ‘public space’.

A dynamic public realm is where various opinions take the stage and realize new possibilities of public space. Changes due to the consequences of certain actors or dominant actions, a few of which were discussed in this chapter, keep the public realm alive and in transformation. However, designing public space for informal or unexpected actions relieves urban design from having to apply only the orthodox definition of public space. Policies for the casual and unexpected, as Parkinson (2013) has considered, might privilege ‘accidental’ over ‘organized groups of democratic claim-makers’ – in other words, ‘users’ over ‘citizens’ (p. 696). The design of public spaces can be about encouraging people to be physically, mentally, and socially public. Such urban spaces stimulate actions and thoughts, tolerance and recognition of others, without trying to determine users’ actions and the places they create. Urban design processes and forms therefore do not necessarily delimit the required democracy.

Appropriations of space illustrate users’ desired cultural, social, psychological, and political values, which are materialized in and materialize space. These appropriations therefore require urban practitioners with sufficient awareness and knowledge to grasp them in their creative imaginations, as realizing them is possible through deep observations. In this perspective, complex urban structures with all their materials and relationships do not delimit democracy, but rather enable public involvement in the politics of creating them (Marres, 2005). So, urban design can be a democratic practice that is affected by unintended consequences, enabling them to transform publicness. The dialectics called for in this research are for building an understanding and practicing a consequence- based practice.

Among the important actors in production processes are ‘the public’, the people who are going to live their everyday life in cities, practicing their citizenship, and exchanging ideas with many others in the public realm. As part of the dialectic on which urban design should reflect in practice, there is an actual source of knowledge, which is reality. Urban design should gain its knowledge from its real consequences. For example, much of the problem of public places, according to Carr et al. (1992), is that they are ‘proposed, built and assessed with assumptions about what should be done in them’. These assumptions are based on designers, authorities’, and developers’ intentions and have been questioned for their determinism in attempting to design behaviours. Through re-identifying public space by appropriation, unintended consequences constitute unforeseen activities or unexpected public or unintended desires that can be taken as new knowledge.

Figure 2.3 illustrates the analytical framework of this study. The left circle represents professional production and the right circle production through everyday practices. As this diagram shows, each process includes interactions

59 between its agents (e.g., the planners, designers, users, and managers of space). Intentions, extending from these circles, illustrate the power imposed on the processes, via expert knowledge/roles and user desires. Arrows are bigger on the professional side, indicating the powerful intentions of the politicians and developers involved directly or indirectly in this process. Appropriations flow between the two processes (the mixed yellow–grey), to the actors’ synergies and engagements for transforming the publicness of public space. Regarding unintended consequences, or what Borden calls risk, ‘let the public realm not only reflect but encourage the widest possible range of positive human actions and qualities’ (Borden, 2014, p. 22).

Figure 2.3. Analytical framework: a dialectical approach (source: the author).

Figure 2.3 illustrates that Public space and publicness are in constant effect. Public space can act and affect transformation of publicness (the dashed lines illustrated in the diagram) through supporting or constraining appropriations. Elaborating on different characteristics of appropriations showed the socio-spatial and temporal relationships, and various types of togetherness and adaptations, social or individual encounters, or collective expressions that identify new typologies of public spaces within or in relation to the produced ones. In this perspective, transformation of publicness requires active appropriation, also citizens with political rights and critical minds that are not treated merely as passive citizens and accepting minds (Borden, 2014, p. 18). Producing publicness is considered as a mutual practice and appropriations (dashed lines in Figure 2.3) are sought for as driving forces for such practice.

60 Those emphasizing the process of urban design in fact understand that cities and their challenges, and accordingly future recommendations, cannot be divided. With time, new challenges will appear that urban practitioners could not have foreseen at the beginning, so actors’ engagement in this process will change based on the process. This approach to urban design thinking applies the knowledge– action dialectic (Inam, 2011), which requires the actors being constantly engaged with, affected by, and affects appropriations. As Figure 2.2 illustrates, experts– users engagement is not a linear and fixed relationship. Designing such processes for problem solving, according to Schön (1992) is an achievement in itself. Unintended consequences in this relationship provide opportunities for urban design to ‘restructure the problematic situation’, and ‘open up new problem solving paths’ (Schön, 1992, p. 34).

In this chapter the challenges of project-based urban design was discussed, which produce spatial transformations driven by utopian political intentions for social and/or economic change. By the turn of the millennium, the ‘makings’ of urban design have become more participatory and collaborative, and ‘places’ as outcomes were discussed more ‘in becoming’. As a result, design is now more about having effects and transforming people’s lives. Practitioners’ intentions and their engagement with other actors are still defined and affected by their institutional thinking and structures, and there have been ambiguities in the effects of planning and design for publicness. In this chapter, I also discussed the nature of urban public space as the realm where the political–economic and socio–cultural intentions of different actors meet. Therefore, I briefly explored some of the dilemmas associated with publicness and accordingly reflected on urban design, including multi-layered control, access, togetherness, encounters, and expressions. This research acknowledges design’s contribution to transforming urban spaces, based on its engagements and effects. By discussing publicness as relational, understanding various levels and types is seen as crucial for production processes to continue. This illustrates how the evaluation of ‘good public place’ and even ‘good urban practice’ must be constantly revisited (Madanipour, 2007). The study will expand this argument through the findings of the case studies.

62 Chapter 3. Research design and method

This chapter has three sections. First, in section 3.1, I discuss the research framework and the importance of combining strategies, with the case study at the centre. I describe how and why the case study is relevant to this research. In this section, I also discuss the choice of the Swedish context and the selection criteria for the two practices in Stockholm and Malmö. A brief introduction to Swedish urban planning and to the history of the two cases and their areas was presented earlier in section 1.3. In section 3.2, I discuss my approach to collecting data and working with different methods and empirical materials. Finally, in section 3.3, I reflect on my methodological approach and the choice of materials and methods.

3.1 Research framework: combining strategies

To achieve a deep and nuanced understanding of the gap between intentions and outcomes, this study provides an explanatory and exploratory account. It examines multiple and complex practices, decisions, and effects and explores occasionally overlapping practices and conditions that ultimately influence the publicness of space as the outcome. This research is designed to analyse these processes through using ‘case studies and combined methodologies’ (Groat, 2002, pp. 341–373). Case studies are the heart of the approach, while other strategies are required to explore the gap in engagement among the actors and the effects on public space. This helps when it comes to defining a certain place with multiple

63 engaged dynamics, no matter what intentions initiated the practice or what spatial outcome was created. It is also important to examine professionals’ reflections, normative positions, and restrictions on their choices (Law and Mol, 2001; Ravetz, 2006), which can be traced to specific cases in order to discern their tangible effects on people’s interactions and on the reality of place, as they play out in everyday spatial practices. Hence, public space in each case study is viewed as a manifestation of the actors’ engagements in the production process along with their effects, which become apparent in this realm. The publicness of a place is therefore in a constant state of becoming or flux, for example, moving from public to private, from open to closed, from lively to deserted, or from green to grey.

Case study

Case studies challenge rationalist approaches and normative positions. Case studies help build empirical knowledge of the complex and multifaceted characteristics of public places. Flyvbjerg (2006), among others, has acknowledged the pragmatic nature of (urban design) processes and the multiplicity of their outcomes. By collecting data about users’ appropriations of space in relation to the levels and types of publicness of space, the cases reveal the importance of the ethics of decision-making. Even though there is no intention to recommend any specific type of publicness of space or engagement, the final vote is given to appropriations of space that transform it to becoming generally more public. Like Flyvbjerg’s understanding of the role of ‘public debate’ that can claim what reality should be (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Næss, 2015), more public was described in the previous chapter as the condition in which appropriations are considered transformative actions if conducted by or for the public, by which a place accordingly becomes more inclusive and democratic.

Groat (2002) introduced the five primary characteristics of case studies: 1) a focus on either single or multiple cases, studied in their real-life context; 2) the capacity to explain causal links; 3) the importance of theory development in the research design phase; 4) a reliance on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to provide coverage in a triangulating fashion; and 5) the power to generalize to theory (p. 346). Based on these characteristics, the cases are places with their own contextual relationships and realities; they are represented through certain intentions and therefore can be explained through the dialectics of unintended consequences. They represent theories of urban design and each can be studied through multiple sources to explore actor’s engagement. Finally, the process of production is compared between the two cases to generalize our knowledge of the intention–outcome gap.

To theorize about this gap and build an argument based on case studies, the cases are analysed in the following order. First, the publicness of space in each case is explored in terms of the processes of planning and design practice. Second, the effects of these processes are explained in relation to the everyday publicness of space observed in users and in their interactions for space and each other. I

64 present the explanatory argument by identifying appropriations in each case, to highlight mismatching engagements and the conditions of publicness of space. Finally, through comparing the processes of the two case studies, the last part of the case analysis discusses the implications of unintended consequences for urban design, including a shift in conceptions and actions.

Through de-layering context-specific engagements with space and time, case studies reveal information going beyond generalized theories (Flyvbjerg, 2006), including context and time-specific results. Real-life contexts (practices) such as cases permit the identification of concepts that are used in practice and can be interpreted variously, for example, supporting decisions about public resources, ownership rules, forms of space, types of activities, future users, and management regulators. Cases situated in the same context or subject to generally similar socio–cultural norms, as chosen here, allow us to focus more on individual actors, on their theory-in-use and engagement in the process. They even allow exploration of the same larger structures, such as institutions or society, in which there might be professionals who challenge political–economic norms and mainstream practices, or there might be users of space who modify the setting based on their own socio–political desires. The case study helps us focus on particular stakeholders, times, and actions in order to identify compatible as well as mismatching outcomes or realities.

The combined strategy is used as an epistemological stance in studying the selected group of actors and their production processes in relation to the two case studies. The research was designed to support critical and procedural thinking about practice in order to advance the transformation of public spaces. According to the literature, planning and design practice requires reflective responsibilities in order to bring about emergent outcomes. The contingent nature of public places gives a descriptive account of the transformation process. This process needs pluralistic epistemology that acknowledges individuals’ engagement as both ‘subjects’ and ‘agents’, and the case study methodology helps us understand the dynamics by which engagements are empowered or restricted. In each case, the transformation of public spaces will be studied as resulting from systematic actions of planning, designing, and managing publicness and appropriating it in everyday practice. In combining strategies, effort is put into paying equal attention to different actors’ engagements. Consciously (over)simplifying the unintended consequences will illustrate the effects of practice.

Selection criteria

The context of the cases – Sweden – provides specific structures and norms. Sweden is a suitable context in which to choose cases for the exploration of the urban design process for the following reasons:

65 - There is a risk of losing sight of urban quality and publicness as a whole, because such qualities are divided between different professions and responsibilities. - The democratic context of Sweden invites citizens and their voices to be heard. The country has the reputation for forming intentions for urban change by involving public voices and disagreements; accordingly, strategies have been formulated to satisfy the public and welfare society and to achieve consensus among them (personal interview with architecture and urban planning critic, 27 March 2017). - The above democratic choices and actions have been strongly encouraged in planning practices as citizen engagement and participatory processes since the 1970s in practice and the 1980s in legislation. Yet democratic individual choices have also allowed municipal planning actors to have the power of decision-making in collaboration with other experts, financers, and developers. - Although the socio–cultural aspects of its public life are unique, Sweden is representative of other Western countries confronting post-industrial development and in terms of support for sustainability (mainly environmental) in their development agendas. - Any accessible space outside the private domain is considered part of the public realm in the Swedish urban context, so public spaces have no clear physical boundaries. Therefore, examining the transformation of public space can give a nuanced understanding of how publicness is perceived and accordingly appropriated. - The levels of publicness in Sweden differ from those of my own experience, which helps me analyse the socio–political role of urban design in preserving and enabling such publicness. For example, people’s rights, freedom of being, and expression of emotions and desires in public differ from my experience, as do the extents to which the process of design and its spatial outcomes not only support and spatialize such freedom, but also let multiple publics become and flourish.

The two Swedish cases, Liljeholmstorget transit hub in Stockholm, and the Western Harbour waterfront in Malmö, are project-based cases suitable for the study of structure–agency relationships in the production process as a social construct. Projects embody certain powers and forces, which initiate and drive them. Public space is the objective of the urban planning and design process, which confronts subjective socio–cultural norms and objective spatial practices, experiences, and meanings. These norms also involve professionals’ subjective views of how to incorporate intentions and regulations into their practice. Their practices accordingly feature ways of using creativity as well as a political outlook on future space and the future public. This public is characterized by users’ perceptions of space and by their desires, which affect their conscious ways of appropriating space and its publicness. Project-based urban design has clearly stated intentions and outcomes within a defined time, facilitating the understanding of effects and consequences. I explain the processes operative in each case by examining comparable sequences in the next two chapters (chapters four and five); this creates an exploratory and theory-building narrative of

66 unintended consequences in each process, and their effects on the publicness of space.

Figure 3.1 illustrates the two cases: Liljeholmstorget transit hub in Stockholm and the Western Harbour Waterfront in Malmö. The cases were chosen for their specific characteristics in terms of context and time, which affect their urban designs, as well as for the scales of their current urban settings. Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden, are both dealing with growth and development through densification strategies. Both cities can be framed as part of the shift to post-industrial and postmodern urbanism, which entails transitioning from being centres of production to centres of consumption and accordingly confronting the challenges of strategies for marketing and branding city spaces.

Figure 3.1. The two studied cases in Sweden: top, Liljeholmstorget transit hub, Stockholm; bottom, Western Harbour waterfront, Malmö (source of images: top left: Stockholm Stadsbyggnadskontoret, bottom left: Arkitektur, 2011, p. 23, maps: https://zoom.earth, illustration by the author).

The practices in both cities epitomize urban transformation in terms of sustainable urban development, initiated in the early 1990s, by means of various innovative and knowledge-based solutions at different scales. The two cases, which uphold sustainability principles could help us study social sustainability through the lens of public spaces, considering the levels of publicness of space as

67 effects of urban design. Creating meeting places is an objective of most development projects, including the two cases studied here. The two selected practices accordingly allow a critical understanding of such implicit social intentions and permit us to evaluate the planning and design outcomes by revealing users’ levels and types of engagements, i.e., who is meeting whom, how and why.

Both projects/practices are government initiatives whose formal processes were formulated in the 1990s. This was when Swedish cities began considering brownfield development and the transformation of industrial lands to re-identify their urban character, amidst the economic challenges of late-1990s Sweden. It was a key era, when public authorities agreed to collaborate with the private sector and service economy, resulting in a shift in municipalities from publicly regulated to market-oriented development (Engström and Cars, 2013, pp. 11–21). This shift and its effects were explored in both cases.

Guiding both projects/practices is stadsmässighet, translated as ‘city-like’, which was a political vision and discourse in Swedish planning of the 1970s. ‘City-like’ stands in clear opposition to förortsmässigt or ‘suburban-like’, by proposing densification strategies. ‘City-like’ became an implicit political discourse for addressing spatial solutions to the unintended social and economic consequences of modern planning, such as the placelessness of suburbs and social unrest. This discourse refers to the implicit qualities and values of the city, emphasizing mostly the visual characteristics of the city.

In this model, the image of the city is both important and functional. A city’s image is seen as created by certain ‘recipes’ for performativity, such as a fine- grained urban fabric (comprising the street network, defined blocks, and intersections), close proximity to destinations, intimate spaces (which induce people to linger), mixed-use blocks, and public spaces with diverse activities. Along with such descriptions of the physical form of the city, the values of public transport, high density in both built form and number of people, housing alternatives (in both physical form and ownership type), human scale, small blocks, and street-level activities have been discussed. However, application of this concept risks being deterministic, underestimating the plurality and complexity of relationships in the city. Accordingly, there are paradoxes when it comes to implementing this concept in planning and design practice (Westin, 2014). Values can be reductively explored by describing them numerically to justify private collaboration; for example, neighbourhood development is changed to mere housing production, reducing diversity to mixed-use blocks and ‘urban experiences’ to commodified experiences.

The differences in physical spaces, illustrated in Figure 3.1, allow us to concentrate on processes and effects rather than on causality and particular outcomes. Both projects have produced housing as well as multiple amenities: Liljeholmstorget

68 transit hub also includes transition spaces combined with a square and a shopping galleria, whereas the public realm in the Western Harbour Waterfront project includes a park, street network, and promenade.

In addition, both projects/practices have been acknowledged by professional reviews at various levels as best practices in sustainable development. The Stockholm project, a case of transit-oriented development, was awarded a planning prize for important collaboration between land-use and traffic planning (Arkitektur, 2010). It changed the urban context by attracting people to an otherwise underused site. The Malmö project, a waterfront development initiated by branding strategies to overcome the city’s economic and identity crisis, achieved international recognition for its green construction and sustainable housing development. The Stockholm project is regarded as a liveable, safe, and vibrant transit hub, which the traffic office considers a model outcome to be emulated. The Malmö project was ahead of its time in seeking radical change by applying innovative strategies. It represents a pioneering and progressive outcome that is constantly held up as a model for the marriage of technology and urban transformation, both nationally and internationally.

Both cases are therefore ‘critical cases’ according to Yin’s (1994) categorization of case studies, because as best practices, they allow us to study the intention– outcome criteria for assessing practice and instead explore other approaches to assessment, recognizing unintended consequences as not necessarily constituting failures. Yin has described how critical cases ‘allow a better understanding of the circumstances in which the hypothesis will and will not hold’ (Yin, 2009, quoted by Bryman, 2012, p. 70). However, public space was not the central intention or strategy of the two projects. In both cases, public space was an objective, planned and built within larger strategies, and this study introduces public space as a new lens through which to evaluate these strategies.

The choice of a descriptive and exploratory approach in this research determines the nature of the problem resolution. This choice is logical for the goal of theorizing the intention–outcome gap in the processes of producing publicness, because of certain characteristics quite apart from contextual factors. This will be better discerned by comparing the two cases, as described below.

Comparative analysis

By comparing the processes in the two projects, this case study found similarities in their urban design approaches to politically defined intentions, objective (i.e., spatial) strategies, and professional justifications of outcomes. Both cases reflect the tendency of urban design to take public space for granted as an objective outcome. However, the projects also displayed different dynamics of collaboration and pragmatic engagement among the three groups of actors, which affected the publicness of space. The similarities and differences between the planning and

69 design approaches towards publicness and between the divergent outcomes could be identified in terms of the appropriation of public space because of the comparative case study approach, which, as (Campbell, 2003) explained, allows the researcher to accommodate complexity and communicate results in the form of a clear, persuasive narrative. This comparative case study approach showed that urban designs display patterns of engagement in relation to the spatial outcome. This helped me generalize the findings about the transformation of practices (into alternative practices) in response to and in line with the appropriation of public spaces.

The research was not primarily designed to be comparative. The two cases were selected by using the aforementioned criteria. Taking a step back, I tried to identify the intention–outcome gap as reflected in the reality of everyday life. As mentioned above, both studied projects have been nominated as best practices with accordingly successful outcomes. This was the background for critical observation to explore the gap in reality through the appropriation of space as the consequence of production processes. Exploring the unintended consequences was therefore a reflexive practice, meaning that the gap was inevitable and dependent on observation and reflection. Comparison of the two practices allowed me to conceptualize the gap and make logical deductions (Flyvbjerg, 2006). Comparative analysis of the cases was used to generalize the findings about the intention–outcome gap in the processes of producing public spaces, and about how these processes could be observed and applied in discussing the transformation of public spaces.

3.2 Data collection

Public space is the ‘unit of analysis’ (Yin, 1994), so the strategies of ‘explanatory’ and ‘exploratory’ case studies are here designed to build an understanding of the processes and engagements that help public spaces work. The process of production, by designing either the types of public functions or the forms and levels of controls, involves multiple actors and differences, each having direct or intangible effects on publicness. The scope of data collection is delimited to the three major stakeholders illustrated in Figure 3.2: planners, architects, and users (e.g., regular users, visitors, and locals). These actors were chosen so as not to exclude other actors’ roles and effects; on the contrary, their practices reflect others’ intentions and their essential role (e.g., planners and architects) in dealing with political, financial, and technical forces when applying their own knowledge to create socio–spatial relationships that users confront and practice. Within this framework, I respond to two critiques that arose in the introduction chapter: the ongoing debate on where the realm of action is situated between planning and architecture in urban design; and how to apply socio–environmental concerns to avoid determinism. In answering the former critique, I consider both actors to be urban designers whose decisions affect the publicness of space, by means of norms and the form of space. In the Swedish context, urban designer is not a defined position or responsibility concerning the publicness of urban spaces holistically.

70 So the focus is generally on planners and architects as two groups of actors, who deal with other actors, such as politicians or developers. As to the knowledge/action engagement, the users of space are considered to be actors and evaluate the design process based on their appropriations. In addition, in this study, the users of space are not considered as outcome, as illustrated in Figure 3.2; rather, users’ intentions and practices are considered parts of the driving forces of the production process. As in Figure 3.2, the outcome of the production process is more than public space; it is about the constantly changing nature of publicness and that is produced and itself produces new publics and sometimes new domains for public space.

Figure 3.2. The research framework: three stakeholders were identified in each case study to enable exploration of the production process gap and its effect on the publicness of space (source: the author).

The first group of actors constitutes municipal planners at the city planning offices (CPOs), who have political positions and regulatory responsibilities for making decisions about the type and distribution of public resources, land allocation, and ownership of space. In the context of Sweden, municipalities are considered local authorities, and CPOs have the planning monopoly, meaning that the planners (in communication with politicians) should have the power and skills to make decisions about what to build through controlling the physical form of land use (fastställa detaljplan). They have also the authority to manage financial resources for the ‘public interest’ and therefore are willing to intervene to ensure particular outcomes. Norms are more flexible than regulations or laws, meaning that negotiation and deliberation are possible in order to create a politics of consensus. Although developers, who are sometimes the financers, owners, or managers of space, are essential and powerful actors, they are not directly studied here. However, by focussing on planners (and their various skills) and norms, the trade- offs between them and developers are in focus.

71 Architects represent the second group of actors; they deal with norms as well as forms, and therefore engage with both local authorities and developers in the implementation process. Architects are the designers of urban spaces and three- dimensional built forms. They are considered to be aware of the knowledge of cities concerning the socio–psychological and economic aspects of the built environment. Architects are politically engaged in the process of producing publicness. Their practice defines boundaries and territories, even manipulating users and their being in public (Dovey, 1999). They are in an iterative relationship with financers, developers, and owners of both public and private space, with their practice being situated between them. Their acts are political because they provide and enable values having dominant and powerful intentions, so their engagement might be at the development industry’s mercy or controlled by the public sector and authorities (Carmona et al., 2010, pp. 269–330).

The users of space include the public observed in and engaged with the space for various durations, reasons, and activities. Users of space can be physically absent from a place, though the traces of their presence are tangible. Based on the level of engagement, users construct individual or collective meanings based on their use of a space. Intangible meanings such as emotions, which never become physically visible in a place, are not considered here; rather, constructive or destructive actions, because of user’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a setting, are considered. Through social and political lenses, public space is the condition whereby the public has the power of expression. On the other hand, environmental psychology addresses the values of the built environment in relation to individuals’ behaviours and attachments, which can provide opportunities and affordances for individual well-being. However, individual liberties and public expressions might be conflictual in terms of manipulation and appropriation, because of planning, design, and management processes. Appropriation is observed based on individual freedom, yet among different publics, it is regarded as contesting a place to make it more public. Management of space is related to land ownership. We already discussed the fact that not every public space is necessarily publicly owned; accordingly, there are several public realms that are privately maintained. Even though the practice of management is not part of this study, by studying appropriations, the management of space indirectly comes into focus, as appropriates can enhance, preserve, or prevent users’ engagement.

Case studies involve qualitative data collection and analysis procedures. In each case, public spaces were studied using multiple sources of evidence in relation to actors’ engagements and their effects on the transformation of space. Source triangulation was used for each group of actors to explore their subjective intentions and objective practices, and to reveal other dynamics in the process that might affect appropriations. The logic for linking the collected data to a research proposal is the post-positivist perspective, which emphasizes social and historical context as well as fragmentation, plurality, subjectivity, and interpretation (Allmendinger, 2002, p. 88).

72 Figure 3.3. Triangulation of methods in studying the three key actors’ intentions and outcomes (source: the author).

Figure 3.3 shows the triangulation of methods used in collecting data from each group of actors. Planning documents were reviewed to identify the decisions about allocating land for public functions in the projects. When interviewing the responsible planners in the CPOs, I asked about the reasons for these decisions and about possible changes to them. A similar approach was used to understand the process of designing public space, together with the accessibility, order, and hierarchy of the resulting space. The studied reports and professional articles described the outcome and justified the quality of the produced space, while interviewing architects about their decisions revealed their responsibilities in the process as well as the effects of their personal experiences in the design process. Direct observation focussed on the users of the space, together with their interactions and rhythms of practice in relation to the physical environment and other users. The physical space was also analysed spatially to learn how spatial and functional arrangements become part of and affect users’ spatial practices.

The data collected for each case permitted a nuanced understanding of the complexity of engagements between the actors and of their effects on the production of public space. This is what could be (over)simplified as a gap between intentions and outcomes. This gap revealed overlapping and mismatching of practices evident in the spatiality, functionality, and temporality of public space, observed in examples of the appropriation in public space in each case.

All the data sources were original ones, although not specifically intended to shed light on public spaces or their transformation processes. The two cases displayed different characteristics of publicness, so the data sources differed in importance between the cases, as shown in Table 3.1. For example, because of the complex mobility in the Liljeholmstorget transit hub, spatial analysis of the site, blocks,

73 and buildings provided enough findings to justify people’s choices of paths, interactions, and appropriations observed on the site; in the Western Harbour Waterfront, because of the particular landscape, this was not a high priority. For the same reason, in both cases I actively observed people and strove to understand their choices by repeating their activities and tracking different users to identify their visual experiences, which might have affected their choices. Another example concerns the timing and duration of activities. In Malmö, various seasonal activities in the waterfront area affect both the quality of public life and the residents of the surrounding area, while the Stockholm transit hub welcomes various users all year round. In addition, there are many reports and perspectives on the Malmö project, because of its international profile, whereas the reports and newspaper articles on the Liljeholmstorget transit hub are more limited.7 Another example is that the Stockholm project has more complicated spatial arrangements and rhythms, making spatial analysis a more important source of data than in Malmö. In the following, I describe the data collection methods used in each case study in greater detail.

Table 3‎ .1. Hierarchy of data sources for each case study: PS = prioritized source; NPS = non- prioritized source.

Data source Stockholm case study Malmö case study PS NPS PS NPS Document analysis X X Reports and newspaper analysis X X Observations X X Interviews X X Spatial analysis X X

The ‘thick ethnographic description’ used in the case studies validates the qualitative case study approach. Besides the field notes documenting the entire observational experience, photography was an important data collection method. Users’ appropriations were not observed directly but synthesized in relation to expert’s engagement. Therefore, photos allowed me to test for accuracy and to verify observations through independent means. They also helped map behavioural traces, in the form of repeated interactions with the built environment and with other users. I present some of the photos to visualize the users’ interactions and the meanings of ‘being in place’. As in other qualitative studies, the data collection approach can lead the study to certain ends. Photos, for example, are observed facts more than researcher opinions; however, photos capture reality guided by my eyes as a subjective evaluator, though they can also

7 Although all Swedish documents were translated by the author, the amount of English coverage of the Malmö project still provided more information.

74 objectively record unexpected realities. All photos are mine, except existing ones that I found particularly valuable for the purpose of discussion, and for which I name the sources.

I expanded my field notes and combined different collected data at the sites, doing that at the sites, in Café Bravo at Liljeholmstorget in Stockholm and in Café Italia at Dania Park in Malmö. This facilitated a broad understanding of the culture of being in the places at different times. During this study, I intentionally conducted most of my casual meetings with friends at the Liljeholmstorget site, to obtain informal observations and feedback on the choice of place and to learn their preferences and subjective evaluations regarding the place, which enriched my understanding of both places.

Document analysis

Documents were important sources for exploring expert’s engagement. The studied documents included legal planning documents, such as Detailed and comprehensive plans, and plan descriptions (planbeskrivning). The documents also included scientific reports, studies, and books as well as newspapers and professional journals targeting the general and professional public (e.g., Arkitektur, Plan, and the Swedish Association of Architects’ publication, Sveriges Arkitekter). The types of planning documents differ between the cases because of the specific nature of the projects. In reviewing the documents, there was no explicit focus on public space as a subject; rather, any political, cultural, social, and spatial information related to the sites/locations was highlighted. The document analysis was also conducted to explore the two projects in relation to their historical background, which was explained in more detail when presenting the research setting (section 1.3). Reviewing the documents gave an understanding of the larger intentions, strategies, and objectives of urban development at the time of the projects.

These legal planning documents are available in Swedish (they have been translated by the author) from the CPO at each municipality’s website for different time periods (Malmö Stad, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008). These documents present very specific and instrumental information on what should be built (in an informative way describing what, not how). The planning descriptions present required empirical qualities, and address the micro socio–spatial relations in a normative and objective way. These documents are by-products of collaborations between many actors, and do not present the underlying sources for making or changing decisions in the process, but present decisions as sets of facts in a sense. The planning and design documents present experts’ objectives before implementation, so analysing other documents for post-implementation information helps determine whether these objectives were met.

75 Many sources and reports cover the Malmö case, assessing its outcome and consequences. One example is the special 2011 issue of Arkitektur, reviewing the project after 10 years of development. Another example is a book on urban planning in the Western Harbour (Persson, 2013), with chapters written by most key actors in the project. These post-implementation documents often present evaluation criteria from particular perspectives. Combining these pre- and post- implementation sources reveals considerable ‘justification of outcomes’ in the eyes and words of experts. This is highly relevant to the interviews, which reflected on both personal experiences as well as stated intentions. In the Malmö case, the Quality Programme (QP) was the important planning document cited by most involved practitioners. It sought to create consensus among architects and developers involved in the project, in order to coordinate development. This document, first presented before the Housing Expo in 1999 and revised later for the rest of the Western Harbour development, was meant to be descriptive to allow flexibility and modifications during the implementation process. I also reviewed newspaper articles and online reports to understand how the transformation of space in these two newly developed projects was assessed and presented by and for the public and whether appropriations of space have received any political or professional attention.

Interview

Interviews were conducted when the document review was nearly finished. The interviews had an interactive format, which allowed me to follow up on emergent topics while ensuring that we considered the predetermined topics and questions. Experts selected for the interviews had key roles in the project and were assumed to have relevant knowledge of their positions and familiarity with the professional terms. ‘Public space’ was not the subject we started the interviews with; instead, the actors were asked to highlight their ideas (i.e., ‘theories-in-use’), personal experiences, and actual and potential roles. (Stockholm Stad, 2006)

The interviews (17 in total, including follow-ups, all conducted by me) lasted almost two hours each; they were scheduled in advance individually by mail or telephone and anonymity was guaranteed. All interviews except one were conducted in English, and all except three (for which I took notes) were recorded. The transcripts of all interviews were sent to the interviewees and no comments were received. Besides the key actors of each project, I conducted three long and informal interviews with experts in urban planning/design practice with no connection to the case projects; these interviews discussed, in general terms, the urban planning practice and development process in Sweden. Table 3.2 presents detailed information on the interviews; the interviews were identical in format and the numbers do not indicate the order in which they were conducted but rather the order they are identified in the text. Follow-up interviews have different numbers to distinguish them. I facilitated the interviews by preparing the interviewees for the expected discussion (particularly by presenting background on my research project, Urban Form and Human Behaviour). In addition, it was helpful to introduce my personal background as a practicing architect;

76 interviewees could thereby better understand my role and perspective, which helped the interviews take the format of a professional discussion.

Table 3‎ .2. Information on the interviews.

Place and time of the interview Sector/ type of Interviewee’s role Case study organization Tekniska Nämndhuset, Stockholm, 19 February 2014 Stockholm city planner General Stockholm municipality Architecture and urban Stockholm, 27 March 2017 Architectural firm General planning critic Stockholm, 17 August 2016 Independent Activist General Stockholm, 16 April 2014 CPO Project leader Stockholm Stockholm, 13 January 2015 CPO Project leader Stockholm (follow-up of interview 5) Landscape architecture Stockholm, 23 April 2014 Landscape architect Stockholm firm Landscape architecture Stockholm, 23 April 2014 Artist Stockholm firm Stockholm Stockholm, 29 April 2014 Architecture firm Chief architect

Stockholm, 11 October 2016 Housing developers Developer and builders Stockholm Stockholm, 2 September 2016 Housing developers Developer and builders Stockholm Department chief and city Malmö, 5 March 2015 CPO Malmö architect Head of information, Malmö, 1 September 2015 CPO Malmö CPO Malmö, 6 March 2015 CPO Municipal planner Malmö

Stockholm Culture House, 23 Exhibition architect/ CPO designer of the master Malmö February 2015 plan/programme director Engineering Stockholm, 27 February 2014 Landscape architect Malmö Consultants Engineering Stockholm, 20 March 2015 Landscape architect Malmö Consultants

The practice of municipal planners encompasses designing the development process, mediating among various stakeholders (including politicians, financers, developers, and allies), managing financial resources, allocating land to developers (public or private), and commissioning consultants and architects. In Stockholm’s practice, municipal planners were responsible for, led, and owned the project. In Malmö’s practice, besides the municipality, the European Housing Exhibition has been an important partner. The interviewees were professionals acting as project leaders (i.e., municipal planners), designers of master plans and detailed plans (i.e., municipal planners at the CPOs), developers (only in the Stockholm study), commissioned architects/landscape architect, and artists.

77 Interviews were a more important data collection method in the Stockholm study, for which the interview data could not have been obtained otherwise. The list below contains the questions to be asked during the interviews; however, I followed the natural conversational flow and allowed interactive exchanges instead of simply asking questions systematically. Interview guide: - Why were/was you/your office selected for this project? - How would you describe the project goals? To what extent have you achieved them? How would you evaluate the outcome? - What were the challenging and conflicting intentions behind the project? - What do you remember that changed during the development process, such as main goals, objectives, key participants, and land use? - How much was your design affected by other actors’ needs (e.g., traffic or environmental requirements)? Any other actors’ needs? - How would you evaluate the project? What would you like to change if you could go back?

Related to public space: - Who were you expecting to be the future users? - What do you know about the space today? Changes, users? - What is special about public spaces in the Swedish context? What is special in this project?

Observations and spatial analysis

The study of publicness in the everyday use of place relies on deep and direct observation to understand user’s engagement. Such observation encompasses users (identifying the public) as well as their interactions with the built environment (e.g., spatial practices, encounters, flows, and rhythms) and the physical environment (including objects and signs). This sort of observation seeks to notice the levels and types of publicness, or simply how the public place works. Users were observed as individuals – alone or in groups, in places with public accessibility – and were not considered by-products or consumers of the given settings. Rather, users were considered ‘the public’ of spaces who practice the democracy and politics of place in their everyday engagements.

During observation, it was possible to categorize the users based on their general appearance and/or their various activities repeated in different rhythms (i.e., clustering or dispersing), as well as on preferred locations with the highest or lowest intensity of use. Users were observed in public in relation to different associations with space. Their actions, even when based on necessity, include their conceptions and unconscious evaluations of what is possible to do (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). Observation was conducted beyond the defined physical domain of the project in order to understand larger geographical relationships.

78 Observations and spatial analysis were conducted together and advanced the data collection process and the analysis of appropriations. Spatial analysis seeks spatial and functional arrangements that manipulate users’ practices. In such an analysis, visual and physical access, connections, and flows are explored in relation to the size of space, proportions and enclosures, and physical order, all of which affect people’s perception of place and help us understand users’ actions as spatial practices. Combining these two methods helps us find the explanations for less visible locations with fairly high activity levels, or for high intensities of interaction in unexpected locations. The process of observation continued by noting where activities did or did not take place in publicly accessible spaces and what locations people clustered in or dispersed from, and why. While keeping these questions in mind, the spatial analysis used a map of the site on which the following were noted:

- Physical attributes and objects: how objects are used in activities - Human traffic: when and where people enter, leave, and spend time - The people: who the actors of change are, and at what level - The types of interactions: activities, social encounters, and personalization

The catchment points and social spaces were explored by tracking people’s movements at different times (e.g., seasons, occasions, days, and rush hours) and under different climatic conditions, which is very important in Sweden. Table 3.3 shows the details of the observations for both case studies.

Table 3.3. Selected times and conditions for the observations.

Conditions/times Stockholm case study Malmö case study Summer: including 20–24 April 2014, avg. 10°C 5–9 March, 2015, avg. 5°C sunny and rainy days 16–21 June 2015, avg. 19°C, rainy 4–7 July 2015, avg. 20°C 1–4 March, 2016, avg. –1°C 25–30 July 2015, avg. 14°C

Winter: possible for Average temperature, –3°C: 10– 20 February 2017, avg. 1°C observation 19–23 February 2014, avg. 0°C, snowy 23–28 February 2015, avg. –1°C Time: Weekdays: 7:30–9, 11:30–13, 16:30–19, and a few Weekdays: 7:30–9, 11:30–13, 17–19 visits 23–23:30 when only public transport is Weekends: 11–16, as well as 19–22 running on summer nights Weekends: 11:00–16, particularly when retail stores are open As part of the site observation, ‘physical traces’ (Zeisel, 1981) of use of space and behaviour were sought to generate hypotheses about people’s intentions, rationales, and activity sequences. Finding such physical traces requires the observer to be sensitive to her surroundings and to human activities, detecting signs left in space that reveal the types of users and uses in unexpected or unintended ways (Gehl and Svarre, 2013, p. 30). Traces provide preliminary

79 information about who the users of public spaces are and what they do. The resulting temporarily useful hypotheses were combined with spatial analysis to discern appropriations in relation to experts’ intentions and expectations. I found Zeisel’s (1981) behavioural/environmental studies useful because they reflected on the appropriation of architecture and design effects. By asking the following questions, Zeisel (1981) intended to discover the processes by which places work:

‘How do environments create opportunities for people? Where do people and their surroundings impinge on each other? Where do they limit each other? How do people use the environment as means to an end? And to what ends? What design skills do people have? How do they manipulate their surroundings? How do people change environments to meet their needs? What takes place in particular settings? How do people change environments to meet their needs? What takes place in particular settings?’ (Zeisel, 1981, p. 100).

The observations accordingly considered what Zeisel (1981) suggested, as related to the needs of this research, as follows:

- Observing what people do in the setting in relation to the offered activities and amenities; - Observing changes made to an environment to better suit it to what people want, such as ‘separations’ or ‘connections’; and - Observing changes people make to establish a place as their own, for example, by personalization.

In observing physical traces, I considered durable traces that remained throughout my research. Observing physical traces combined with direct on-site observation identified the ‘context’ beyond the trace and clarified the larger picture concerning users’ appropriations. Since three out of four of the above items concern changes made by people, this conveys information about how far the space has been ‘publicized’ in relation to the controlled and manipulated built environment.

3.3 Methodological reflection

In certain contexts and at certain times, one type of engagement may seem reasonable while others seem inconceivable. If I had been trying to find out what a good public space should be like, or to identify the keys to success in bottom-up place-making, I would have conducted this research differently. I could have started by exploring the narratives of everyday practices solely; I could have undertaken discourse analysis in a Swedish context to find out how ‘public space’ and ‘publicness’ is interpreted in planning documents; I could have interviewed politicians and developers to understand the intentions behind the city development in depth; I could have analysed scholarly assessments of publicness

80 as ways of evaluating the two cases; I could also have chosen more recent cases with current social and cultural consequences. I would have conducted this research differently if I had planning knowledge and experience in my background, which in theory is more reflective in its practice. But had I done all those things differently, perhaps I would not have asked the same questions.

As an architect interviewing other architects, I was aware of an objective truth, formed in a positive and conventional school of thought while explaining and exploring the outcomes. Through the interviews, I could also notice when the use of planning rhetoric and design discourse aimed to avoid the actual answer. The aim was to interview more planners from the CPO. Although I used different approaches, I got either no answer from selected representatives, or negative responses.

The research would definitely have benefitted from the users’ perspectives, by scrutinizing users’ intentions and reasoning about certain of their actions. According to the present theoretical understanding, passive appropriations observed in the form of collective actions as either shared values or shared ignorance, could have been explored at greater depth through dialogue and interviews. Although limitations in time and Swedish language skill did not allow me to interview users, observing rhythms of action and bodily expressions of emotion led to interesting findings, sometimes going against general hypotheses, for example, that staying longer in a place indicates more attachment. I could also have treated the CPO as a unit of analysis and singled out particular actions and decisions related to public spaces if I had a deeper understanding of the context and culture of planning in Sweden.

Finally, the observational component of the research is limited to the particular observed users. Although I noticed and recorded whether observed groups were obviously imbalanced in terms of gender, age, and sometimes ethnicity, my observations did not include non-users, specifically the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Distributing surveys in nearby residential areas in addition to interviewing users are recommended approaches for further research.

82 Chapter 4. Liljeholmstorget: analysis and findings

This chapter contains three parts. Section 4.1 presents an analysis of the findings regarding the planning and design processes, and section 4.2 discusses findings regarding the use of space and how public places work. These two sections present explanations of stated intentions and actions in relation to the spatial outcome, and consider actors’ engagements in dealing with the multiple forces defining the publicness of space. To analyse the effects of these engagements on publicness, I present examples of appropriations in section 4.3, discussing them in relation to the identified processes.

4.1 Designing publicness

The city of Stockholm planned to transform industrial areas in Liljeholmen through four sites/projects: Liljeholmstorget, Årstadal, Liljeholmskajen, and Årstaberg. According to the comprehensive plan, the objectives for transformation from 1995 to 2014 were as follows:

- constructing new apartments and office spaces; - developing a public transit hub at the confluence of metro, bus, and tram lines; - building new roads, and transforming Södertäljevägen from a highway to a city street; - developing public spaces, i.e., two new squares and new smaller places and parks; opening up industrial areas to become parts of an attractive promenade around Årstaviken; - building new smaller parking areas; and - developing a new cityscape by building high rises in the Årsta neighbourhood

83 These objectives were envisioned to overcome the absence of urban life in these suburban and industrial areas by creating urban vitality (interview with municipal planner, 16 April 2014). This was a political spatial goal of the time to counterbalance the mono-centric city. Each site/project was planned to support the functions that a city should have. City planners described this intention, known as the ‘city-like’ aim in planning discourse, as not about mimicking the appearance of the inner city but about recreating how the city functions:

For example, not the same design of the blocks; [it] was more about an area with enough people, areas that can attract people to go there, such as public spaces or public services, shops, cafés, restaurants. This approach is not easy to achieve in any part of the city, because of not having [a sufficient] density of people. (Interview with municipal planner, 16 April 2014)

Liljeholmstorget was the first project in transforming Liljeholmen. It entailed expanding the existing transit station and adding new functions to transform the place into a transit hub. The CPO describes their objective as ensuring that ‘enough people will be living there, working there, and using the place, public places, parks’ (interview with municipal planner, 13 January 2015). The publicness of Liljeholmstorget, as the city planner explained above, was planned to be a magnet to serve existing and new neighbourhoods and, at a larger scale, the area between the inner city and south-western Stockholm. For municipal planners, ‘city-like’ development entailed no more than advocating diverse functions and maximizing density through mixed-use blocks, realizing an ideal of planning to achieve social, environmental, and economic sustainability (interviews with municipal planner, 13 January 2015 and 16 April 2014).

The municipal planners used models of inner city blocks as a tool when designing the structural plan; these models included elements such as blocks, defined public spaces, and the ideal of a smooth flow of commuters (see the plan in Figure 4.1). This highlights the planners’ empirical approach that relies on precedents as to ‘what works and does not work as the basis for design thinking’ (Lang, 2005, p. 54). Figure 4.1 shows designers’ sketches of the outcome, depicting public spaces as shared spaces where the traffic goes underground or through buildings. According to the planners, the design and construction were very innovative for their time, combining traffic nodes with residential blocks, taking account of environmental and construction considerations such as noise, pollution, vibration, and stormwater issues, while applying traffic standards (reflected in the planning documents, planbeskrivning).

84 Figure 4.1. Top-left panel: the primary structural plan, transforming Södertäljevägen into a city street; top-right panel: the first development phase; bottom- right panel: cross-section through the new bus terminal, showing the subway and the buildings on top (source: Stadsbyggnadskontoret, Planbeskrivning; arrows added by the author to indicate the orientation).

Designing spatial order

One of the important design objectives was the transformation of Södertäljevägen into a city street, as illustrated in the plan in Figure 4.1. The role of Liljeholmstorget as an urban centre in relation to its surrounding residential area was dependent on this goal. However, according to the city planner, the feasibility studies conducted revealed environmental challenges, so implementation of this idea was overhauled. This suggests that the strategies for this spatial transformation were not knowledge based but were formulated by the local authority at early planning stages when relevant experts were unavailable. The city’s reaction was no more than voicing the idea and defining bike lanes and sidewalks along the boulevard as sufficient though not optimal solutions. This has been problematic for the users of the newly developed areas even today, as discussed below.

A fundamental stage of planning publicness was to allocate the land to public spaces and public functions. The municipal planners in the Street and Real Estate Office were responsible for land allocation to commissioned developers. In Sweden, the process of land allocation occurs in parallel with the detailed

85 planning process, and the City Planning Office (CPO) starts planning after the formal land allocation decision and agreement have been completed (Caesar, 2016; Kalbro, 2013). As Caesar (2016) has stated, there is a possibility of synchronization between the development agreement, the adoption of the detailed plan, and even the last phase of purchasing the land (p. 265). The planners of Liljeholmstorget emphasized their engagement in negotiating and advancing the initial programme (i.e., a transit hub and mixed-use centre) during the land allocation process. Each plot of land had its own commissioned developer and architect, and was built in a different phase, as illustrated in Figure 4.2. This figure presents the detailed plans provided by CPO from 1995 to 2006 for different phases of the project. In phase A, the existing situation around the subway station and public building was improved. Next in phase B in 1999, a new apartment block was planned, which included improving the light rail platform, subway station, and bus terminal. Phases C1 and C2 focused on the block, which includes the bus terminal and retail space in addition to surrounding streets. Finally, phase D comprises the shopping mall block with new apartments, the delivery service building, expansion of public services, and parking spaces.

By reviewing the planning documents, the compromises and trade-offs between the city and developers can be depicted. One of the obvious changes is the physical form of the space, namely, new blocks along the transformed Södertäljevägen (see Figure 4.1), which were never built due to environmental pollution along the highway (interview with municipal planner, 16 April 2014). Another change in the initial programme is related to the mixed-use blocks, initially planned to comprise housing, offices, and retail facilities as well as amenities such as a hotel, library, or cinema. Due to a lack of market interest in building office spaces, the resulting blocks are mainly residential with few retail outlets on the ground floor (see the change in the detailed plan between 2001 and 2002, illustrated in Figure 4.2). Municipal planners justified these changes by referring to programmes in a future project.

The idea of a shopping galleria (or mall) was not part of the initial programme but was proposed by the private landowners. They obtained permission from the municipality and then sold the land to an American pension fund (interview with municipal planner, 16 April 2014). From a municipal perspective, however, this was not an unexpected change in the process.8 The owners believed that they had agreed to the initial plan to build a mixed-use development including housing and retail, besides facilitating the public transit station, building parking spaces, and expanding public services, all of which was considered a successful achievement

8 The investors/owners of the shopping galleria had collaborated with the city of Stockholm on several other shopping centres.

86 for the city. Everyday needs were identified as consumption, work routines, and improved daily experiences facilitated by, for example, bicycle lanes and sidewalks. Public–private partnerships have changed the nature of the public realm because they make the public sector dependent on private investment, and therefore on private initiatives to build, as in this case, a shopping galleria and an enormous excess of parking spaces (900 parking spots). The speculative development of shopping gallerias and other commercialized spaces has been thoroughly analysed as the outcome of the shift to public–private development models.

Looking closely at Figure 4.2, the lines indicate the legal territories for implementation in each phase, with public areas divided between them. The development boundaries do not assign the ownership of the territories; after the plan is legally approved, the ownership of public spaces around the plot becomes clear. The ‘public place’ (allmänna platser) on the map was divided according to traffic reasoning into either spaces for basic traffic functions or open accessible space for various users. The type of publicness was therefore designed based on accessibility type and level: for example, ‘street’ (Gata) indicates space shared between vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles; ‘pedestrian street’ (Gågata) includes car access to drop people off; while ‘square’ (torg) and ‘parks’ indicate developed green space. The landscape and outdoor space design was started in 2002 by municipally commissioned competition-winning architects, and these areas were developed by the public Street and Real Estate Office (Gatu- och fastighetskontoret). The planning documents address concerns about environmental aspects and green public spaces more extensively than other concerns related to public spaces, such as social or cultural uses. They include no consideration of the overall quality of the public realm as a whole, as divided between territories with different operational systems; for example, the light rail platform, green space (i.e., park), and square were designed, developed, and managed by different actors.

Each detailed plan shown in Figure 4.2 is accompanied by documents reflecting on the background, ownership conditions, construction, green spaces, traffic, and regulations. Changes are reflected in the planning documents only after the decisions were made on new agreements. These changes and their effects on the publicness of space are discussed below.

87 Figure 4.2 Liljeholmstorget detailed plans, collected and drawn by the author (source: Stockholms Stadsbyggnadskontoret, Planbeskrivning; source of the satellite map: ttps://zoom.earth).

88 The strategy of creating ‘city-like’ environment by developing public transit is similar to the transit-oriented development (TOD) approach, which sought a solution to urban sprawl for American car-oriented cities. This approach was applied as one of the trends in the new urbanism movement in order to achieve mixed-used communities, accessible (i.e., walkable) public spaces, and liveable communities (with socio–economic diversity) through applying a set of tools and techniques (see more in Haas, 2008). In the TOD model, for example, land-use efficiency (i.e., high density, accessibility, and pedestrian friendliness) is a key factor supporting high public transit accessibility. This model demands other urban qualities, such as attractiveness, pedestrian-friendly (i.e., safe and comfortable) experiences, and diverse activities, but the developers mostly appreciate it for its short- and long-term economic outcomes. Following the planning description, Liljeholmstorget had objectives similar to those of the TOD strategy, including linking different transit stations, a shopping street adjacent to the stations, connections branching into the surrounding neighbourhoods, pedestrian-friendly places, and various residential types. Although the planners did not acknowledge the TOD strategy and its objectives during the interviews, the kinds of changes they intended to create during implementation were generally similar to those of TOD: improving quality of life through good urban design.

Designing public territory

Design and development processes were interwoven and did not have clearly recorded starting points, and public spaces were somehow shaped as outcomes of building process. As Figure 4.1 shows, implementation followed an incremental design process captured in rough sketches not found among the planning documents (interview with municipal planner, 13 January 2015 and with developer, 2 September 2016). The idea was to craft solutions with the most practical and functional characteristics. The physical structure crafted by the CPO was based on consultation with experts, including environmental and traffic engineers; the CPO was responsible for managing the finances and controlling the implementation, meaning that commissioned developers, as they confirmed, were also consulted (interview with developer, 2 September 2016). In this way, the city could fulfil traffic requirements, meet the developer demand to build a shopping galleria, and accommodate the geographical constraints of the site, such as varied topography and train tracks, which are physical barriers to development.

To foster desired social change by building ‘city-like’ developments was an insufficiently specific vision to guide the architects to design differently from previous practices. They interpreted this as an implicit legitimizing discourse of building and populating the area (personal interviews with architects, 23 and 29 April 2014). Therefore, the sought-after urban vitality in public spaces, articulated in the ‘city-like’ vision, was considered a by-product (Westin, 2014; Marcus, 2000) and not well understood in terms of socio–spatial qualities such as togetherness, interaction, or any kind of co-presence in public spaces. Planning documents (planbeskrivning) described and illustrated some of these spatial qualities, for example, entrance location, courtyard access, portico shape, and office location.

89 These qualities and values more objectively reflect the negotiations between the architects, CPO, and developers, as well as their common choices. They do not describe urban qualities in terms of socio–spatial relationships, for example, integrating the entrance with visual connectivity to the courtyard and adjacent public functions. There was no description of the publicness of space as a whole, or of how it evolves over time and through interaction with users. Public space was therefore not a subject of design as the spatial component of public interest, which is well appreciated in theory. Reviewing strategy implementation reveals that public space was only an objective of urban practice, regardless of all the stated good intentions, which are elaborated on below.

The public spaces were initially shaped based on the requirement for efficient and smooth pedestrian traffic to and through the new transit hub to access the subway, light rail, and bus terminal. However, in further development, the planners emphasized the public ‘square’, imagining it as

a town square, which had a public building in a corner … Liljeholmstorget was planned to create that image, a traditional piazza with its existing civic building. (interview with project leader, 13 January 2015)

The functions of a town square are related to its integration with other elements of the urban fabric, human scale, activities, vibrancy along the edges, and multiple functions in the local economy. Empirical knowledge of these matters influenced the planners’ considerations to some extent, but what they overlooked was the specific implementation of such knowledge. The square-shaped Liljeholmstorget is surrounded by public functions, but they create no vitality along the edges because of the types of functions: transit stations, a shopping galleria, and big grocery stores. This outcome was a consequence of implicit land use regulations and of compromises with developers. Both actors interpreted ‘mixed use’ as including retail outlets, and retail development usually attracts strong investors, major chains, and established businesses.

Landscape architects commissioned by the city negotiated intensely with planners and retail developers about the effects of the proposed functions on the square’s identity (interview with the landscape designers, 23 April 2014). Their intention was to create a ‘meeting place’ with a ‘memorable image’ for Liljeholmstorget. It would have its own identity, not just be typically suburban (Arkitektur, 2010), differing from the identity that the shopping galleria or transit hub would impose on the place (interview with the landscape designers, 23 April 2014). An artistic design sensibility was their strategy to create a vibrant public space and fulfil the city’s requirements to incorporate natural elements and create safe conditions (interview with the artist, 23 April 2014):

90 Designing a public place is about solutions for our needs … with the aim of creating conditions for city life … It is about creating a square that stays alive in our memory and that emphasizes the square’s intrinsic value as a human meeting place in public space (Arkitektur, 2010).

As the above quotation highlights, the designers of the square focused on the political aspects of public space and used art to challenge the general public acceptance, experience, and pleasure of privatized public spaces, such as the shopping galleria, which the city planners, as project owners, accepted as the future of public spaces. With the focus of the private sector on the provision, financing, and management of public space, such as in Liljeholmstorget, the publicness of places such as the square and the regime of control have been shifted. The artist in collaboration with the landscape designers used art (see the plan in Figure 4.3) to contest the defined publicness of the square, and instead to create a meeting place with a distinctive image (interview with the artist and landscape architect, 23 April 2014). The use of graphic patterns in the pavements of public squares has been a tradition of Swedish landscape designers. Focussing on pavement pattern and geometry, such as in Vällingby Centre and Sergels torg, was described by one of the Swedish landscape designers as a cultural tendency referring to the period when Swedish landscape architecture was attracted to international modernism. He explained that biological diversity was regarded as an obstacle to be squeezed into perfectly regular geometric forms, which is one reason why almost no vegetation interrupted the purity of these modernist landscapes, such as in Vällingby Centre (interview with landscape designer, 27 February 2014). The designers’ means of creating a memorable identity by using a unique paving pattern was not new, though it was applied in a post-modern way that relieved the purity of modernist geometric patterns. They created a pattern consisting of small, light-grey flamed cobblestones and flamed slabs in different shades. This asymmetrical and dynamic pattern is unique, as shown in Figure 4.3.

These image-making and place-making strategies can be traced in the random flowery pattern of the square’s paving, in the outdoor furniture as artefacts with specific forms, colours, and details, and in the seemingly random distribution of trees, lighting elements, and benches, all of which were intended to create an image that stays in the mind. The landscape architects were aware of the importance of sitting for the social life of public spaces. They designed long curved benches with long and fairly high curved back-rests, which have a decorative lace pattern that plays with light and shade. The benches invite the users of space to mingle in groups or individually, while the high back-rests give them some privacy in public (interview with the designers, 23 April 2014). The landscape architects described the importance of having alternatives when one is out in public, so the design placed the benches in varied locations, in sun or shade, with optional views, and situated at various distances from one another. A colourful canopy is situated in the axis of the square and the street not only to give a sense of enclosure and a centre of interest to the square, but also to accommodate a market and outdoor café. These features were intended to help Liljeholmstorget become a

91 ‘meeting place’ (interview with the landscape architect, 23 April 2014), a goal that has never been fully realized.

Figure 4.3. The realm of practice for landscape designers (source: Arkitektur, 2010), bottom right: sketched by the designer during our interview.

On the other hand, the designers described the limitations of their engagement, which affected the quality of the space. The challenge concerned the expected users and how to satisfy their needs: the users were not ‘multi publics’ and their needs were not abstract ‘public interests’ as idealized in theory. For example, the designers confirmed that the smooth movement of commuters was the city’s highest priority, so no physical elements could intrude between the bus terminal, light rail platform, and subway entrances. The designers’ creative solution for

92 place-making in this location – colourful lighting embedded in the paving pattern – was not well maintained by the city after one year.

The city’s major requirement was that the developers and their assigned architects provide direct access between the mall and the subway platform (interview with the city planner and architect, 16 and 29 April 2014). This convenient physical access results in commuters, a diverse group of users, becoming users of the shopping galleria by conscious or unconscious choice. As Figure 4.4 shows, the architects engineered the building on the site, considered the physical barriers, protected the pedestrian-friendly square from delivery services, and created a new access route to the existing public-service building (i.e., civic centre). The housing and the delivery building have access from the adjacent street, the shopping galleria has two entrances from the square and direct access from the subway platform, and the civic centre has its entrance on the mall.

Figure 4.4. The complex block showing different access relationships (source: Equator Architects).

Publicness is divided into different spatial territories and accordingly separate responsibilities. The publics of different spaces and their liberties in these spaces can be empowered differently: for example, the users of Liljeholmstorget square, Liljeholmstorget shopping galleria, and Liljeholmstorget neighbourhood experience different levels of publicness. The effects of producing publicness by means of divided strategies/territories is usually in line with the domination of powerful actors and their territories. Such domination and prioritization happen even within the same territory, where some spaces are more public than others

93 and, accordingly, some users are more welcomed. One example is the expansion of the shopping galleria territory into the residential courtyard, by which designers provided natural light to the galleria (considered public space) and took space from the residential courtyard (also considered public space. This opening can be seen in Figure 4.4, top right, the pink circles on the courtyard – in green – and in the section below, between the housing and the shopping mall). If designers limit their practice to project territories and objectives, the publicness of space will be affected by unbalanced power relationships among the actors, which is materialized in the levels of publicness.

Engagement conflict could be reflected in urban edges as territory between spaces with different ownerships and managements. However, the designers of privately owned public space in the Liljeholmstorget project were not ignorant of open space, even intending to create a sense of enclosure and ‘coziness’ in the square by hiding the bulky mall underground, unlike typical malls (interview with the lead architect, 29 April 2014). The block, its designers explained, presents ‘city-like’ facades to the square: two floors of shopping, with the rest being housing and offices. They have very strong opinions about economic strategies for ‘sustainable development’,9 and accordingly have different conceptions of public space from that described by the CPO:

Planners have romantic ideas about squares, small shops, etc. These ideas do not work today. The economic conditions of everyday life are very important. The municipality [still] thinks about the old romantic squares within an old structure. Here in this project, there was no structure and a lot of investment was put into developing it. The owner of a small shop cannot survive with the high rent of new development. This is the economic reality of creating shopping centres with private ownership in order to financially support new urban development. (interview with the lead architect, 29 April 2014)

Understanding public space in terms of the economic challenges of development and implementation is essential; however, this understanding is ignored or hidden in well-intended transformation projects, and accordingly affects the ‘ideal image’ and expectations of the outcome. But accepting the economic realities mentioned in the above quotation does not facilitate improvement, adaptations, and changes in the future or by new actors. The effects of so-called economic realities can be seen perfectly on the ground-floor levels of the Liljeholmstorget project. The edges of the square are either the blank wall of the shopping galleria, glassed/passive storefronts displaying goods, or large stores occupied by retail chains, along with certain businesses approved by the development actors (i.e., the COOP national

9 They used creative and innovative construction solutions for green building and efficient integration with the traffic system, and received platinum-level LEED certification in 2010.

94 grocery chain and McDonald’s). These businesses were decided on in the early stages of design in order to guarantee future tax revenue (personal interview 10, 11, 2016; 2, 2017); because of the size and high rent of the premises, other businesses cannot easily replace these tenants in the future.

The pedestrian flow in the commercialized Liljeholmstorget reveals the economic logic of manipulating user movements. Allen (2006) has questioned the publicness of such ‘accessible yet closed’ and ‘inclusive yet controlled’ spaces where the ‘ambient power’ of commercialised spaces ‘effectively closes down options, enticing visitors to circulate and interact in ways that they might not otherwise have chosen’ (p. 441). Allen (2006) problematizes the ambient quality of privatized spaces, in which surveillance techniques even more than the power of physical form are used to manipulate users’ choices. Although Allen’s argument is relevant in analysing commercialized spaces such as Liljeholmstorget, the power of physical form and materials was applied in manipulating the flows, rhythms, visual experiences, and duration of presence in both the shopping galleria and the square in front of it. The shopping galleria is called Liljeholmstorget (torget means square in Swedish) to claim openness as a square, and to claim unity with the entire Liljeholmstorget urban centre. Naming is a strategy to define publicness beyond territories: is Liljeholmstorget a proper square? Or is the shopping galleria perceived as a square?

Returning to the challenges of engagements between territories and of producing territories, one can see that the designers of the open space had a mediating or ‘in- between’ role among the other actors, recalling the role of the territory assigned them, which is a space between the blocks. They mentioned that they had to adapt their design to the changes occurring during the long planning process. This could be said to be normal practice in urban design, yet as the quotation below indicates, their engagement was not reflexive except in responding to required spatial changes:

We tried to influence the City Planning Office to have public amenities with access from the square … to support their idea of making the square a meeting place … but we were forced to design, for example, the existing road into the square, which allows car access and was not our primary concept, or an extra entrance/staircase from the square to the shopping galleria to provide access to the service level, which has different opening hours from the shopping galleria, even though we did not agree with that. (interview with landscape designer, 23 April 2014)

95 Figure 4.5. Liljeholmstorget awarded the 2010 planning prize (source: left, https://www.arkitekt.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Priser-Planpriset-2010-Utvecklingen- av-Liljeholmstorget-i-Stockholm.jpg, right: https://hallbarstad.se/sveriges- arkitekter/liljeholmstorget/). This highlights the complexity of the design engagements and the effects that creating one territory/function can have on another. One should constantly think about the consequences of decisions, and of changes in decisions, not only for spaces through different spatial interventions but also for social dynamics through different modes of the social governance of space. Therefore, maintaining an environment of open communication among all actors in the process is important, though it is expected that their partnerships should enable wider participation and value creation. According to Hajer and Wagenaar (2003), the outcomes of more partnership in decision-making processes are decisions that have been approved during the course of the process.

Publicness beyond intentions

In the previous sections, the project was analysed in terms of the intentions and strategies that drove the planning and design processes. The process of detailed planning includes decisions that translate intentions into strategies. These decisions, as mentioned above, affect the physical territories of public spaces, type of public functions, and levels of publicness. By reviewing the actors’ stated intentions and applied strategies, as summarized in Table 4.1, these decisions can be seen as affected by the other actors (namely developers and engineers) and the CPO and architects had the instrumental, legislative, and regulatory roles. The actors had reached economic agreement and the design process was communication based, with some incentives for developers. The empirical findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of these actors’ intentions and strategies, which changed based on their different scales of relationships with place, which in turn identified their scopes and geography of responsibility and their expected outcomes. At the Stockholm level, the intentions have no specific relationship with the project except for reflecting the political interests in spatial development and the choice of site for development. The existing character of the site defined its future identity as a well-structured transit hub or interchange. At the project level, however, the place’s character evolved beyond the stated intentions and, as illustrated in Figure 4.5, the concrete outcome in the professional realm is the newly built housing, square, and shopping galleria.

96 Table 4.1. Intentions and strategies for transforming Liljeholmstorget, affecting the type and level of publicness of the project (the author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings).

Liljeholmstorget’s Intentions Strategies – strategic objects relationships at

Stockholm level Creating a ‘city-like' quality: Spatial development, densification plans/sites transformation of industrial zone into an accessible and attractive part of the city

Liljeholmen level Transformation of existing subway Transit hub station into an urban centre Mixed-use urban blocks: retail, offices, and residential (24-hour activities of everyday life) Street network and public spaces (square as meeting place) Liljeholmstorget Efficient infrastructure combined Innovative construction methods project with efficient land use Urban image Clear interfaces between public and private: closed blocks with courtyards, street-level access, active ground floor Diversity of people Attractive and convenient transit hub

Reviewing the process of shaping the Liljeholmstorget project at different scales of relationships explains how the publicness of place and its socio–spatial relationships were produced and evolved. De-layering the engagements in design process illustrates how the publicness of the place was socially constructed, affected by divided ownership territories, and, accordingly, by the individual concerns and responsibilities driving the project and choices of qualities and values. Describing the architects’ and landscape designers’ roles highlights the intentions regarding collective versus individual social qualities at different levels. Yet their lack of power as well as apolitical actions and strategies in negotiating publicness did not challenge the official planning or the formal neoliberal economic rationales, which contributed to exclusions, commodified experiences, and other impediments to social goals. Table 4.2 analyses the public spaces of Liljeholmstorget, as divided during the process because of different ownership territories, in order to describe different actors’ roles and effects.

The first spatial type is the urban space, including all open spaces regardless of ownership; these public spaces are publicly owned and managed (e.g., streets, squares, and sidewalks). The second type concerns ownership and comprises semi-public spaces (e.g., the shopping galleria block). Public transit stations are spaces regarded as public goods in planning, regardless of their exclusions and separated spaces.

97 Table 4.2. Publicness of Liljeholmstorget in relation to different actors’ intentions/responsibilities (author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings).

Territory of public Square and streets Shopping galleria space/Responsibilities (including the civic centre) Intentions Strategies Intentions Strategies Town square: no Image of the Shared space: no car Management car traffic or square traffic or parking regulations CPO parking (emergency access) Car-free (emergency regulations access) Landscape designers Meeting place: Shared space, Meeting place: place of Randomness in place of randomness in democracy, spatial democracy, spatial alternatives, and arrangements alternatives, and arrangements freedom Designing freedom Designing Memorable image: affordances Memorable affordances visual and symbolic through artefacts image: visual and through artefacts identity and social symbolic identity and social amenities

amenities

Architects Urban blocks Openings in the Diversity of everyday Indoor passages façades: portico needs Direct access from and staircases for Efficient and the mall to other entrances, plus convenient public amenities small retail outlets environment Visual urban Urban blocks qualities

While the intentions supported diversity and the idea of creating a liveable environment, the decisions were preoccupied with rationality and order. The experts’ pragmatic role was simply to follow the norms and rules, and not give critical feedback on decisions, practices, new collaborations, or revised ideas. The infrastructure role of public spaces has been well acknowledged in planning and design for a century, yet the improvement of day-to-day urban life, which is a process of creating opportunities for urban synergies, is taken for granted. Urban design regards urban synergies, social encounters, and emergent qualities as by- products that arise between people by means of access to public services and other people. The project leader, i.e., the CPO, succeeded in accomplishing its straightforward goal: a transit hub. After implementation finished in 2009, Liljeholmstorget was already considered a success because of its spatial change, usually articulated in terms of before … after or from … to:

… from a broken and inhospitable place into a vibrant neighbourhood. (Sveriges Arkitekter, 2010)

98 Figure 4. 6. Liljeholmstorget: view from the light rail station towards the south, with the civic centre in the background (2015).

4.2 Appropriating publicness through spatial practices

This section presents analytical findings regarding Liljeholmstorget today, examining the place and its publicness in terms of user’s interactions, the rhythms of observed lives, and spatial practices. This section starts by explaining the results of on-site observations; the spatial analysis continues by discussing the transformation of the space and its publicness. The transformation of public space is not only design driven, but is equally related to the people whose meso- and micro-practices not only are visible in space but also can interrogate spatial outcomes and the meanings of publicness. This matter is examined here by citing examples of appropriations.

Liljeholmstorget (Liljeholmen square in Swedish) previously comprised a subway station (built in 1964), a bus terminal, a few public services, and a parking lot for

99 the local industry workers of Liljeholmen. Today, Liljeholmstorget is a changed place. Figure 4.6 illustrates the manifested outcome, showing that the place has become a transit hub for many Stockholm residents, serving a large number of commuters and visitors who arrive there by subway, tram, car, or bus. With the same name as the square, Liljeholmstorget is also a three-level shopping galleria with a civic centre (Vårdhuset) sited on top of it. Today Liljeholmstorget is a place for various local users who live in new apartments and a care centre, or work in the shops or offices built in its vicinity. The observations indicate that Liljeholmstorget has multiple publics in terms of their rhythms of activity, types of use, and territories of daily practices. Before examining them, and whether and how they can constitute a driving force transforming the space, it is important to describe the place through the lens of the relationships that collectively affect daily practices.

Liljeholmstorget Galleria is said to be one of the best shopping malls in Stockholm, situated at one of the liveliest and most efficient transit hubs. The Liljeholmstorget development contains new residential condominiums, 94 shops, 900 parking spaces (far more than required), and a delivery-service building. It serves 41,000 commuters daily and 29,000 galleria visitors on weekdays; public amenities including necessary services, cafés, and restaurants are open for ten hours of intense use every day (JM AB, 2018; Citycon, 2018).

Levels of publicness

As explained above, the publicness of Liljeholmstorget is relevant to the public– private collaborations involved in the production of space, and the place cannot simply be divided into public and private realms. Marcuse (2005, p. 778) offered a scale of six levels of legal ownership ranging from public to private in relation to the use and function of space10; considering the publicness of Liljeholmstorget in terms of these levels illustrates the complexity of publicness of urban spaces.

To understand the effects of the complex ownership and functional relationships in Liljeholmstorget, examining the levels of public use is very important. There are signs indicating public transit (T), parking (P-Hus), the shopping galleria, shops, and public services, to inform users of the amenities and activities available at Liljeholmstorget. Just across Södertäljevägen (beyond the project territory) the signs of companies, some globally known, continue on the building facades, partially representing what has called the public of Liljeholmstorget into being. Observing people’s mobility in the shopping galleria as well as their flow into the

10 These levels are: public ownership/public function/public use, public ownership/public function/administrative use, public ownership/public function/private use, private ownership/public function/public use, private ownership/private function/public use, private ownership/private use (2005, p. 778).

100 offices around Liljeholmstorget reveals that the publicness of Liljeholmstorget has gained importance from ‘local/global relations’ (Dovey, 1999, pp. 47–50).

In the theoretical chapter, public space was identified as a multidimensional concept. Given that use of public space entails more than just consuming the space as a resource, the social and political aspects of publicness affect the levels of engagement in space. In everyday use, Liljeholmstorget is accessible to people, who can use the amenities within it. The public functions are controlled by cooperation between the public and private sectors, through which the space was developed and is now managed. Therefore, its publicness is a mixture of functional use and exchange values, which according to Madanipour’s (1999) examination of publicness, means that users’ spatial freedom is limited to certain behaviours and spatial practices. Given the contribution of the political economy to transforming spaces, Liljeholmstorget admits the socio–economic changes in our society. These effects are observed in Liljeholmstorget, where people’s practices can be seen as repetitive, similar, and dependent. Sennett (1997) argues these practices in relation to a decline in the local qualities of places and the transformation of local identifications.

Figure 4.7. Spatial analysis of produced public spaces and the physical connections between them (source: the author).

This spatial analysis underlines four major types of public spaces (presented in Figure 4.7) serving public interests: the shopping galleria, transport-related spaces, open spaces, and civic centre. Each of these spaces acts as a ‘magnet’, attracting people based on the available functions. The grey circles represent economic magnets with a wide range of uses and interests (e.g., the liquor store and grocery stores such as ICA and COOP). The white circles represent social attractions, such as the public transit platforms, civic services, and even parking spaces. As is clear, these functions are not equally public, as one must pay for some of these services but not others, and they also have different opening hours.

101 The number of circles does not precisely indicate the number of services/amenities; likewise, the connections between the circles do not reflect the actual distances between the magnets, but instead indicate the configuration of connections or vertical accesses. According to the analysis, the relationships between these major public zones are as important as their interrelations involving the public open spaces, illustrated as double circles in the diagram.

The success of the transit hub for its designers was achieved through its intensity of public functions for everyday life and the convenient physical accessibility among the transport nodes and between them and the shopping galleria, as well as other public amenities shown in Figure 4.7. On one hand, these spaces have different ownership arrangements and hours of operation; on the other hand, as the diagram illustrates, their physical territories are integrated, overlapping at certain points through multiple entrance accessibilities and different levels of permeability to branch out into the area. There are multiple types of entrance accessibility, visual accessibility (in terms of different levels of permeability), and connections branching out from the area, all of which affect the publicness of the space (Németh and Schmidt, 2011). For example, the corridors of the shopping galleria are accessible longer than the opening hours of the mall (10.00 AM– 08.00 PM) because they are used to access the two main grocery stores at the –1 level, but they are not in use for all the operating hours of public transit (daily 05.00 AM–01.00 AM). Another example is the main entrance of the civic centre, which opens onto the shopping mall corridor, requiring a separate entrance on the square for use when the mall is closed.

Access to public goods

All the public surfaces have been engineered to be accessible to everyone regardless of their mobility level. Analysing accessibility here mainly concerns the quality of physical access, access experiences, and the social dimensions of accessibility. Lynch (1981) addressed the quality of access based on ‘which access is given and to whom it is afforded’, referring not only to access to services such as those provided at the Liljeholmstorget Galleria, but also to access to social communication and encounters. Lynch (1981, pp. 187–204) was concerned with access to public goods, including infrastructure (e.g., public transit and public spaces), as well as access to information, decision-making processes, and openness (which is beyond the scope of this study). However, the socio–spatial and experiential relationships involved in residents’ access to public spaces requires further attention, because the residents of Liljeholmstorget were not considered in the city discussion as much as were the mall visitors or the commuters.

102 Figure 4.8. Liljeholmstorget, accessibility of and connectivity to the surrounding neighbourhoods and amenities (Source: bottom left: http://www.battrestadsdel.se/hagersten- liljeholmen/liljeholmen/overgangen-marievik-har-antligen-fatt-klartecken/)

Figure 4.9. Liljeholmstorget as a shared space.

103 The local users of Liljeholmstorget do not experience convenient access to the surroundings. This includes the residents of Liljeholmstorget and of other nearby neighbourhoods that have been shaped by project efforts. The everyday life activities programmed in the galleria are limited to daily shopping, banking, gym use, and café culture; in terms of other daily public needs and experiences, the Liljeholmstorget project suffers from a lack of integration into its surroundings in spatial, social, and even experiential terms. Geographically, at the micro-scale Liljeholmstorget is cut off from its surroundings by the subway tracks, the hills, and the lake, although high physical accessibility and connectivity with the urban centre should have been prioritized. The concern with traffic calming along Södertäljevägen continues, affecting pedestrians’ everyday experience of accessibility. Figure 4.8 illustrates some of the physical access routes to the surrounding amenities and neighbourhoods, including Trekanten Park and Trekanten Lake, as well as the neighbourhoods of Nybohov (Figure 4.8, top row), Sjövikskajen, and Årstadal (Figure 4.8, middle and bottom row). The municipal planners have described Liljeholmskajen and the social amenities at Marievik as complementary parts of Liljeholmstorget, but walking or biking access to them is disrupted because of the lack of continuous sidewalks and bike lanes, which go under train tracks and past traffic lights, in addition to a lack of clear signage and poor visual accessibility, which do not provide a sense of connectivity for pedestrians (see Figure 4.8, bottom row). In terms of physical access, the cobblestoned square is a space shared between pedestrians, baby strollers, and cars (see Figure 4.9). Car access to the square was added to the design proposal during the last stages of the design process, mainly to allow emergency access to the elderly care centre. A few cars can almost always be observed waiting on the square; a delivery van, police cars (twice), an ambulance (once), and several taxis were observed.

Access was studied in relation to the question of ‘for whom’ (Lynch, 1981). The residential apartments at Liljeholmstorget are mixed in terms of tenancy options and sizes, and even the office spaces designed to go on top of the bus terminal ended up being converted to housing (interview with developers, Stockholm, 11 October 2016). Today, living in Liljeholmstorget, near an urban centre and Södermalm, Stockholm’s popular inner city, is exclusive, restricted to those who can afford it. In that sense Liljeholmstorget is not an exception, as urban transformation projects often produce housing for the privileged (see more in Grundström and Molina, 2016). The social results of mixed housing types were observed in terms of their ‘by-products of use’ and ‘adaptations for use’ (Zeisel, 1981, pp. 101–105), to map out places accommodating (un)expected activities or why there are ‘missing traces’. The residents have made no direct adaptations to the residential courtyards and balconies, where everyday life is exposed. The findings indicate that various age groups of residents live in the area, as baby strollers, bicycles for different ages, and full parking spaces were observed (see Figure 4.9). The courtyards have hard, grey surfaces, with limited green areas, which limits their use for any purpose. Despite the observed high density in Liljeholmstorget, the courtyards do not invite everyday uses; instead, some elements of everyday use were observed on the balconies, such as bicycles, strollers, and outdoor chairs. Residential courtyards have been separated

104 physically from the square, and signs reading ‘private area’ have been added, which is described further below.

Public territories

The level of accessibility in residential courtyards has changed. In fact, the plans do not show the visual and physical barriers between the courtyards and the square. Users on the square cannot see any courtyards because they are situated one level higher than the square. Residential life also is not visible on the square. The openings of the two blocks facing each other are both gated (illustrated in Figure 4.10, bottom left). The entrances are via a set of steps defining an interface between private and public life, which is gated today. Gating, like any other kind of separation, can be interpreted as a conflict of interest between the residents and the others (i.e., paranoia over difference). It marks hierarchies in economic and social status and underlines the role of income, housing markets, and wider social and institutional discrimination (Tonkiss, 2013, pp. 80–84; see also Atkinson, 2003). In Liljeholmstorget, the residents claimed their privately owned courtyards and asked the housing associations managing the spaces to close them due to the misbehaviour of non-residents (Interview with municipal planner, 16 April 2014). Although the residents claimed ownership, they did not appropriate the space for use, as evidenced by the emptiness of the courtyard spaces shown in Figure 4.10. The material space also restricts appropriation because of its hard surfaces, insufficient size for such a high population density, lack of affordances for everyday use, and even private territory within the courtyard11 (see Figure 4.10, bottom). The courtyard of the residential block above the subway was gated and locked, and no information about it was available. The interfaces are not only spatially situated between the square and the courtyards; they are also socially situated between the highly public transit hub and the highly private residential blocks. These places were not designed as socio–spatial interfaces.

One can argue that gating is a contradiction to the general democratic ‘right of access’ to open spaces in Sweden; on the other hand, Grundström (2017) has noted that ‘a continuous increase in restriction of access through material gating in various shapes and designs’ (p. 19) could normalize this practice. The steps could offer potential affordances, and such territories could become ‘in-between’ spaces for various temporary public functions. Spatial management and controls such as physical gating have psychological consequences, because they contribute to broken socio–spatial relationships between the public of urban space (i.e., society) and privileged neighbourhood residents. Figure 4.11 shows that the spaces between the courtyards are also gated, though not locked.

11 Regarding the appropriation of housing courtyards in the Swedish context, see Minoura (2015).

105 Figure 4.10. The courtyards of the mixed residential blocks. The upper images are of the block sited above the bus terminal, while the block with yellow balconies is sited above the shopping galleria (source of the bottom image: Equator Arkitekter).

106 Figure 4.11. The gated courtyards in Liljeholmstorget: some of the gates are locked, while others have only signs. These entrances, courtyards, and stairs are spatial transition territories, yet socially the private actors rule them. These spaces were designed according to an ambiguous management regime, and their ‘in-between’ nature is subject to change over time. The city has accepted that the residential blocks around the subway stations and/or next to Systembolaget (the Swedish liquor store) are experiencing social problems, such as drunk and disorderly people (interview with city planner, 13 January 2015), in which case the design strategies for the architecture of these interfaces should probably be revisited. This concerns the complexity of city and urban phenomena, and calls for urban designers to deal with public spaces amidst constant flows, changes, and production processes.

107 Liljeholmstorget in everyday practice

Meeting places

Liljeholmstorget was intended to become a meeting place, though it was not clear for whom or for what kinds of meetings. Based on my observations, Liljeholmstorget is a place where multiple publics arrive and from which they leave as well. People were observed clustering in certain places sequentially with different behaviours and rhythms. These places were socially dense and diverse, but the social encounters were limited to bodily reorientations, pauses in walking, waiting, looking around, watching others, and hiding in one’s own world. These places are not produced based on designed territories and established singular functions, but exist in relation to the effects they create. These places are produced as the result of actions enacted in these zones. Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) expanded our understanding of public space to that of the ‘public domain’, defined as ‘places where an exchange between different social groups is possible and also actually occurs’ (p. 11). Liljeholmstorget is a meeting place at different levels: first, everyday practices define meeting points, which is described as three catchment zones; second, defined territorial functions, i.e., the galleria and the park, which enable meeting places. The publicness of Liljeholmstorget as a whole is therefore related to the integration of defined and undefined territories, established and emerging practices, and local users and strangers. Through deeper observations, Liljeholmstorget can be analysed based on the users’ levels, types, and sites of engagements.

These public zones have different spatial arrangements, including the typologies of buildings, functions, orders, and the visibilities of varied publics, yet they have similarities in terms of their ‘in-between’ nature. They have spatially, functionally, and temporally in-between characteristics, as shown in Figure 4.8. It is in these catchment areas that Liljeholmstorget receives or varies its social density the most: people from outside are observed in these places sharing space with locals, and here the locals encounter strangers (see also, e.g., Hillier, 1996, who addresses the spatial integration of local and global). The publicness of Liljeholmstorget is therefore practiced in these places. These three catchment areas have the character of collages, in which users (with different relationships to the place) and their practices can challenge the expected uses, while the space also affects the publics’ actions. As treated comprehensively in the previous section, the main intention of designing Liljeholmstorget was to create an urban centre and to spatialize local–global relationships. Analysing these places by de-layering user’s engagements reveals the actual socio–spatial relationships and appropriations of the concrete project outcome:

108 1 2

Figure 4.12. A, B, and C indicate the three major catchment zones observed in Liljeholmstorget. Dots in different colours represent different types of entrances: red, to the shopping galleria; yellow, to retail outlets; blue, to public transit; and green, to private residences. Red dashed arrows indicate the pedestrian flows (source: the author).

- Zone A is the main connection between different modes of public transit; it is a transient space designed for smooth flows and is observed as the main transit point from/to the other neighbourhoods. - Zone B includes the existing subway entrance hall, which has connections to the park on one side and the square on the other; it also offers access to the shopping mall and to the bus terminal in the underground level. - Zone C is the transition between A and B, providing the only physical access to the civic centre (except for those using the parking lot, who have access through the passages in the galleria) and various retail outlets, marked on Figure 4.12 (dots in different colours represent different functions). It also provides the major access to the shopping galleria: two entrances, and one vertical access route from the square to the underground level. The red arrows on the map (Figure 4.12) indicate the main pedestrian flows.

However, the space produced through these intentions and strategies has enabling and constraining effects on these micro-practices.

109 Zone A. Liljeholmstorget as a transient space

The publicness of zone A has various rhythms, situated between the two built-up corners and the light rail tracks. During rush hours, commuters from the surrounding neighbourhoods (Gröndal and Marievik) walk to/from this point or arrive by bus (discussed in an analysis of access). The area serves as an efficient interchange between the bus terminal, subway entrance, and tram station, all intentionally situated at this point for the sole function of transit mode exchange. Without looking around, commuters walk away or towards the tram platform or subway entrance, and the entire crowd disappears every few minutes. In this zone, commuters all act the same: most put on headphones and do not talk; there is no fleeting interaction and even no eye contact with strangers, just rushing to walk through the turnstile and disappear. The ticket hall in zone A is a perfect spot to wait inside when checking the countdown clock to catch the light rail train, avoiding the cold on winter days. People stand freely in an invisible order, respecting one another’s personal space, seeking the sunny spots, looking into the square, putting on earphones, and waiting. People have to cross the light rail tracks to reach the platform, if they are going to the western side, if they are regular users of the surrounding neighbourhood, or if they live or work on the other side of the road (Södertäljevägen).

Nothing interrupts the walking experience as it was planned. This area is simply a smooth grey surface, and the changed pavement and embedded lights can hardly be seen. On the other hand, there are temporary tents, a little away from the pedestrian traffic, whose presence is authorized but temporary. They are temporary not in terms of function or even location, even though both their territory and function are not fixed. According to Bishop and Williams (2012), they are temporary because the intention of the local authority as the manager of this space is that they should be temporary. These tents, shown in Figure 4.13 (bottom panel), bring a quality of domesticity to this urban space and interrupt the expected transient image and spatial order. The temporary tents create new territories and affect people’s movement and curiosity. These local economic activities do not slow down the pace of commuters, but I observed that they can encourage passers-by to turn towards them, stimulating those wandering around and not in a rush. They create alternative situations for social encounters with the sellers, who are mostly immigrants. The tents are facilitated by the municipality and are substitutes for a canopy that was intended to shelter a daily market – a plan that was never realized. The edge of the bus terminal is a long glass façade whose sliding doors and fixed windows all look similar. No one stands along this edge, as the doors constantly open and close.

The urban edges of the transit hub are the setting for people’s fast movements and fairly short spatial experiences, which can be observed in zone A. People staying only briefly in the hub were observed as not being that curious about their surroundings. One example in zone A was that of the stalls on the square added under the city’s management, selling flowers or fruit and visible to the crowd

110 waiting for the train and accessible by those walking by. This study found that these stalls were not perceived as affordances by the people rushing through the square, by those carrying shopping bags coming from the galleria, or by those waiting for their next train, unless they intervened in people’s typical practice and experiences, for example, by offering seasonal flowers or unexpected arrangements that attracted users’ attention.

111 Figure 4.13. Liljeholmstorget as a transient space; the catchment area on the northern side of the site.

112 The ticket hall is therefore a place that is more than just its defined function. People step inside, wait, occupy space, eat, or make a call. These practices provide ‘rich indetermination’ and allow this place to be more than its intended function or ‘proper’ use (Certeau, 1984). However, the observed spatial practices are not ‘tactics’ challenging the ‘proper’ use; rather, they exist in relation to hierarchies and orders, even though they have different rhythms and territories. The frequent presence of police in the square at the subway entrance in zone A and/or zone B creates a sense of control and accordingly an invisible territory of prohibited (i.e., undesirable) activities. Fewer police were observed at the edge of the building facing the park, where young adults and alcoholics sometimes gather. The entrance hall plays the role of spatial interface between the square and the park, functionally comprising necessary and temporary activities, where expected and unexpected actions overlap and commuters and local users mix. In principle, the publicness of zone B is limited to that governed by public transit principles. The choice of materials, furniture, sequences of activities, and even sets of regulations prohibiting certain behaviours (i.e., that create risk for the self and others) are all covered by regulations.

Commuters in zones A and B undertook traffic-related actions: their presence was temporary, intense during rush hours and ebbing in the evenings (after 8:00 pm, when the shopping galleria closed). The commuters’ presence was visible mainly on the transit platforms, in the waiting halls, around the turnstiles, and at the entrances. Their presence comprised an agglomeration of varied publics, sharing space, tolerating each other’s presence through passive engagements. The cultural and social diversity on the transit platforms was striking. These places are situated between entertainment and consumption, being places where identities are fluid and there are no ‘selves’. The collective culture of everyday usage (Amin, 2008) has created a collective experience in which everybody feels good simply doing the same things as others. The convenient connections to the galleria manipulated the commuters to start or finish the day by doing something in addition to their work–home commuting routine. In a consumer society, togetherness with or being among others is integrated with consumption and space serves as a resource to be consumed. Individuals follow the mass in the shopping mall, watching others, while the others encounter strangers while busy with their own activities. Public life observed in the galleria is for those who can afford to consume or who agree to stroll anonymously among other people and objects. In a consumer society, shopping is a necessary everyday activity; accordingly, shopping spaces are a functional necessity that every neighbourhood or project should have. In such a society’s approach to public space, the need for expression and performance, i.e., the symbolic and political aspects of being in public, is not considered. However, transit-related places serve an in-between condition, where users’ needs could be transformed to desires and desired practices. Tensions observed in these zones emplace social diversity and density by means of, for example, gated entrances and police presence. The functional and programmed characteristics of these two zones are found within a designed territory that is somehow overlapped by various spontaneous types of togetherness and encounters, resulting in multiple space/time related meanings.

113 Figure 4.14. Liljeholmstorget as a passageway: the catchment area is the subway entrance building (bottom image), connected to the bus terminal and the shopping galleria at the platform level (middle images); a passage between the park and the square (top image).

114 Zone C. Liljeholmstorget as a square The everyday practice of place is not about its ‘cosy image’ in the minds of its planners and designers but about how the produced publicness influences, for example, the life of the square. The function of the square in the everyday urban life of Liljeholmstorget produces different places. The square is full of interrelationships: it is a place for the elderly to go outside and enjoy being among others; it is an urban entrance for Liljeholmstorget’s residents; it is a place for everyone when it is sunny; it is a place where cyclists can leave their bicycles and run to the subway; it is a place for panhandlers and the homeless to gather when the shops are closed; it is a place for parents to wait for playing children before entering the mall; it is a place to escape the omnipresent music in the mall, make a phone call, and smoke a cigarette; and it is a place to be out among strangers in anonymity (see these appropriations in Figure 4.15). The realized square is not the intended town square, as its edges did not create the image of a vivid place; neither is it a ‘nonplace’, according to Augé, without enough relationships, history, or identity to be described as authentic (Augé, 1995, pp. 75–115). Many individuals resist ‘being users’ of deterministic everyday practices and of consumer society. They create their own territory and relationships with place, while other users can join them and become like them. Resisting public illusions and contractual relationships with everyday life is the level at which individuals seek other alternatives and opportunities, for example, fighting the ‘vague sense of anxiety, the loss of the sense of time and memory of what you wanted to buy’ (Kowinski, 1985, quoted by Dovey, 1999, p. 132).

Looking closer at micro-practices, the edges of Liljeholmstorget fail to become places of opportunity in everyday practice; even though they were physically designed for public functions, they do not contribute to everyday practices. One reason could be the built space: the transparent and glassy facades, for example, of the bus terminal, the grocery stores with their big advertisement displays, which are the same throughout the city, and the huge passive storefronts of the two-floor galleria are insufficiently intimate and attractive for users and the type of public functions purportedly desired. The second reason could be related to the neo-modernist design of the blocks, the edges of which offer no ‘sub-spaces’ or alcoves to provide a degree of shelter that supports users’ needs when outside. The residential doors are no more than openings in the walls; the other public functions, such as cafés and restaurants, have privatized their edges, not inviting people to stand around, sit, or shelter themselves; and the mall has created a hard urban wall of big shop windows, all smartly engineered to be accessible from the inside and therefore looking passive, or even forbidding, to those outside.

The setback of the entrance with its glossy red ceiling has created a niche where people busy themselves with activities, such as waiting, smoking, using their phones, or people-watching (Alexander et al., 1977; Gehl, 1996; Whyte, 1980). People’s use of such affordances is strongly related to the weather and time of the day. In the summer, the flower shop in the mall places a flower rack outside, catching users’ eyes and often slowing their pace as they pass by. When the square

115 briefly receives sunshine during the day, everyone, regardless of class, gender, age, and race, heads for the sunny spot, and personal distances knowingly or unknowingly disappear. The form of the benches helps create a sense of gathering and enables social distance. There are signs of a lack of maintenance in this place, such as cars remaining in the square, broken bicycles, trash, and broken outdoor furniture. Some shops, such as restaurants and cafés, a bank, a hair dresser, and a small convenience store, are accessible only from the square. The public functions along the shopping mall edge can also be accessed from inside the mall, with the option of outdoor service. Tables outside the cafés and restaurants are limited to the boundary defined for car access.

The three catchment areas are places with high densities of socially diverse users. These three zones, as discussed earlier, are ‘in-between’ spaces produced in the daily lives of users through their everyday practices. The publicness of these places can call into question the assumption of public space as a social and political realm (Amin, 2008), because of the level of togetherness and encounters among strangers. However, users’ appropriations become tangible in these places as spontaneous togetherness (i.e., related to the function of these places). Users’ engagements in these places create other experiences of these places beyond their given and ‘proper’ functions. Their engagements emerge in these realms, so the publicness of these places is contingent. The specific kind of publicness produced in these places, however, is also related to the physical form, spatial order, and affordances. The publicness of these places cannot be designed but is the consequence of designed spaces and defined functions. For example, entrance locations, façade materials, public transit schedules and service intervals, affordances, and the visual and sensual experiences of the surroundings all affect user’s spatial experiences in relation to functionally defined places. The publicness of these zones is produced in association of these defined territories, and these observed zones unintentionally became meeting places in relation to access, frequencies of use, and time of the day, for different publics whose togetherness was not programmed. Their publicness cannot simply be identified as the outcome of intentions and strategies, nor is it only about people who are visible in space. Because of its in-between character, like other transient spaces or shopping malls, Liljeholmstorget has become a place for emergent togetherness and possible encounters, in relation to collective actions and desires described below.

116 Figure 4.15. Liljeholmstorget as a square for various territorial associations.

117 The cappuccino place

This project was a win–win situation for both the city to get publicly oriented services as well as for the market economy. (interview with the architect, 29 April, 2014)

With 3250 square metres of commercial floor space, the shopping block has three major entrances at street level, which are used based on how users arrive at the place. As Figure 4.7 shows, the transit hub captures the collective public to direct them towards consumption. The flow of people walking through the passages of the Liljeholmstorget Galleria is not different from any other flow of mass consumption culture with its display of attractive commodities. The collective meanings emerging from the flow of users, the rhythm of their activities, and their fleeting unavoidable encounters Figure 4.16. Liljeholmstorget: meaning of the place perform public life in this place. The from outside the place. various public services in this place privilege consumption and leisure practices, giving rise to an identity and image intended by the owner of the place (see Figure 4.16, ‘How does your Liljeholmstorget look?’). The mall was designed to be highly permeable in its context, having five entrances (marked as red dots in Figure 4.12). The two entrances next to the main street serve as shortcuts for users familiar with them: one provides vertical access to the parking lot, while the other opens to a shop with a passage to the galleria. Although the public services at this centre support a large community of clients, access to them is not visible in the urban spaces.

Liljeholmstorget is a place of the dominant order, materialized and institutionalized for efficient daily practice and mobility. As shown by the spatial arrangement of place depicted in Figure 4.7, people’s presence and flow emerge not out of just one order organized through overlapping physical, functional, and principal territories in this public space. For example, mall users might be visitors of the civic centre or users of the parking lot taking a shortcut, or users of the administrative services. These multiple entrances, functions, and corridors accessible at different hours sustain the place, affording it multiple meanings. All the main economic and social attractions, including the subway, bus, and light rail stations, have been efficiently structured so that commuters spend less time between their necessary activities. Once commuters become users of the mall, however, there is no need to engage them in the outdoor spaces. Different types of

118 publics inhabit Liljeholmstorget Galleria at different paces and for different amounts of time, although ‘public life itself is being consumed by new zones of consumption’ (Dovey, 1999, p. 138). Not necessarily everyone observed in the mall was busy shopping: Walking and watching were observed to be main activities practiced by most people regardless of their age, gender, race, and even social status.

The urban flâneur in this place is the one strolling through the shopping passages, observing market representations, experiencing the co-presence of other users, diverse in age, gender, and ethnicity. The urban flâneur can enter the shops, walking past or exploring the displayed goods. There is no obligation to make a purchase or to enter into a fleeting conversation with the shopkeeper. The urban flâneur is the consumer of these activities and her experiences are about the shopping bags, shiny advertisements, neon lights, colours, and music. It is impossible to relax unless one ignores the crowd and music, and can pay for the toilet and afford to buy a coffee and sit to drink it. The urban flâneur’s walk in the mall could be a refuge from cold weather, while watching single parents sitting together watching their children, or individuals busy with routine shopping, drinking cappuccino and using their phones.

The types of publicness of this place could be the effects of on-line shopping or of economic relationships.12 Most of the people observed in the mall were regular users and were not necessarily acting identically, carrying bags and busy shopping, even though these activities were observed. Members of the public became users of this space, seduced by the strong consumption ambience, yet the mall is not a ‘non-place’ (Augé, 1995, p. 94) because it embodies both ‘solitary’ and ‘collective’ contractual obligations. Arefi (1999) has scrutinized these concepts and emphasized that ‘places’ and ‘non-places’ – in Augé’s terms – cannot be simply integrated through physical connections, particularly alerting designers who are manipulating physical territories and their interconnections in attempting to integrate them. Observation of the galleria reveals that place and non-place, solitary and collective relationships, cannot be easily discussed in terms of divided territories. For example, different users might have different ‘solitary’ or ‘collective’ contractual obligations in this place, even though their ‘being in space’ is sustained through consumption.

Figure 4.17 shows some of the spatial practices in the mall, including territories separated by physical artefacts and furniture for private use within the privatized passage. Most of the restaurants and cafés in the mall have used material strategies to define their realm of private use, by changing colours, furniture, logos, and signs to define territorial separation. The indoor passages of the mall

12 These effects call for more research into the culture of consumption and retail spaces in Sweden (see, e.g., Kärrholm, 2012).

119 are not short cuts to the surroundings, but rather represent an attempt to create an inverted ‘urban vibe’ within the mall, which can affect the user’s choice of passage. The mall has become a very popular site of public life, even on sunny days when everyone attempts to find a sunny spot outdoors. The galleria offers the illusion of vital public life with diverse publics, but in a ‘zero-friction’ environment. Liljeholmstorget Galleria does not deploy security guards to secure the premises and ensure safety; rather, its passages are occupied by small businesses and cafés that govern and control the space.

120 Figure 4.17. Private territories shaping the galleria’s corridors: centre of middle row, entrance to the civic centre; right of middle row, one of the main entrances of the galleria.

121 Figure 4.18. New type of public place modified based on users’ needs observed by mall managers. Does Liljeholmstorget Galleria, like any other public space, have the capacity to be transformed through its users’ everyday practices? In terms of symbolic meaning and in response to the decisions of its managers, a few interventions have been undertaken in the galleria to increase the engagement of its existing users. For example, the presence of so many adults with children and strollers encouraged the managers to make some changes within fixed territories to encourage them to stay or enrich the meaning of the place for them: a few restaurants have adapted their layouts to accommodate strollers, some seasonal decorations particularly for children were observed, and a mini-playground with play equipment was added on the second floor of the mall for ‘latte parents’ (see Figure 4.18). In a cold climate, indoor activities are very popular for parents who are looking for a place where they and their children can interact with others. This very small playground was observed to be mostly occupied, allowing adult caregivers to relax and socialize with others while watching their children. This playground, through triangulation, serves as a landmark for the parents, and its location in this naturally lighted indoor setting provides a unique experience. Here, the private owners have balanced the mall’s needs and the clients’ desire to feel happy, safe, and comfortable. In this way, the clients stay longer and therefore consume more, because they must pay for various kinds of amenities.

Liljeholmstorget Galleria is not a huge mall, compared with many international cases with massive volumes and footprints. However, the hierarchies and orders of public amenities (i.e., social or economic ‘magnets’, with necessary and optional uses) illustrate the interrelations and arbitrariness in the daily practices that affect

122 the publicness of spaces beyond the territory of the galleria. The publicness of the mall enables its users to combine the illusion of social encounters with the comfort and freedom of being in public, but in a space subject to a set of limits and controls (Crawford, 1992). Like any other public spaces that are not purely public, the galleria offers different services to different users, and its management policies exclude certain people. For example, the galleria offers free WiFi, but limited sitting options; according to the managers, some cafés have observed groups of young adults occupying seats while playing together on their phones, with one person ordering the cheapest possible item. The private owners of the Galleria charge users for the use of toilet facilities, while parking is free for the first two hours with the purchase of at least SEK 100 at either grocery store in the mall. These are the effects of agreeing to create a shopping mall that, on one hand, attracts various publics mirroring existing social diversity while not absolutely requiring active engagement in the place and, on the other hand, excludes the minority, leaving it outside in urban spaces, which will be discussed further in this section.

Liljeholmstorget as a park?

Next to the Liljeholmstorget transit hub, Trekanten Park and Trekanten Lake are popular social amenities with a supplementary functional role in Liljeholmstorget public life. The park was opened in 1998 (around the time the Liljeholmstorget development started) when Stockholm was the European Capital of Culture. The main elements of the park are the Fruktparken (Fruit Park) with play equipment in the form of different kinds of over-sized fruits and the Doftparken (Scented Park). The Scented Park is almost hidden from its surroundings because of the topography and its natural features. Trekanten Park is mostly grassed, with footpaths crossing it. The park is bordered by the lake on the west, by Liljeholmstorget on the south, and by office buildings and a former industrial area on the north and north-east. The area on the north and north-east incorporates two important functions: a fairly large elderly day-care centre with a clinic next to it; and Färgfabriken, which is a meeting place for debates, seminars, and activities in the fields of art, architecture, and urban development. The latter attracts interested people at different levels, ranging from art students at Konstfack University to participants in international conferences. The elderly day-care centre and Färgfabriken are only one tram stop away from Liljeholmstorget, and the paths in the park were observed as connecting users of Liljeholmstorget to them. A crane stood on the north side of the park, indicating where a new development was to start (the development was to be finished by the time this research was completed).

The proximity of the park to the Lake Trekanten is a big asset for the area (Stockholm Stad, 2008), and welcomes users in all seasons and around the clock, for seasonal activities such as those shown in Figure 4.19. Close to the sculptural playground are benches occupied by individuals diverse in age, gender, and race, watching the green field and enjoying the view of the lake. The benches scattered around the lake invite people to stay briefly, and are popular places for elderly

123 people using their walkers or wheelchairs to go around the park. In the summer, a newly opened kiosk serves coffee, and comfortable outdoor seating is provided so users can sit in the sun; in the winter, people enjoy ice-skating on the lake. In addition to these unplanned and temporary functions, the paths crossing through the park are regular walking connections to the Gröndal area. The benches define separate zones in the park, with some zones being favourable locations for particular users. For example, there is a parking space with a few benches next to it where mainly old people were observed gathering. There are also traces left by alcoholics in isolated parts of the park hidden from the surrounding buildings. The edge of the public transit terminal has a set-back where people park their bicycles and young boys usually hang out.

The park user groups are quite mixed and vary by time of day and year. However, three groups of users constitute the fixed users:

- The park is a natural route for those walking from the subway exit to Lövholmsvägen in the north, particularly in the evening between 17:00 and 19:00 (see the top-right image in Figure 4.19). Individuals of different ages choose the lake side of the park for sitting and walking. Employed adults were observed walking through the park to Liljeholmstorget during their lunch breaks.

- The park is a place of diversity: The intended qualities of the Liljeholmstorget development can be found in Trekanten Park, including social diversity, meeting points, and everyday activities, even though upgrading the park was not among the project objectives. Enjoying nature and other recreational activities is a strong desire for all groups and ages. Notably, users of the park are of varied socio–economic status.

- Ideally, gatherings in public spaces should occur without complications, possibly leading to so-called public family relationships. In the galleria, gathering experiences are related to consumption and commodification, and even when sitting in the square, it is not easy to ignore all the surrounding storefronts. The park, however, is a conducive setting for gathering socially, not only because of the natural environment but also because the people there are in a comfortable and relaxed situation that predisposes them to meeting socially with others. Trekanten Park is a meeting place for parents with preschool children, usually before and after lunch, and mainly around the Fruit Park playground. Other users can be seen staying for longer or shorter times, walking, running, or dog walking around the lake, or sitting longer on weekends or sunny days, when people seek any sunny spot. The large observed number of older people in the park, regardless of the season, indicates that the outdoor natural environment plays an important social role for them. The park is a meeting place for individual elderly people who have limited ability to walk long distances and prefer to be accompanied (as

124 studied by Berglund and Jergeby, 1988, 1989, cited by Nordström, 1993). Users of the park who like lying on the grass and enjoying nature can walk ten more minutes to reach Sjövikskajen – a popular spot for Stockholmers – and enjoy a newly developed wooden deck for sunbathing. The freedom of activities and natural experiences afforded by the park seem very popular among individuals, particularly parents and old people.

The public has commented that the Liljeholmen area does not offer enough playgrounds. Public spaces for children are too small in relation to the large number of families with children who have moved into the new residential areas of the area (Hägersten-Liljeholmens stadsdelsförvaltning, 2008). The consequence is increased use of and pressure on Trekanten Park, and occasional tension between the interests of its various users. Some families with children reportedly feel threatened by other park users, such as drug dealers or alcoholics (Zernell, 2008, p. 5, cited by Larsson, 2009).

The park acts as a territory shared by various groups who might, for example, be disturbed by the territorial appropriation by the drug users taking over the park. As varied previous users stop using the park, their territorial appropriations, associations, and usages disappear, and overall complexity decreases. The park is fully occupied on weekends and when there is good weather. Even though nearby Liljeholmskajen is a recently designed waterfront area, Trekanten Park remains specifically popular for picnics, outings for families with children, and miscellaneous activities. It is not over designed and has not become gentrified, as one can easily observe has happened in Liljeholmskajen. This development is located next to and is supplementary to Liljeholmstorget, with new housing, commercial facilities, offices for 500 companies, and employment for 10,000. Due to a lack of legibility and comfortable connectivity between the two ‘projects’, these places do not have socio–spatial relationships.

125 Figure 4.19. Various public practices and spontaneous encounters in and around Trekanten Park.

126 4.3 Producing publicness

In Liljeholstorget, appropriations of manifested outcomes were insufficient to contest the place and transform it through everyday practices. The ambient power produced in the space could not help the public to perform and produce their space. People’s actions and engagements in producing space are users’ responses not merely to stimuli and what has been built but also qualitative experiences and actions that can be put into practice. Where public space is located is for citizens to determine, but it is also where citizens can practice their ‘being in space’ (related to the concept of ‘trial by space’ mentioned in section 2.2). The reality of Liljeholmstorget indicates that it is a place for various desires whose flows are not integrated with one another. Liljeholmstorget’s varied functions constitute assets helping different publics practice their being, and their presence in public and their appropriations which provides opportunities for individual’s togetherness. Liljeholmstorget provides social density and diversity, so it is a meeting place for spontaneous togetherness and encounters.

Liljeholmstorget as a place illustrates how individuality emerges out of intense social diversity. One notes insensitivity or a blasé attitude (Simmel, 1903) where the territories of public and private behaviours overlap and blur. Observations showed that ‘intimacy’ or ‘familiarity’ as traditionally defined (Sennett, 1977) cannot be readily observed and assessed where expected. Liljeholmstorget was transformed by adaptation to modern life and its space–time relationships. Stockholm is growing fast, and by 2022, its population will reach one million people. Stockholm has had a reputation for privileging public transit over private vehicular traffic in recent decades, and for seeking opportunities to create urban life in segregated suburbs through densification strategies, integrating them spatially and socially with existing urban conditions. Urban transformation and accommodating reasonably high density have constituted the strategy for building ‘city-like’ aspects into neighbourhoods, particularly with the help of a growing public transit system. What has been built in Liljeholmstorget to foster integration with city life does not represent pure capitalist investment in building housing and a shopping mall for a class society, nor is it purely in the public interest, fostering heterogeneity and community making. The fragmented and uneven urban experiences of Liljeholmstorget illustrate the complexity of and possible conflicts arising in producing public spaces:

Residents’ need for a … lovable city can easily conflict with commuters’ need for speedy access, which in turn can conflict with outsiders’ demand for a national, symbolic city. (Parkinson, 2012, p. 32)

In Liljeholmstorget I observed certain people ‘taking’ space in which to practice and produce their publicness. These dialectical relationships can, in a negative light, be framed as gaps in the production of spectacle. The findings addresses three dialectics as unintended consequences in Liljeholmstorget:

127 - Liljeholmstorget planned to create a ‘city-like’ environment, yet the outcome is spatially and socially separated from the surrounding urban fabric at the micro level and its public places are not integrated with one another, so the outcome is not a city-like experience. - Functionally, Liljeholmstorget has provided both social density and social diversity, facilitating numerous activities; however, these activities were planned so as to promote the most efficient spatial flows and practices, thus providing limited spatial experiences for appropriations. - The last concerns dominant publics: those dominate the place with their collective expressions in public space (commuters and consumers), and those belong to the place (such as owners and residents) and practice their ownership by separation of their territory (such as housing courtyards or cafés in the mall passages). The tension between the two groups can be traced in the physical space.

These three dialectics are socio-spatially interrelated and illustrate the tensions of the post-modern building process in which individual leisure, comfort, and consumption replace traditional social relationships. Publicness from the designers’ perspective was envisioned as the social density of urban areas, but they did not plan to spatially integrate the associated social diversity into the urban fabric. Similarly, they provided housing for new residents yet did not plan to integrate their social potentials into either the existing or future functions. Even though the city insisted on mixing residential land use into the development, the future needs of new families moving into this housing were not prioritized compared with efficient shopping and commuting experiences. (Or perhaps these families’ everyday urban life was assumed to be limited to daily shopping?) The image of the ‘hustle and bustle’ of public life, with strangers wandering around and encountering one another on the street, has been produced, although the spatiality of integration between local and global happens within unplanned territories. The publicness of Liljeholmstorget has ‘in-between’ relationships with established places within and beyond the territory of the project, as well as onto a public stage on which overlapping regulars, locals, and strangers happen to be together.

Aside from the visible public, as I define them, whose speedy movements, waiting- related interactions, or shopping bags identify them, the other agents, whom I call the invisible public of Liljeholmstorget, have an important role in their active engagement with space. Considering Liljeholmstorget an ‘in-between’ space that gathers together alcoholics, elderly people, families with children, and even the anonymous public, the three catchment points illustrate the conditions under which invisible users interact meaningfully with one another or with the space, sharing territory with the visible public. The square as an in-between space orders and codes the actions observed in the shopping galleria and transit stations. Users can detach themselves from the edges, where people first meet and can choose their next action. The edges do not place social interactions, but the field plays a more important role. The benches welcome all publics to choose a location based

128 on their needs, and have an experiential pause from the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the galleria or the subway.

The square does not manifest an intended classic image of a square but, because of the defined and supportive territory for friction-free, vibrant public life in the galleria, those gathering in the square practice being in public. Children played around the benches while their caregivers were watching them and waiting, either to go shopping inside the mall or to go home. Elderly people were observed watching other people or encountering their peers. The square is perhaps the most accessible place that different people with different intentions can occupy; for example, it becomes a place to pause and rest after shopping for a long time, or a place where old people with limited mobility can be among others, or a place for alcoholics to be anonymously in public. The appropriation of this place by invisible publics in temporary rhythms underlies the socio–spatial process by which this place finds its being and becoming, while degraded people become public and such publicness becomes tangible in a place that becomes public space as a consequence of designed public territories.

The presence of the police car in the square, or of the gated entrances, illustrates how planned, designed, and managed space affects the production of unintended actions, unexpected users, and generally emergent publicness. The benches under the empty canopy were not used for sitting; rather, children played around them while waiting for their food from the McDonald’s at the corner, and some people with temporary engagements, such as street musicians or beggars, occupied them. The canopy can be seen as a symbolic failure of designed public territory, but it was observed that, as a physical artefact, people would stand next to it and use it for support. Gehl (2010) observed that people spontaneously seek places such as furniture, corners, columns, or niches to stand beside, from which to get support, staying and defining them (read about this characteristic behaviour as the ‘piano effect’ in Gehl, 2010, p. 139). Whyte (1980) referred to this process as ‘triangulation’, by which a physical object enables social interaction among strangers. However, the canopy is situated in the middle of the various flows and is visible from all sides, so it does not give sufficient privacy and shelter to individuals to induce them to choose it as a place to linger. Observation showed that the canopy was rarely occupied, and did not become a physical–social object linking activities and people. Liljeholmstorget is packed with ordered flows and its users perhaps do not expect affordances in such a place beyond the territories of their activities. Analysis of people’s appropriations in zones A and C also revealed that the canopy was neither within the territory of everyday practice nor attractive enough to tempt passers-by to linger.

There are two understandings of how to serve public interests and provide public space. Both were targeted by the planners: the outcome of the former was a transit station and various shops, while the latter shaped the open spaces. The publicness of Liljeholmstorget as a whole was not taken into consideration. Understanding publicness as a socio–spatial relationship calls for discussion of future publics not

129 as causal users, but as the consequences of design and as the effects of assembling certain spaces, people, objects, and groups. The city was too focused on the transport hub to consider other changes happening during the development process, and the designers could not agree on the quality of publicness as a whole for the place. The socio–spatial relationships were designed for different physical territories, but the overall image of the place in its urban context was not considered. Liljeholmstorget square differs from previous suburban developments, for example, of the 1960s, and as intended it has replaced ‘suburban placelessness’ (Nyström, 1997). However, this transformation was the result of a highly programmed space, packed with transport links and multiple functions and, as analysis of the present findings reveals, measuring transformation in terms of change in the physical and social image of space is insufficient for assessing the publicness of space.

In a self-conscious design and development process (Lang, 2005), there are tensions among experts when it comes to deciding who should be satisfied: Whose public space needs should be met? Whose public space is it? Satisfying users’ needs for freedom or comfort, on one hand, and for equity, justice, and social care, on the other, are the two sides of the discussion of publicness. The publicness of space is transformed over time by different stakeholders and under different regimes of control (addressing space, regulations, materials, and objects), which are subject to change by people over time.

Public places, as discussed in this chapter, are assemblages of a physical/functional structure, actors, and their spatial practices, assemblages that are not possibly realized as intended. Publicness of space emerges from such networks, which are at some point produced with certain effects but can be subject to change by new actors. The strategy to produce publicness by designers with their interdisciplinary knowledge is limited to the provision of public (versus private) territory for public functions and use. Designers apply a mixture of social, psychological, and economic values in designing public spaces, but they lack sufficient understanding – and professional responsibility – to discern publicness and all its constituent relationships interwoven in public spaces. Designers have territories of responsibility, but everyday public space lies between these territories. Users of public space act within designed territories and defined functions that are not compatible with the manifested outcome but affected by it.

The interviewed actors all confirmed their collective informative environment, and the project leader attributed their success to keeping their goal of mixed-use transit-oriented development straightforward. They agreed to include a well- structured transit station based on the city’s rational choices and the dictates of functional design, and also agreed on building a shopping mall (mixed with housing) for everyday needs at a time (the 1990s) when the ‘shopping as a lifestyle’ trend was gathering momentum (Kärrholm, 2012, pp. 95–118). A lot of effort has been and is still being put into designing shopping environments and into creating an atmosphere of comfort so people can benefit from staying longer

130 in them. The practitioners were engaged pragmatically with the project, applying an incremental design approach that neglects the conceptual totality of publicness. Their approach to publicness of space was not critical, meaning that the consequences of producing different public territories and their socio–spatial relationships were not into consideration. In this light, building a shopping mall was seen as a routine response to the question of how the future of public space will be (Hallemar, 2010, p. 27). The Liljeholmstorget design process lacked multiple alternatives regarding the spatiality, functionality, and temporality of the planned public spaces, and actions were based on the assigned responsibilities and project forces. The assessed success of the Liljeholmstorget outcome refers to the high number of users who objectively use the place, while their presence and actions, as explained in section 4.2, constitute an assemblage of different micro- and macro-relationships. While consumption is driving the creation of identity and identifying social life in Liljeholmstorget, other meanings of the place emerged from their temporary presence and collective though passive actions (see zones A, B, and C). Liljeholmstorget is an in-between place, where commuters, shoppers, elderly residents, and single parents happen to be together. However, the spatial arrangement of this place could provide opportunities for those whose visibility is taken for granted.

Figure 4.20. Left: traffic responses to design consequences in Liljeholmstorget (source: Tidningen Liljeholmen/Älvjö, 25 November 2011: ‘What is the problem – really?’, Right: design proposal for the same location, between Liljeholmstorget and Marievik (source: Dagens Nyheter, 20 January 2014). One good example is to think of and design for the consequences of highly accessible and socially diverse places such as Liljeholmstorget. An unintended consequence of Liljeholmstorget could be observed in the form of the pedestrian crowd crossing the railways and many physical barriers and waiting at the traffic lights every morning and evening between Liljeholmstorget and Marievik. Stockholm City has taken a serious step during the last decade to create a ‘walkable city’, and aimed for urban qualities to be experienced at the micro level.

131 These kinds of places (i.e., implemented projects) are sources of information about consequences. The Traffic Office (Trafikverket) is engaged in addressing this problem, by designing safe and accessible paths for pedestrians and cyclists, yet the problem remains, as a local newspaper article claims (Figure 4.20 left). The physical and experiential disconnect between the two sides of Södertäljevägen was regarded as a challenge and as a new project for spatial transformation in the architectural proposal shown in Figure 4.20, right.

Intentionally created ‘city-like’ environments differ from organic urban environments: the former can be discussed in relation to the visual, symbolic, and functional qualities of the manifested outcome, which naturally change with time, while the latter is not a by-product. Public life cannot be implemented: it should be enabled, facilitated, and supported. Therefore, the empirical knowledge of actors as an amalgam of various decisions in practice is necessary but insufficient, and what publicness should be is the constant question and ‘theory of practice’ (Verma, 2011). In Lilgeholmstorget, the urban designers’ agreement mostly served private-sector interests when it came to the provision of social diversity and density, yet little of their experience was brought to bear on how the city and public spaces could facilitate integration, exchange, and interaction among valuable social groups. The new residents (including families), civic centre users, and the elderly living in Lilgeholmstorget, together with their local experiences, were not taken into consideration even though they were the actors of change who were observed appropriating the space.

The public space was intentionally not anchored in retail and shopping. The city planners wanted a sense of ‘hustle and bustle’ and an urban ‘vibe’. However, the housing development owners believed that repayment of the very large bank loan would be better covered by revenue from big businesses, such as ICA and McDonalds. In many cases, such as Liljeholmstorget, these businesses are involved in negotiations regarding land allocation, and without their agreement, housing development is very difficult (interview with city planners, 13 January 2015). If these big businesses leave, no small businesses can afford to replace them, and ‘the planners should know about this, when planning for a liveable city and diversity’ (interview with developers, 2 September 2016).

The outcomes of user’s engagements in the everyday practice of public space underline how public space is socially used and contested in Liljeholmstorget, and to what extent the (intended) socio–spatial arrangements play a role. Observations revealed that collective practices, based on need and desire transform the publicness of Liljeholmstorget. The defined ambience and spaces of consumption and commuting support publicness by facilitating different kinds of presence, encounters, and expressions, beyond the expected types and territories. The publicness of space is transformed in relation to these two public functions, yet within a physically, functionally, and temporally ‘in-between’ setting. The unexpected publics and their rhythmic practices are manifestations of resistance to the market production of public spaces.

132 Chapter 5. Western harbour waterfront: analysis and findings

This chapter contains three parts: the first part, section 5.1, presents findings regarding the planning and design processes in the production of space and its publicness; the next, section 5.2, discusses the use of space and how public places work today. These two sections describe actions and influences, and analyse the roles of urban design in dealing with political–economic forces and identifying the publicness of place at different scales of relationships. This chapter ends in section 5.3 by citing examples of appropriations, analysing them in terms of dialectics of the production processes of ‘public’ and ‘space’.

5.1 Designing Publicness through place branding

The ‘rural Malmö’ of the 1700s became the ‘the commercial city’ of the 1800s, which in turn became the ‘industrial city of Malmö’ in the 1900s. Now the city has become the ‘service and knowledge city of Malmö’ of the 21st century, with 350,000 inhabitants. (translated and cited in ‘Problematisations of Progress and Diversity in Visionary Planning’, Vision Malmö 2015, The final report, 1996, p. 7, in Mukhtar-Landgren, 2016)

The above quotation is part of the recent vision for the city of Malmö (Vision Malmö 2015, The final report, 1996, p. 7). It stresses that the city has experienced a massive transformation and identity shift in recent decades, and is in a state of

133 constant becoming. The development of the Western Harbour industrial area in the 1990s was the highlight of this vision.

The ‘city of tomorrow’ concept was a political vision intended to address Malmö’s economic crisis through radical spatial and environmental transformation. The spatial strategy, inspired by the notion of the ‘post-industrial’ city (Holgersen, 2015), implemented creative and innovative changes. Planning to transform the Western Harbour as a complete district was intended to encourage affluent middle-class Malmö citizens (i.e., taxpayers) to move from the city outskirts to the city centre. With this strategy, the City of Malmö, through its comprehensive plan, wanted to spur economic growth by attracting new entrepreneurial start-ups to increase employment opportunities and financial security. According to this plan, this approach would advance the welfare of the people of Malmö.

Malmö’s sustainable development agenda addressed the three pillars of sustainability by considering ‘ecological sustainability’, ‘welfare society’, and ‘information technology’ (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999). Since the beginning of the 1990s, environmental and physical planning has been the planning benchmark, and creating the ‘good city’ through densification strategies has been on the agenda. Accordingly, the radical change promoted by Malmö branded the city through the sustainability discourse, particularly from the environmental and economic perspectives, promoting health, quality of life, and enhanced attractiveness (Anderberg and Clark, 2013). The economic crisis of the post-industrial city was not unique to Malmö, but ‘the effects were strongly felt in Malmö, as they were more concentrated in time’ (Schön, 1996, cited by Holgersen, 2015).

The branding strategies have been translated into a set of guideline for the design process. The Quality Programme (QP), an agreement among the actors of the Bo01 Housing Expo (the first phase of transformation), describes ‘ecological sustainability’ in relation to the ‘welfare society’ and ‘information technology’ (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999). The ‘welfare society’ emphasizes the importance of people, nursing, security, diversity (i.e., alternative housing types and tenancy forms), democracy, solitude and meeting points, beauty, and stimulation; ‘information technology’, in the context of this document, suggests new ‘smart’ services for daily life, smart infrastructure, and multifunctional places. This document describes the proposed development as being at the ‘world’ level, making the Bo01 project a ‘world leader’.

Bo01 was planned in two main sections: the temporary exhibition (i.e., Housing Expo) as the first phase, and the permanent mixed neighbourhood containing residences, workplaces, as well as commercial and social services. In the first phase of transformation, the choice to host the Housing Exhibition was a radical strategy to attract new residents, like other entrepreneurial or neoliberal processes intended to cultivate the ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2004). Through the Housing

134 Expo, the city also wanted to test various future living visions, technical solutions, as well as ownership and management arrangements, while also assessing ideas for the mixed-use Western Harbour district. The city obviously wanted to avoid status quo solutions and established practices in creating change; instead, it had high ambitions to brand the project and the city. City branding, a known strategy since the 1980s in response to globalisation, has opened the door to regenerating cities by promoting their competitiveness (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2010). Although there are political and economic risks in ‘experimental’ approaches to urban design (Ahern, 2013), and bureaucrats do not easily approve them, preferring prescribed solutions (Baer, 2011), the City of Malmö was determined to take the risk and experiment with innovative design and planning solutions. The expected residents would also take a risk by investing in properties in an uncertain market and with an unclear idea of what this ‘branded’ lifestyle would be.

However, the City of Malmö as the project leader sought to minimize uncertainty by making strategic choices. First, the site is located within walking distance of the central train station (although the walk would be through deserted industrial land until the development finished), while the landscape of the site has unique natural features in the sea, the vast sky and horizon, and sunset views. The location embodies important qualities aligned with Swedish ideals of being outside (in public) (interview with landscape architect, 20 March 2015). Second, the city also avoided uncertainty through the choice of rationality underlying the design. The city employed an experienced professional architect, Klas Tham,13 to be the exhibition architect and programme coordinator of Bo01, being responsible for the design of the process and the structural plan. A design process using a defined professional approach was a safe choice for the city, based on Tham’s previous professional reputation and successes in the area.

Designing the process

The urban design started by identifying the main stakeholders – i.e., Bo01 AB (the expo managers), the City Planning Office (project leader and director in collaboration with the Real Estate Office), the head expo architect, and the developer group – and then designing the spatial outcome. The actors’ collaboration was carefully designed to ensure the quality of the outcome. Extra responsibility was given to the expo architect, not only to design the structural plan but also to lead and approve all collaboration,14 including selecting, teaching, and supporting the involved developers, builders, consultants, decision makers, and ordinary (active) citizens (from the beginning, a reference group of 300 interested local people was continuously informed and consulted about project

13 Tham, professor emeritus of architecture at Lund University, has worked with Ralph Erskine, the well- known British-born architect and planner who has lived and worked in Sweden. He has conducted research into humans’ unmeasurable needs for comfort, safety, and environmental experience. 14 More than 30 architectural firms and 20 developers collaborated on the housing exhibition.

135 development15). To ensure outcome quality, the actors held monthly meetings and inspirational lectures were presented throughout the development process ‘to sustain the partners’ enthusiasm and to force them to achieve a shared outcome’ (interview with the exhibition architect, 23 February 2015). Such engagement among the key actors initiated a process of negotiation called ‘creative dialogue’ for the rest of the Western Harbour development.

On one hand, being part of a flagship sustainability project should be an opportunity for an actor to bolster his or her reputation. Despite its lack of incentives for outstanding performance and products, the project offered the involved actors the chance to bolster their reputations (Wallström, 2001). On the other hand, the unexpected risks of an innovative project meant that the developers had to trust the city, and at a time when Malmö was struggling with its economic crisis. Based on the types of involved development companies and their potentials, the general and basic standards of the QP allowed a wide range of choices from among financially safe alternatives (Wallström, 2001). The city planners today think that participation in Bo01 has been a win–win situation for both the developers and the city (interview with municipal planner, 1 September 2015).

Regulating the process

The idea of the Housing Expo was to invite architects with innovative proposals from around Europe to contribute their own interpretations of sustainability and well-being, while adhering to the QP agreement. The QP was included in the contract between the developers and the other actors who had various contracts, roles, and engagements in the project. There was a clear structural plan and a set of criteria that identified other engagements. This meant that there was mutual agreement on the quality before the city sold the land. The quality criteria compiled in the QP constituted a legally binding document. Bo01 AB, developers’ representatives, and the City of Malmö jointly established the QP to serve as criteria for the development; the QP was meant to be descriptive to allow developers and architects latitude for interpretation, but in reality it established constraints by setting detailed standards regarding professional services.

The urban designer’s strategy for enriching well-being and enhancing attractiveness was based on his previous engagement in a ‘new urbanism’-inspired project in Stockholm (Skarpnäck) in the 1980s, the end of the era of professional prerogatives in Sweden. The project was evaluated as successful for its density and visual quality, but not for its social qualities or city feeling (Rådberg, 1997). Tham referred to his previous works by citing his successful relationship with developers:

15 The dialogue and discussions involved in this process were not studied here.

136 I told the developers about what we needed in addition to the land use plan. I lectured developers about why these values were important. The developers said, ‘If achieving these needs make people feel better, it’s fine! And it is also good for our business and reputation. We agree to test them here, but remember, it should not cost SEK 1 more’. They were keen to learn new things, they could listen! (interview with the urban designer, February 23, 2015)

Generally, the QP document treated the ‘city of tomorrow’ and its elements as an object, described in terms of the experts’ understanding of well-being. The QP was basically an environmental programme for a sustainable building process that also paid a little general and personal attention to the social criteria of the project, as examined below. From the technology perspective, this document was ahead of its time in terms of environmental design and the Swedish building industry. It set forth the agreement on the project’s quality, environmental profile, and services. The QP was a mixture of explicit qualities and implicit environmental, technical, and social criteria, all addressing ‘sustainability’. The actors insufficiently understood these criteria; therefore, the implementation process had to confront the interpretation and reformulation of particular environmental criteria by various actors already selected for their reputation, knowledge, and experience (Gluch, 2005; Wallström, 2001).

The QP was fairly broad in its scope and scale of intervention, for example, ranging from allowed energy use to interior heights. The ‘agreed basic standards’ concerned the quality of the urban space divided into urban objects and elements such as: streets, piazzas and squares, equipment, lighting and decoration, green areas, information technology, transportation, energy supply, waste management, water and sewerage, design and character, interiors, construction process, building materials, daylight, sunlight, views, sound and climate, room and communication, and patios. The standards were presented in tables and covered the requirements and responsibilities for each objective. The requirements were weakly formulated: a set of standards was presented for both urban spaces and infrastructure, but with divided functional and symbolic roles; imbalanced information and details were provided for each objective at different scales.

The QP document did not include any sophisticated details, technical descriptions or specific information, or drawings. Contrary to its descriptive claims, the QP contained particular remarks about the form, colour, size, implementation details, proportion, and even relationships between yards and streets. Even the outdoor furniture and its possible positions were specified and predetermined. Each designer/developer was responsible for going through the document and identifying the relevant requirements, though the design team was available to

137 discuss them upon request (interview with the urban designer, 23 February 2015). Responsibilities were shared between the City of Malmö,16 Bo01, and the developers to fulfil different requirements. The potentials of using design codes or guidelines in regulatory processes have received considerable attention in urban design, and they leave little uncertainty about the outcome, business investment guarantees, and coordinated development process, thus promoting consensus (for more about design codes, see Carmona, 2009). Design codes and guidelines reveal urban designers’ normative intentions and strategies, while considering the ‘wicked nature of urban design problems’, but also set the decision-making agenda within the interpretative and political framework of urban design (Biddulph, 2012). There are also negative sides to such tools or descriptive guidelines, which not only create superficial artefacts but also reinforce traditional instrumental practice and practitioners, who still seek permanent and stable outcomes, in contradiction to the constantly changing nature of reality (Hack, 2011). Concerns about the quality of the Bo01 Housing Expo and about the professional tyrannies that could negatively affect its quality were the reasons for designing the QP. Other methods, such as dialogue and discussions to engage urban practitioners during the planning process, were intended to guide choices towards specific outcomes, leaving no leeway for interpretations of the output (Baer, 2011).

Besides the QP, to control and guide the architectural quality, the Bo01 expo also set requirements for scheduling and quality and established a local plan to limit building variation. The city’s main sustainable development objective was to increase the ecological functionality of green spaces to promote biodiversity, ecosystem services, and renewable energy. Therefore, the city provided an environmental plan in addition to the structural plan and the QP. The ecological diversity and interconnected green spaces not only have infrastructural functions, with long life spans and the possibility of future reuse, but also improve visual values and spatial practices. To ensure the quantity and quality of the green areas,17 the designers followed the requirements of the environmental programme and QP, for example, designing nesting boxes, flowerbeds to attract butterflies, a Swedish wildflower meadow, and ‘country gardens’ with sufficient soil depth to grow vegetables. Elements of ecological sustainability, including green infrastructure such as wind turbines, solar panels, green facades, and rainwater collection from buildings, are visible in the outdoor space.

Designing public spaces

In his comprehensive research into ‘humane architecture’, Tham challenged Swedish functionalism, which was successful during the modern planning era,

16 Including various departments, such as the City Planning Office, Local Streets and Parks Department, and Water and Drainage Department. 17 To improve the quality of green development and biodiversity in the planning programme, the housing architects employed landscape architects to design the courtyards.

138 meeting quantifiable human needs for housing design, traffic safety, and urban design (Tham, 1997). In his opinion, functionalism as a method (or should I say intention) is good and rational but not enough. His main criticism of functionalism as a ‘style’ is that it ignored human biological and emotional/psychological needs. Therefore, in designing the structural plan of Bo01, Tham applied an interdisciplinary approach in order to create ‘attractiveness’ and ‘diversity’, which stimulate ‘surprise’ but ensure large-scale order and legibility through the physical and natural elements of the built environment. The intention was to counteract the establishment of a monoculture, or what Tham has called ‘unfulfilled functionalism’ (Tham, 1997). The structural plan includes different types and scales of open spaces to create ‘unique views’ and ‘dramatic images’, to avoid monotonous sensory impressions of the built environment that are harmful for humans in the long run (interview with the exhibition architect, 23 February 2015). Tham emphasized the need for change in the style of architecture, because the human brain needs to receive a wealth of sensory impressions from the environment. He showed his dissatisfaction with architects’ frequently monotonous designs for housing developments and with the aesthetic of stereotyped and massive repetition, for example, in many Swedish suburban areas, which are detested by ordinary people.

Structural plan

Having defined the underlying rationale of the project and the structural plan, the design also concerned the locale and spatially connected the Western Harbour to the inner city, thereby linking the residents to the sea. The new structure followed the comprehensive plan provided by the City Planning Office (CPO) and continued with the larger structure of the project to give a high degree of wholeness. Besides adapting to the larger street pattern, all outdoor spaces, green corridors, and water elements were connected to provide a distinct identity for Bo01 (interview with the exhibition architect, 23 February 2015). The structure, shown in the right panel of Figure 5.1 and left panel of Figure 5.2, clearly distinguishes between public and private spaces to create a site that has a clear identity, can meet unknown future requirements, and will not be eroded by change. For the architect, combining diversity of elements with legibility of the whole enhances the distinctiveness of Bo01. Designing the site to have different plot sizes was the strategy for obtaining social, spatial, and economic diversity. Different dwelling alternatives in terms of form, cost, density, and material were intended to create an inclusive area accessible to everyone, exemplified by the student and elderly housing at the heart of Bo01.

139

Figure 5.1. Left, Sketches of site plan of Bo01 drawn by the architect Tham (source: Arkitektur, 2011, p. 47); right, the street hierarchies and block typologies in Bo01, drawn by Malmö City Planning Office according to illustration by architect Tham (source: Hellquist, 2013, p. 37).

Figure 5.2. Left, Western Harbour Waterfront plan, presented by its architect, showing the small plots and diverse outdoor spaces; right, aerial photo of the study area: A. Daniaparken, B. Scaniaplatsen, C. Sundspromenaden, and D. streets and piazzas between the blocks (source of image: Arkitektur, 2011, p.).

140 Tham stated that his interest in human-scale environments, aesthetics, and visual values was based on the qualities of old European cities,18 mostly in terms of scale and proportions that can foster human ‘immeasurable senses’. Tham’s (1997) research has identified immeasurable senses, such as ‘intimacy, awareness, security, complexity, mystique, and surprise’ (p. 10), which he defines as the fundamental qualities that the small-scale and diverse Bo01 was expected to embody. Tham applied knowledge of environmental perception to design the structural plan.

It is important that a good town plan be robust in the future … good architecture cannot save a bad plan … but a good plan can handle quite a number of not good-looking and not well- functioning buildings. (interview with exhibition architect, 23 February 2015)

Another strategy for contextualizing the design was to distort the grid to hinder through-winds and shelter the open spaces. As Figure 5.2 shows, the plan has small-sized plots and distorted street patterns to create different visual scenes. By changing the spatial order and character of outdoor spaces in unexpected ways, the architect intended to enhance the sense of surprise and attractiveness in Bo01. Following climate reasoning, the blocks have a hierarchical typology to block the wind, so higher, larger, and solid external edges shelter smaller plots and interior interfaces (Figure 5.3). The designer’s empirical knowledge and professional experiences were adapted to the local values of the place as well as to larger strategies such as branding ecological sustainability.

One negotiation in the process concerned the waterfront public spaces. The City of Malmö has regulations for preserving green open spaces along the waterfront, so not many new developments have sea views (Dalman, 2013). The Bo01 project was no exception to this. On the other hand, the early sketches of the structural plan show the residential buildings going all the way to the sea (Arkitektur, 2011), creating a narrow space and ensuring that it is perceived to be inhabited (interview with the designer, 23 February 2015). The result, shown on the structural plan, is to keep a strip of park between the new buildings and the sea. The waterfront design has been influenced by high-impact natural elements and very strong wind exposure to create a uniform and legible physical space with minimal programming, to enrich the place experience (interview with landscape designer, 20 March 2015).

18 As a source of inspiration for humane architecture, Tham referred to the urban models in Copenhagen, Malmö, and Lund for small urban blocks (40 × 40 m) as well as British villages, related to his professional experience.

141 Figure 5.3. Bo01 Housing Expo upon opening in 2001 (source: Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret).

The Bo01 plan illustrated in Figure 5.2 was built in different phases. The Bo01 housing exhibition, illustrated in Figure 5.3, was the first phase, inaugurated on 16 May 2001, after which the other parts of the plan were built with slight changes. The outcome of the exhibition, illustrated in Figure 5.3, was already regarded as a success for transforming a polluted, industrial area into a new built-up urban district. The heterogeneous appearance of the buildings and urban spaces was a proper and quick response to a city-branding effort. The historical photos and planning document indicate that the waterfront public spaces were almost ready for the inauguration of the Exhibition, while the northern side of the site had not yet been built. In fact, the northern part of the plan and the edge of the park were almost completed during the last construction phase in 2006. The physical environment was still rather messy and only partly ready to deliver its promises. The target of 500,000 visitors to the exhibition was never reached, and closing the exhibition ahead of schedule was an unexpected outcome of the first phase of the project. One important change was that the exhibition architect was no longer involved, and the QP was not implemented as strictly as in the phase preceding the exhibition.

The waterfront area comprises Daniaparken, Sundspromenaden, and Scaniaplatsen (illustrated in Figure 5.2) and is intended for the citizens of Malmö, for ‘public recreation’ as an ‘attractive destination where access and publicity are assured’ (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999). The city held invited design

142 competitions for the area’s various open spaces. These public and green spaces were designed by separate landscape designers (all from Scandinavia) based on the typologies characterized in the QP (i.e., square, park, promenade, and street). The selected designers were informed of the process of developing the structural plan and of negotiations among the actors, while being responsible to design their assigned areas. The structural plan and the QP emphasized design that created visual qualities, including varied views, richness of materials and design, and diversity in the size of the spaces and enclosures. The waterfront spaces in the plan were intended for the social life of the citizens of Malmö. The next section analyses the spatial and social strategies used in designing the public spaces in the project.

Spatial strategies The riprap along the beach was designed to protect the landfill from being washed away and eroded. The boulders prevent direct human contact with the water, considering its dangers. The designer’s initial idea was to build a jetty or a pier on the water side of the boulders, but the idea was dismissed for financial reasons (Dalman, 2013).

The landscape designer’s main intention was to provide multiple alternatives for experiencing nature and views while undertaking low-programmed design (interview with landscape designer, 27 February 2014). A square-shaped space at the highest level of the park (i.e., the highest point on the map) presents an expansive surface of polished stones, deliberately unprogrammed and flexible to allow for alternative activities, even though the competition programme had suggested an art museum for this location (Figure 5.4, top). An observation point cantilevered over the sea provides a dramatic lookout at this location. The land of Daniaparken was intentionally elevated to create varied visual experiences. Four areas offer direct water access via sets of steps punctuating the bouldered shoreline: three in Daniaparken of the same design (Figure 5.4, middle) and one in Sundspromenaden of different materials and design (Figure 5.4, bottom). These places offer an assemblage of spatial experiences: locations, views, water access, privacy from the surroundings, and steps suitable for sitting. Applying the same pattern of privacy and comfort, the long wooden deck in Sundspromenaden offers a variety of visual experiences. The deck was designed in two levels and provided a sea view at two levels, protect the promenade from waves and wind, offer plentiful sitting locations facing two directions, and facilitate miscellaneous activities.

Choosing aesthetically functional materials was a strategy in designing outdoor spaces to create different patterns with specific visual qualities. The playful use of colours and textures affects environmental meanings, perceptions, and – accordingly – behaviours (Nasar, 2011). As Figure 5.5 illustrates, yellow bricks run continuously on the ground throughout the Bo01 alleys and squares. This strategy was mentioned in the QP, as part of agreed basic standard, to create a sense of continuity, wholeness, and harmony among all the complex aesthetic qualities of the site (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999). Images of the interior alleys show

143 the change in brick colour (to red or grey) in different places, indicating that the different traffic functions of these spaces entail different safety considerations. The heart of the neighbourhood, Scaniaplatsen, is also defined by red brick (Figure 5.5, top). The materials used in Sundspromenaden, i.e., the wood, asphalt, cobblestones, boulders, and glass, differ in colour, size, and texture, influencing the rhythms of walking. Cobblestone paving is used along the buildings’ edges and entrances, while there is an asphalt path alongside the wooden deck.

Figure 5.4 Public places providing direct access to water: top, elevated square in Daniaparken and the observation point exposed to the sea; middle, three sets of steps punctuating the bouldered shoreline (source of sketch: Thorbjörn Andersson); bottom, access to water from Sundspromenaden (left, source: http://denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Arkitektur/Have- _og_landskabskunst/Jeppe_Aagaard_Andersen, accessed, 2018).

144 Figure 5.5. Top, the completed second phase of Bo01, built after the exhibition; bottom, examples of visual experiences between the blocks of Bo01 (source of top image: Joakim Lloyd Raboff).

Observations and spatial analysis of the spaces between the blocks shown in Figures 5.3 and 5.5 indicate a dialectic of opposing characteristics of order and complexity. These spaces contain different materials, scales, and sequences that can support various visual experiences, such as those illustrated in Figure 5.5. In every segment of these alleys there are unexpected scenes, such as a little square or a view of a natural element, while Turning Torso (which was built later) serves as a ‘landmark’ for way finding (Lynch, 1960). These different enclosures end in grand views of the sea and of Öresund Bridge, offering varied visual experiences. The outdoor spaces also present biological diversity and some of them have ecological functionality. Throughout the QP, physical legibility and coherence

145 were emphasized in order to reinforce the ‘coherent, urbane, and unified identity’ of all the public open spaces. There are details and standards for urban furniture and their locations, covering, for example, lighting, colour and decoration, traffic prioritization, and tree planting.

Social strategies The scope for public functions involving mere unprogrammed presence in public, the informal gathering of individuals, and spontaneous social behaviours is limited in Bo01. There are few private businesses such as cafés and restaurants on the edge of southern Bo01, where Sundspromenaden is connected to Ribersborgsstranden and to the southern part of the Western Harbour. At the heart of Bo01, on the street connecting Scaniaplatsen to the rest of the Western Harbour and the city centre, a group of such businesses can be found. These privately owned businesses have the potential to become ‘third places’,19 which are considered essential to community and public life (Oldenburg, 1989). Scaniaplatsen, as the right panel in Figure 5.6 shows, is in shape and location a traditional form of public space and potentially a site for social gatherings; it is unprogrammed but does have physical attributes with aesthetic qualities. Another alternative gathering place is in the middle of the park, where three raised wooden platforms in the form of terraces (Figure 5.6, left) offer group seating and a place to grill food while viewing the green lawn and the water. Green spaces should be characterized by biological diversity and aesthetic qualities that offer a wealth of experiences to enrich human health and spatial practices. These qualities are mostly related to the management of the project but are described as by-products of the master plan.

Figure 5.6. Left: three sets of gathering places designed in the park; right, Scaniaplatsen.

19 Third places ‘host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work’ (Oldenburg, 1989, p. 16).

146 The district aimed to provide ‘high performance data network’ so that households and non-households would be connected through an integrated physical and digital network (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p.41). The QP, as mentioned above, did not focus on the social dimension of communication, but on communication to serve the needs of maintenance, management, and operational systems (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 41). Given the tendencies of modern society, the QP emphasized technical support and solutions to facilitate communication and social accessibility by means of interconnected public services, activities, and homes. Even though the physical setting was designed to immediately connect all participants (including citizens and households), it did not take account of social or public meaning. The QP described the planned ‘diversity’ of the ‘city of tomorrow’ as constituting alternative ways of living (i.e., ‘dwelling types’), with social diversity as the consequence (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 17). The ‘urban design’, as the QP described it, provides opportunities to approach and explore different areas between the blocks, and supports different choices of directions and experiences (Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 26). The QP highlighted its critical approach to people’s opportunities for meeting and socializing (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 26). For example, it claimed that people should have reasons to go to meeting places where public activities and services support social encounters. It addressed the importance of these places now that many social activities and public spaces are threatened by information technology (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 27). The main places of this sort created in Bo01 are a harbour for small boats, a few cafés, and very few public amenities, such as a hairdresser. Though emphasizing individual freedom, the QP also addressed the importance of opportunities for social contact, describing how people should take part in managing and maintaining open and green spaces, as a new form of management and participation and a new practice of ‘local democracy’ (Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret, 1999, p. 20).

Given that affluent people of Malmö were to be invited to be the future residents of Bo01, the social dimensions of space were not discussed further. Accordingly, public functions were not designed for specific groups of people, as Malmö citizens come from different economic and social classes. ‘Social life’ and ‘needs for meeting and socializing’ were implicitly addressed yet not specified. The strategy was to design different types of meeting places for a variety of choices and with different levels of publicness. The physical forms and regulations instead reinforced the individual rights of those economically privileged future inhabitants. Clearly, the designers imagined a more detached, rational, and individualistic future for Bo01, i.e., with places for contemplation and silence rather than for social interaction. At the entrance of each block, on the ground floor level, spaces were designed with high ceilings to serve as retail and business premises; however, very few businesses are observed in these spaces. The plazas between the blocks, illustrated in Figure 5.7, are small and surrounded by different kinds of housing, with windows, doors, or front yards open directly to them. Because of the small size of these spaces enclosed purely by housing, they are not very inviting to the public.

147 Publicness does not have a spatial hierarchy, for example, extending from the waterfront area, considered open and attractive to all citizens, to residential buildings for private use. The urban edges illustrated in the top images in Figure 5.7 show how the windows, doors, and balconies were designed to create a strong connection to the sea and to provide dramatic experiences of sea waves for the residents (interview with the urban designer, 23 February 2015). However, these openings expose the private lives of the residents to public view, without considering that the project is inviting regional and global publics. Sitting as a desired activity in public spaces has been accommodated in the design of all the outdoor spaces of Bo01: there is classic seating, such as benches with different details and materials, as well as affordances where physical space and objects permit sitting because of their user-friendly size, location, outlook, or other conducive environmental characteristics.

Opening up access to the water facilitated citizens’ presence in this new place, supporting their right to the city. One can therefore argue that there is a link between civic use and culture, as it was intended, and the public space as it was designed. The former emphasizes Malmö with its different nationalities and economic classes, and the latter concerns the impact of design on cultures of consumption and on social responses to anonymous others (Amin, 2008). The design however, was not intended to create a space with the political and cultural potentials of civic space (Goodsell, 2003). Rather, the design of the ‘city of tomorrow’ was intended to be a magnet for the ‘creative class’ and hence for economic success (Florida, 2004), by providing spectacles, artistic venues, ‘cappuccino environments’, and overall a future-oriented lifestyle and convenience in the form of a new urban environment.

148 Figure 5.7. Bo01 urban edges: top, along the waterfront; bottom, between the blocks.

Publicness beyond intentions

Our city used to be viewed as a declining former industrial town on the periphery of Sweden. Now we have positioned ourselves as a modern city at the centre of the Öresund region knowledge economy. (Ilmar Reepalu, then mayor of Malmö, quoted by Givan, 2015)

The previous sections presented the findings and analysis of larger political and economic relationships involved in designing the publicness of the Western Harbour Waterfront (WHW). The intentions and strategies in planning and designing the WHW are found to affect its publicness at the different scales of the relationships presented in Table 5.1. As the findings indicate, the CPO had a very important role in decisions regarding reimagining the city’s identity, spatial transformation as a strategy for overcoming economic crisis, and, accordingly, winning government trust and financing. Besides, the city had undertaken strategic planning to align Malmö’s branding with the newly identified Øresund region, using ecological and technological co-living to develop its sustainability profile and eco-branding plans and policies. Hosting the European Housing Expo was one of the strategies by which the city would offer the creative class of Malmö

149 a new future. The city’s plan and design targeted radical change in legislation and the city fabric to raise environmental consciousness and encourage environmental behaviour. This was a big step in building the city’s ecological profile, yet as Anderberg and Clark (2013) stated, Malmö had been ‘at the frontier of Swedish environmental initiatives’ since the 1970s through central state policies, and it was not until 1994 that local authorities (i.e., municipalities) became responsible for environmental protection. Reviewing the intentions stated in planning documents and reports, as summarized in Table 5.1, reveals that political negotiations directly affected the publicness of the WHW by specifying the kind of development and, accordingly, the future residents of the area.

Table 5.1. Intentions and strategies for Western Harbour Waterfront development at an early stage, affecting the type of publicness of the project; the author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings.

WHW relationship level Intentions Strategies and strategic objects

Malmö level - reimagining Malmö as - place branding a ‘knowledge city’ - spatial planning for urban transformation - promoting in-migration - multiple strategies: regional, Øresund bridge; local, Malmö and entrepreneurial University start-ups - locating exhibition in a new regional market

Western Harbour level - transforming industrial - planning for a complete urban district identity to that of an - central location: walking distance to Malmö inner city and eco-friendly living central train station environment - smart and green infrastructure (e.g., new services for daily life/work, multi-functional buildings, and ‘smart’ services) Bo01 project level - ‘city of tomorrow’: - Bo01 Housing Expo: Living 2001 world-leading urban lab for ecological sustainability, welfare society, and information technology

However, exploring the intentions and strategies behind the design of the structural plan and final product reveals another level of knowledge and interest in the project. The project was designed based on the interdisciplinary knowledge of the main designer, who had enough attention and power to lead other actors with their knowledge and skills. Human needs and perceptions regarding the physical environment were the engine behind the plan and its outdoor spaces. The initial concerns with sustainability and information technology were applied at the construction and infrastructure levels, and largely related to the management processes. In response to branding strategies, the design was guided by two main slogans, i.e., diversity and attractiveness, which were applied to the visual

150 qualities of the outdoor spaces, flexibility of architecture styles, and resulting diversity in types of dwellings. The project site had tremendous natural potentials to influence the urban design and public spaces.

Table 5.2. Publicness of the Western Harbour Waterfront development in relation to actors’ intentions and responsibilities; the author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings.

Territory of public Daniaparken, Scaniaplatsen, and Outdoor spaces space/ Sundspromenaden between the blocks responsibilities Intentions Strategies Intentions Strategies - Recreation - physical - Shared space - Hierarchical street Joint group of City space accessibility - diversity: a network, regulations Planning Office, - Shared space - pro-pedestrian community that - physical accessibility developers, and regulations everyone can access Bo01 - building near - urban blocks water - direct visual - building near - climate protection - distorted street connections water network - block the wind - larger and higher - small-scale design - small plots edges - Attractiveness and - change of visual diversity qualities and size of outdoor space; Head architect abundance of - public places for vegetation multiple activities - design of block - Robust structure corners - defined public/private territories - natural - designing access - unification qualities of the to water and site lookouts - alternative - sitting options, Landscape activities different surfaces, designers flexible spaces - unification - codes for materials and colours

The quality of publicness at the design level was, on one hand, affected by larger political–economic relationships involving professional actors and, on the other hand, by these actors’ experiences and personal interests in combination with the qualities and limitations of the site. Reviewing the intentions and strategies that shaped public spaces, as summarized in Table 5.2, shows that public spaces were designed to enrich visual experiences and individual liberty, but were not intended

151 for social and political functions and participation. There is a clear division between the residents with their high-tech lifestyle uses and the general public.

Within a few weeks of the exhibition’s opening, the first indications of financial shortfalls appeared, and the actors faced an unexpected outcome. With SEK 250 million in state grants for implementing sustainable measures and exhibits at the Housing Expo, the Bo01 project had an inclusive process of private and public investment and was intended to have 100% condominium ownership. The new urban landscape and access to the sea, on one hand, and the news of the bankruptcy of investors, on the other hand, created a combination of ‘fascination and social uncertainty’ during and after the Bo01 Housing Expo (Jansson, 2005). Janssen (2005) studied the damaged image of Bo01 and the vulnerability of its early residents, after project opening, to the consequences of economic and political scandals. Janssen (2005) also examined the role of the media in presenting the ‘new economy’ of Malmö’s Bo01 in international discussion, both in positive terms (e.g., ‘a Sydney of the north’) and in negative terms (e.g., ‘a local ghost town’). The use of space shared between Malmö citizens and Bo01 residents is discussed in the next section.

152 Figure 5.8. The Western Harbour Waterfront on a summer day.

5.2 Appropriating publicness through spatial practices

The WHW experienced different periods of construction after the Bo01 Housing Expo was inaugurated in 2001, and these periods and their unintended consequences will be discussed in this section. These periods represent shifts between the absence and presence of different types of users who became publics, and between their different practices in public spaces with different dynamics. Appropriations were analysed in these periods as following daily and seasonal rhythms, as the ways users constructed and transformed the publicness of space, as conflicts between individuals and collectives that could result in new and unexpected problems or solutions. I argue that this is in fact the central point: It is not only that the production of publicness is the consequence of economic and political phenomena occurring during the development process (presented in Table 5.1) and materialized in space, but also that spatial practices and appropriations can affect future intentions and strategies, as discussed here.

153 Malmö is not in the same situation as it was in the 1990s, when it was seeking a new identity and dealing with an economic crisis. Malmö now considers itself back on the map for its innovative environmental solutions in order to promote economic growth, liveability, and attractiveness. The WHW today is a symbolic place for Malmö, where the city tested its ‘sustainability brand’ and used an environmental strategy to attract new investors as well as new residents. The current publicness of Bo01 is an amalgam of symbolic, social, and physical transformation, and the WHW represents multiple places for its users, both insiders and outsiders. According to the professional and general reports and newspaper articles, the WHW has experienced different publics and types of publicness over time, so assessing its current publicness, such as that illustrated in Figure 5.8, requires identifying the various driving forces that transformed the space.

Levels and types of publicness

The WHW was initially built through branding strategies suggested by the local authority and supported by governmental finances. The publicness of this space was produced by creating an accessible ‘site’ open and welcoming to all citizens and by designing visual artefacts as symbolic components of place (see the detailed discussion in section 5.1). The public territory of the WHW was defined and developed even before the rest of the development along the water. When this space was ready, it was immediately put to use, illustrating citizens’ need for public space for recreation and swimming in the city. The place was socially mobilized and contested by an unexpectedly diverse and large number of publics, and through unauthorized though regular public activities and spatial practices. On one hand, the neoliberal housing development of Bo01 was intended to cater to a certain class, making it a socially exclusive place; on the other hand, this development strategy resulted in multiple interpretations of the WHW. The place today embodies the symbolic meanings of its green building and environmental sustainability mandate. Its popular and lively waterfront must be seen in relation to its unique location, several levels of access and experiences of water, the search for civic identity, the vulnerability of the residents moving into this unfinished and distinctive environment, and stories of stakeholder conflicts, which are described further in the following.

Before the residents of Bo01 moved in, they expected a different type of publicness. In public discourse, Malmö was endeavouring to be seen as attractive and distinctive. The media played an important role in reflecting and interpreting the transformation of this place, which affected residents’ expectations and imaginations. Figure 5.9 shows newspaper extracts, collected by Jansson (2005), who was discussing the symbolic and social vulnerability involved in the transformation of urban landscapes. The early reports before the expo was inaugurated addressed the uncertain yet hopeful approach to the project, in which the promises of ‘exclusive housing’ and ‘smart homes’ were used to attract new residents (see items one and two in Figure 5.9). The media focused on the lack of affordable housing incorporated into Bo01 right after the exhibition’s

154 inauguration, and highlighted the problems experienced by the developers investing in the project. The exhibition began with the disappointment of the developers’ economic expectations, and nobody moved into completed condominiums for almost two years (interview with landscape designer, 20 March 2015). The exhibition was subject to public criticism for what was described as leadership failures, because of the shortfall of projected visitors. However, the physical space became a place for curious Malmö citizens to experience a new location close to the city centre, engendering different kinds of discoveries and freedom. Although the place after the Bo01 expo was described as a ‘ghost town’ in the newspapers (Figure 5.9, item 4), it was still a place for the presence of others.

For others, swimming in this new part of the city happened accidentally when people spontaneously started to swim. The designed waterfront offered Malmö’s citizens the right to be present in a spectacular location with access to water, which the city and its citizens had long been deprived of. The waterfront, regardless of the unfinished housing construction, turned into a meeting place for the unexpected public to express their being and their desires.

The site is geographically located between the developing Western Harbour landscape and the sea, so it is not a space for passing through and accordingly does not have defined daily rhythms. On the Western Harbour site there are several new housing blocks differing in scale from those of Bo01, as well as office buildings, restaurants, hotels, a skateboarding park, a school, a large supermarket (ICA Maxi), and an iconic building for parking. The WHW experiences time- related uses during weekends, summer months, sunny days, and warm evenings. However, tourists speaking various languages were observed at different times of year and day, in groups or alone in Bo01. The project seems to have succeeded in exporting its message to a global audience and has ‘inspire[d] a global movement of environmental urban development’ (Person and Rosberg, 2013, p. 14).

155 Figure 5.9. Newspaper extracts presenting global and local visions (Jansson, 2005, p. 1680).

As the diagram in Figure 5.10 shows, most public functions are located outside the project site and area of study (see the white circles on the diagram). These functions include a park, skateboarding area, a school, supermarket, and food hall, all of which were developed in the last decade and after the Bo01 project was completed. The double circles indicate the social attractions, including leisure and social activities such as cafés and restaurants along the project’s edges, the dog park, Daniaparken, and even places to access the water and swim. As the diagram shows, most of these social magnets are in southern Bo01, where users mostly arrive via the dog park or the main access to the rest of the Western Harbour and

156 the city centre (Stora Varvsgatan). The southern part also includes a harbour where people can leave their boats, and the steps next to it invite many people to have lunch or coffee there on sunny days. The grey circles signify visual magnets, including both natural and built scenery. The circles do not indicate precise numbers, and the connections do not indicate the precise distances or numbers of connections between the magnets; rather, they show the major hierarchy of the physical connections.

Figure 5.10. Spatial analysis of Bo01’s public spaces and the physical connections between them (source: the author).

Quite a few people walk through Lilla Varvsgatan, which connects the local residents and social amenities in the middle of the Western Harbour to the heart of the WHW at Citizens’ Square (Scaniaplatsen). During the observations, many people were seen walking along the promenade to Citizens’ Square, which always has users regardless of the time and weather. Few people continued walking to the elevated part of the park, and almost everyone there checked out the cantilevered observation point. When the weather was not conducive to being outside (wind is the main problem), the longest stay recorded at the elevated park was no more than four minutes, while in Sundspromenaden the average was seven minutes, durations that increased notably in the summer to seven and 20 minutes, respectively. Citizens’ Square is a place for quick spontaneous activities, such as children playing, couples cuddling, and people posing for photos, but some visitors stay longer for planned cultural activities. Tourists, recognizable by their cameras and selfie sticks, were observed walking around mostly in this place. In the summer, a mix of genders and nationalities was observed in Bo01, whereas on grey and cold days in summer or winter, only a few locals were observed jogging, walking dogs, pushing baby strollers, or gathering at the cafés and restaurants, which were usually empty in the winter.

157 WHW was never planned for swimming (discussed further in the next section). However, swimming was observed to be a popular activity on warm sunny days when the park and promenade were occupied and the steps facing the water were full swimmers and sunbathers. A regular activity in the park was strolling along the waterfront, pausing and sitting to face the view, and then likely taking photos. People lingered longer on the promenade than in other places, and it was a popular place for individuals even in inclement weather. People chose to sit facing the sun and the view, or to be protected from the wind. They established their personal distances by means of various body poses and expressions. The widths of the wooden deck and steps allow alternative practices and expressions, as well as physical and mental detachment from the surroundings. People were observed stretching and relaxing, eating, reading, focussing on the serenity of the waterfront and the dramatic scenery, watching Nordic sunsets, enjoying seagulls floating across the sky, and picnicking in groups of two or three. Children usually created alternative practices, breaking the silence and slow rhythms of the place by expressing their excitement with the setting.

The public life of Bo01 today, on a sunny summer day, looks like a theatrical performance with beautiful images of the natural and built environment as the backdrop. In this theatrical setting, the publics play different roles according to various rhythms, and locations, but not so much in relation to one another. Regular users were observed throughout the year, including on dark cold afternoons when they briefly and peacefully appreciated the sea views, juggling, dog walking, strolling, and sitting/people watching, mostly engaging in these activities on the site near the water when possible. WHW visitors were identified by their reactions of discovery, movements and body language, cameras, and different spoken languages. They were noted experiencing different spatial potentials, incorporating the building façades and particularly Turning Torso into the background of their photos, or trying out different distances from the water: some approached the water, getting close, touching and feeling it, swimming in it, while others just watched the sunset and listened to the waves. Users were observed as consumers of the beauty of the setting, revelling in their relationship with the sea. For example, individuals were observed along the Sundspromenaden, sitting facing the sea, in their own world, not moving or interacting with others. Couples appropriated their own private spots to be hidden from the world, and there was enough space so they could modify their territory and practice their freedom from, for example, the children running along the wooden deck. In good weather, the waterfront territory was observed to host high social diversity, tolerance of strangers, and varied spatial experiences, all of which made the waterfront a flexible meeting place. Figure 5.11 illustrates some of these spatial practices.

People practiced privacy and anonymity along the waterfront where possible. They created their own territory with the support of existing objects or designed places, for instance, lying on the wooden deck or sitting, far from the crowd, on the stairs facing the sun. Public places are enacted through people’s practices, which conform to the affordances offered by the material structure (Cresswell, 2004); for

158 example, people were observed standing on bollards, walking on boulders and concrete slopes, and sheltering behind the wooden ledge (Figure 5.11). As Cresswell (2004) stated, places are produced through linking ‘materiality, meaning, and practice’ (p. 2). The practices observed along the WHW were emergent and, accordingly, the defined place was observed in different modes of becoming. The intensity of practice in the park is lower, as the place offers fewer affordances. However, the field is a suitable location for playing, lying down, sunbathing, and watching the sea, ignoring the windows of private homes behind them. The trees planted in a row in Daniaparken (illustrated in primary sketches and in Figure 5.2, right) were intended to reinforce the sense of enclosure, besides offering protection from the climate and representing seasonal variation. However, they died after several years and even a second planting, at great expense, did not succeed. The reason was not the salty wind, as was generally assumed, but that the planting area was poorly drained, which disappointed the landscape designer (personal interview with the landscape architect, 27 February 2014 and 20 March 2015). The management responsibility for WHW is divided based on the type of public function, and the heavy use on sunny summer days requires additional management and maintenance efforts.

Many individuals were observed practicing a kind of ‘active engagement’ (Carr et. al., 1992) combining togetherness, play, and discovery, allowing random activities to happen. This kind of togetherness, as Stevens (2007) has mentioned, emerges from unexpected and unprogrammed activities in which function, space, and rules are not ordered or purposeful. However, it takes certain people to initiate these activities, and the place’s proximity, social accessibility, as well as diversity are conditions for such appropriations. For example, in Scaniaplatsen, children were observed riding their skateboards while others sat nearby watching, and along the Sundspromenaden people were observed enjoying various spatial experiences. As discussed in the previous section, however, the WHW has intentionally limited the rhythm and types of social functions by which information technology ties people to the place and to one another. Yet according to the survey mentioned earlier, both visitors and residents of the Western Harbour wanted ‘features of outdoor environments and services’ (report compiled by Kristensson reported by Persson, 2013, p. 228). The vast waterfront space, although welcoming a sufficient number of users and allowing a complex form of freedom, does not support proximity to other people and participation. Social life along the WHW requires motivations and catalysts, such as good weather, for both informal togetherness and public functions. These functions can occur at cafés and restaurants, such as those existing along the edge of the promenade, but they are not enough for the multiple publics of WHW who bring their emotions and freedom. Although the users’ diverse practices and emotional behaviours together with the great accessibility and openness of the place jointly create a highly democratic public space, which can help create a sense of place, the place was not designed to support social activities, solidarity, or a sense of community among heterogeneous users. The outdoor life of Bo01 displays a kind of homogeneity of lifestyle among its residents, who have the time to exercise and experience something stimulating, relaxing, and out of the ordinary near their homes.

159 Figure 5.11. (2 pages) Examples of how the material space offers affordances for temporary spatial practices, possibly depending on the time of day, etc., which affect publicness by togetherness, expressions of freedom, construction of privacy, practices of curiosity, or collective (planned) actions (sources: bottom left, http://vhamnen.com/index.php/category/bo01/).

160

161 Western Harbour waterfront in everyday practice

The Copacabana of Malmö

The unexpected publics and their use of the waterfront affected the city’s decisions and turned out to be an opportunity for the Bo01 actors, who were struggling with bankruptcy and broken hopes for the future. The CPO in collaboration with the landscape designer adapted their approaches to accommodate public use where possible, for example, removing dangerous stones, adding wooden swimming jetties by each of the observation points, and permitting swimming in these places.20 The public space, in which collective functions had not really been considered by the Bo01 actors, soon surpassed the city’s and even the urban designer’s expectations (interview with landscape architect, 27 February 2014). The concrete stairs, which were expected to be used for sunbathing and enjoying the view, instead became connections to the water. The unintended function and unexpected level of public transformed the place socially and also transformed the images and discourses of Bo01 and the ensuing developments.

Although the goal of the Bo01 project was to spur economic growth by creating an attractive urban environment for affluent people of Malmö, the project’s public space became a place where Malmö citizens could practice togetherness and the communal use of space. In this process, the physical and social accessibility of this place was important, but the place was contested politically at a time when exclusiveness was attracting more attention than inclusiveness. The vitality of the waterfront and its social density within an expanse of fairly empty industrial land (see the reference to ‘ghost town’ in item 4 of Figure 5.9) restored hope to the city actors, that they should keep their determined vision of the future. For example, as the description of the ‘Dockland’ area – the next development after Bo01 in the Western Harbour – shows, creating an exclusive image of the future of Malmö characterized by ‘the feeling of sitting in a café in the marine part of Barcelona’ (see item 5 in Figure 5.9) returned to public discourse. This was a period, i.e., March 1999–September 2001, when 25% of the media attention was negatively disposed to the Bo01 development and its actors (Person and Rosberg, 2013, p. 14). The WHW was soon described as the ‘Copacabana’ of Malmö (Tham, 2001, p. 153) because of its popularity, as illustrated in Figure 5.12.

20 According to local information, the City of Malmö has banned swimming several times in the WHW due to high levels of bacteria in the water or bad weather. However, as swimming is very popular in this place, the ban usually has to be enforced using physical barriers.

162 Figure 5.12. Citizens celebrating the park and swimming as an unexpected site outcome (source: Thorbjörn Andersson).

Figure 5.13. City’s tactics for engaging the public at WHW: left, the elevated square at Daniaparken, July 2015; right, Tango at Scaniaplatsen, (source: http://www.bizzbook.com/hamnen/nyheterjuli2009.html, July 2009). The municipality of Malmö used the publicness of the waterfront as an opportunity to reflect on the popularity of the place. Since the waterfront had few programmed public functions, limited to a few restaurants and cafés, the city organized temporary public activities such as cultural events and festivals, which are announced on the neighbourhood’s own website21. With these tactics, the city intended to enrich the public presence and sustain public rhythms in addition to establishing validity for this ongoing urban development (see examples in Figure 5.13). The ‘squares’ on each side of the park were turned into stages on various occasions through social uses, either spontaneously or through planned collective activities and togetherness. The left-hand image of Figure 5.13 shows one of the grey rainy days in summer when outdoor activities still happen. The musician occupied the stage alone and people silently gathered in this place to listen to his music. The event was announced beforehand and several performances were planned. Some people came in advance and took the available seating, while others even came prepared with their own portable chairs. The average participants were middle aged. The right-hand image of Figure 5.13 shows one of a series of planned activities in Scaniaplatsen, inviting people for international music and dance. These two squares were intentionally designed to be mostly

21 The Western Harbour’s website: www.vhamnen.com.

163 unprogrammed, to allow latitude for people’s appropriations. However, except for the planned activities, they were mostly empty or had just a few tourists taking photos. As Kärrholm (2007) emphasized, such a neutral square ‘open to the public might seem a good recipe for publicness and accessibility. However, this would not be revealed until some kind of territorial complexity had, in fact, evolved’ (Kärrholm, 2007, p. 449). Such territorial complexity is mostly seen in relation to water, where young people in groups temporarily encounter other groups engaged in similar playful activities.

According to the municipal planner, the WHW opened the city’s eyes to the important role of public spaces as meeting places in urban transformations (interview with municipal planner, 6 March 2015). The city was affected by the unintended consequences of Bo01 and accordingly questioned whether values such as diversity, youthfulness, trendiness, innovativeness, humaneness, and modernity had a place in its future strategies. However, the Bo01 development continued by means of branding strategies and catering to ‘exclusive’ users. For example, the Turning Torso was initially built as an expensive condominium tower; however, nobody could afford to buy homes in it, so the city finally had to change it into a rental building for affordability reasons:

It was a very expensive experience for the city and for the investors to have no clients. Discussions concerned how long the city should wait and, considering the high maintenance costs, should the city keep it? (interview with the landscape designer, 20 March 2015)

The density and diversity of people at the Bo01 waterfront resulted from the myriad social and political interrelationships of the context, the quality of physical space, and the requirements of the time. The public space with its unique and diverse visual qualities and materials was carefully designed to engage the human senses; however, the design choices and decisions did not prioritize the social functionality of the space or adaptability to various uses, while ecological functionality and attractiveness were clearly desired. In Daniaparken, a natural dry meadow was chosen as an ecologically rich habitat for many species. However, this choice limited the human presence and, as the landscape designer of the project explained, people could not stand on the dry meadow during the opening speech for the Bo01 Housing Expo (interview with landscape designer, 27 February 2014). As a consequence of public occupation of the waterfront, most surfaces were used for public activities and recreation. The result was the expansion of the cultivated grass field, which was not aligned with intended ecological functionality. Observations conducted during the summer showed that the intended visual qualities of the park (interview with landscape designer, 27 February, 2014), such as the green surfaces, were also affected by the popularity of the park and by public uses (e.g., playing volleyball) unanticipated by the designers (interview with the landscape designer, 27 February 2014). Very few functional adaptations have been observed in Bo01.

164 A love/hate relationship with the WHW

After two years of disappointment and bankruptcy, the unoccupied Bo01 housing began to receive new residents. The area was then (and still is) fairly disconnected from the life of the city centre, and the new residents who moved in were aware that there would be long-term ongoing development in the Western Harbour. The trade-off was thought to be worth it, however, as residents could seize a unique opportunity to live in a different type of housing, and have exclusive sea views and proximity to the water. Bo01 was originally designed for ‘downsizing’ older residents who had sold their houses after their children had moved out, yet a calm housing market after 9/11 allowed young professionals to be among the purchasers (Dalman, 2013, p. 168).

Figure 5.14. Public–private exposures along the urban edges of Bo01.

Meanwhile, the WHW attained a high level of publicness in the eyes of those visiting Bo01 to see its modern architecture and enjoy the waterfront, whether locals (i.e., working-class citizens of Malmö) or global travellers (i.e., national and international tourists). Citizens’ curiosity as to who could live in Bo01, their expressions of wonder, as well as their explorations were translated and observed as interactions with the built environment and the mostly private territory (i.e., housing), as shown in Figure 5.14. Accordingly, big glass windows offering residents sea views instead became windows exhibiting the residents’ private lives to the publics, and the public spaces became a realm of conflict between two groups of stakeholders. Based on an online report published in The Guardian, the everyday life of Bo01 residents was affected by the users of public space:

‘People just walk up and press their noses against the glass all the time’, says Scott, an American, who lives on a sixth-floor seafront apartment. ‘If I was on the first level or the ground level, I’d move out, and many people have done just that, six or eight months after moving in. Others have blocked their windows with shades’ (Rose, 2005).

165 Early reports on Bo01 presented dissatisfaction, partly related to a few residents who could not accept the level of publicness of their WHW and accordingly moved out of Bo01 (‘exit’ was Hirschman’s word). Their dissatisfaction might be the result of the high expectations and imaginations of this place presented in the media. For example, the high popularity of Bo01’s public spaces among ‘others’, or having to accept ‘others’ as neighbours, might run counter to the kind of place offered, described, and imagined for future residents. This place or paradise meant different things for Malmö’s citizens and for those visiting from outside the city. According to public reports, some citizens of Möllevången expressed dissatisfaction with the city’s development of this exclusive housing complex (Moss, 2017) at a time of economic crisis and given the history of Malmö’s social unrest. Users of the WHW actively celebrated the place and went swimming along the waterfront. Although Bo01 residents did not contest or voice dissatisfaction with this neoliberal development, they were affected by the visiting publics with their public practices and by the area’s high level of publicness. Some residents stayed and became attached to this neighbourhood, and its publicness was not a problem (Dalman, 2013, p. 168); accordingly, the WHW became a place where many different people of Malmö could enjoy the city’s waterfront.

The conflicts between different WHW users could be regarded as challenges arising between different economic classes in a shared space where the demarcation between public and private territories was blurry. The interfaces along the waterfront and between the blocks became places where users and visitors as well as residents practiced togetherness, tolerance, and interconnection. The idea of modern public life was translated into public places and individual society; however, the unintended consequence was that residents confronted strangers’ presence and occupation at the interfaces where their interactions became inconvenient for them.

Gates and privacy signs were observed in the WHW, as adaptations to the great popularity of the place and as practices to secure privacy from ‘others’. These barriers have not affected the rhythms and numbers of visitors to Bo01 who walk along the waterfront and around the blocks, to indulge their curiosity and take photos. This corresponds to Sennett’s (1977) analysis of Western urban spaces, in which being among others and the visibility of strangers entails becoming fearful, reflecting the decline of integration in public space in modern society. The location of the site, the design quality and architecture, the time, and even the location of Malmö in the region strengthened the togetherness of the multiple publics and their interconnections at the waterfront. The housing entrances open right onto the promenade, and the huge glass windows of the residences, such as the one shown in Figure 5.14, exhibit the residents’ private lives to the unknown publics, namely, the multicultural and multi-ethnic populace of Malmö. The transition between private and public territories (i.e., buildings and public space) was not taken into consideration during planning (see the urban edges in Figure 5.7), and this could be related to the unexpected levels and types of publicness. The physical edge of Daniaparken, which was built after the public space became popular, has a different design and the buildings have semi-private interfaces in

166 the form of front yards and balconies. However, the mixed group of users of the public space caused a shift in the residents’ perspective: they either had to move out of the place or accept that they were living in a socially mixed area. For example, Nicolai, living at Bo01 for eight years, commented:

People stood on their tiptoes peering over the fence at our breakfast. However, this didn’t matter much, we just waved happily at them. (Dalman, 2013, p. 170).

Based on surveys carried out in 2007 and 2011, the former by the market research company Gfk and the latter by Ipsos, Bo01 residents have a positive image of their community (Kristensson, 2013, pp. 227–231). According to these surveys, all residents, parents in particular, were happy to have a safe space where children could play, easy access to the waterfront for calm strolls, and a sense of community among parents. The surveys also captured dissatisfaction with the lack of a traditional playground for children and insufficient space in the nursery and school, and the unhappiness of some respondents at living in an overly homogenous area in which only white middle-class families could afford to live (Kristensson, 2013, pp. 227–231). The area is now fairly affordable and both residents and regular workers are happy about the environment, yet some outsiders still believe that only ‘snobs live there’ (Dalman, 2013, p. 170). By the time of the observations, which were conducted almost five years after the survey, new schools and kindergartens had opened in the Western Harbour district and most of the people observed were young families. For citizens of Malmö who have visited this area, the waterfront is still a preferred meeting place. During the observations, few planned and scheduled collective social or cultural activities took place. Some archival documents register a few informal planned activities and performances in the WHW, but no such activities were witnessed during the observation.

A gated neighbourhood

The combination of high density and small-scale streets between the blocks was intended to create a sense of intimacy and self-surveillance for the residents. This feeling was supported by the homogeneity of the neighbourhood, dominated by affluent members of society whose environmental and spatial privilege became public here. This exclusive social territory can be simplified and interpreted as a gated community or neighbourhood. On one hand, the space between the blocks is open and accessible to the public; on the other hand, there are impermeable interfaces that are flexible enough for everyday resident use. The designer’s approach to the publicness of these spaces was to make them almost separate from the waterfront area. While exclusively focused on cognitive concerns and structures translated into interpersonal interactions and senses in the neighbourhood, the actors intended to foster a deliberative publicness in ‘the public spaces’ (i.e., park and promenade areas) of Bo01. The park was designed to attract new residents, illustrate the symbolic power of architecture, and export

167 sustainable building solutions as well as humane architecture, while the promenade was designed to present social life. The neighbourhood area thus represents a mixture of behavioural, economic, and political intentions translated into material space. What the everyday practices reveal today is the lack of consideration of future users and their social processes in producing their publicness, in relation to the whole area of the WHW. The residents have appropriated the physical and visual accessibility of their private courtyards, entrances, and even windows (semi-public spaces) by means of physical barriers, signs of control, exposing by-products of use, and expanding private territory, for example, by putting personal belongings outside (e.g., bicycles, toys, and flowerboxes). Most of the backyards are designed to face inward, and the front yards mostly have solid walls or gates, bearing signs declaring ‘Private Area’ or ‘No Entrance’, which denies the publicness of the neighbourhood.

Bo01 urban spaces were intentionally designed for the information age, in which its future residents will be situated between the local and global (Castells, 2004), influencing the sense of publicness of the users and the sense of privacy of the residents. The physical space is a manifested outcome of evidence-based tested theories of high-quality visual design. Figure 5.15 shows intimate urban spaces between the blocks, and different levels of controlling the visible though private spaces. The public experience is different along the canal where the backyards, which are intensively used in everyday life, are exposed to the public. The dominant and exposed private mono-functional use of the entire Bo01 influences the sense of publicness. This experienced publicness at some point is even shaped by overt control of public access to common spaces, such as Turning Torso; this was originally supposed to be a common public place, but no permission is granted to experience the building today. Turning Torso is now a symbolic landmark, an innovative though overly expensive building representative of a new identity for Malmö. The daily use of the inner parts of Bo01 can be observed in the form of a few objects left outside, such as bicycles and strollers. Although the ground floors throughout Bo01 were built with higher ceilings to allow them to be business premises and potentially public places, very few of these premises have been rented for public functions.

Over-designed spaces impose a sense of control and order on users and in some ways result in exclusiveness. In the same way, open-ended design creates a sense of desolation, emptiness, and mismanagement. Following the intention to creating meaningful public places, many landscape designers avoid over-determinism and suggest leaving uses open and allowing ambiguity, with the intention of fostering flexibility, temporality, and democracy to accommodate future needs. However, the present findings regarding the waterfront open space in Malmö indicate that a site can become a meaningful place. A space should be a beginning that people can complete, join, resist, or generally appropriate. People joined the collective planned actions, yet they themselves did not initiate anything in this particular place.

168 Figure 5.15. Bo01 neighbourhood area: accessibility, use, and experiences. The outdoor spaces of WHW set precedents in the Swedish planning of ‘shared space’, but only related to calming traffic and prioritizing pedestrians by not providing lanes specifically for cars. The street hierarchies control the traffic between the blocks, and there are few physical barriers along the waterfront. These shared spaces are well designed and have succeeded in their perceptual purposes, yet the outdoor spaces were not intended to concentrate on social aspects, and accordingly no social exchanges and collective experiences, such as spontaneous encounters and gatherings, were observed. In the few cases in which children were observed playing, an adult was always looking after them. All the alleys are pedestrian friendly, and the observed pedestrians were mostly parents with strollers.

169 5.3 Producing publicness

Figure 5.16. Examples of appropriating public space shows physical adaptations and alternative uses and meanings (left; source: Arkitektur, 2011, p. 44). This analysis found evidence that the publicness of the WHW was influenced at the scale of the city (or even region). The material space as the outcome of the project became a public discourse and imagination through the media coverage. So, public space can be also discussed through political conceptualisation as ‘public sphere’, where underprivileged Malmö citizens had a voice. So, the appropriations of WHW is related to the public who became visible in public space, where made accessibility possible and even desirable. The physical public space supported social and physical access as well as complex forms of freedom, and the public space unexpectedly became a territory contested by the public. In the multicultural city of Malmö, enabling different group’s togetherness and expressions was important, even though not claimed by the project.

Citizens of Malmö voted with their feet for a well-designed, open, and accessible space in which to experience their freedom. They practiced their desire by jumping into the water and swimming in the place, an activity that was unauthorized at first. They produced social spaces and collective meanings. Residents of Bo01 chose to be the users of the space, which has global status for its innovative design, being near the city centre while having perfect proximity to natural public resources. Today, visitors to Bo01 and the WHW in particular are either curious observers checking the place as the outcome of a city’s promise of change, or regular citizens seeking stunning views and pure freedom of place. Bo01’s locals have experienced the rise and fall of urban life, related to the levels of publicness, which varied between periods and between publics. The bankruptcy of the housing expo gave the area a bad reputation, yet it created ‘solidarity’ among its residents, who nevertheless chose to live in this ‘besmirched district’ (Dalman, 2013, p. 169). While the project was experiencing failure, or unintended emptiness, the citizens could enjoy wandering through and discovering an iconic architectural landscape.

170 The publicness of the space has had a coevolving relationship with its material space. The quality of the buildings and urban spaces has attracted users, and the sense of discovery in Bo01 allowed users to enjoy the diversity of spatial experiences, such as different ways to access the water, varied enclosures, and privacy to enjoy the stunning view, as well as representations of a global agenda, such as the Öresund Bridge or Turning Torso, publicized by the media in terms of belief or disbelief in the project. Citizens’ appropriations in the WHW were unexpected by the marketing strategies for this new city district, because the investors did not think of the ‘public address’, which means to denote ‘what people are doing when they are doing publicness’ (Iveson, 2009, p. 242). Public space mediates diverse citizens’ interests and needs for togetherness in this place through individual and collective material expressions (see Figure 5.17). The citizens of Malmö have been the objects of the city’s overdetermined strategy of branding Malmö through sustainable environmental building solutions as well as the entrepreneurial economy. However, the same citizens and their collective spatial practices reminded the city that co-presence in public should not be taken for granted.

Figure 5.17. User’s different spatial practices appropriated the outlook (Source: Thorbjörn Andersson).

The transformation of publicness in WHW influenced the City of Malmö to make decisions: Should citizens accept planning and ‘reasonable decisions’ that have created an innovative district for the ‘creative class’, with no specific public function? Public occupation, use, and freedom of expression were unexpected consequences of the project, yet were not outside the city’s power to tolerate and manage. The public presence and uses that had emerged in WHW were supported and the city prolonged their rhythms through physical adaptations, as well as through tactical planning to keep the place active, such as organizing events. In addition, taking over the public space taught Malmö’s citizens that by practicing their rights in space, they could weaken prohibitions of citizen desires. The transformation of publicness in WHW showed that public space is a realm of conflictual interactions between different publics (i.e., in this case citizens of Malmö and residents of Bo01). Certain qualities of physical space exert important influences in such transformations, such as providing privacy in public, defining hierarchies between public and private, and enabling diverse experiences.

171 The Western Harbour case, like many other examples of urban renewal in the interest of economic development, confronted and still confronts the dual interests of middle-class and unprivileged citizens as users of public spaces. These issues are being considered by city planners, as Malmö is ‘partly characterized by segregation and social disparity’ (Malmö Stad, 2014). The range of local authorities’ moral and political choices has broadened to support citizens’ need for public life; the development has continued, but now accommodates more affordable options. The city is involved in doing ‘what is reasonable’ to build an entrepreneurial city, and in undertaking other practices to engage the international scope of its society.

The city has tamed users’ needs for public space and spatial experiences as well as residents’ dissatisfactions, not only by facilitating citizens’ desired public life (e.g., adding a wooden deck and ladder for swimming; see Figure 5.16, left) but also by providing alternative spaces in the Western Harbour as well-equipped waterfront areas for citizens. Except on sunny summer days, the residents of Bo01 are the main users of public space. Accordingly, there is less diversity of users in WHW today, and its publicness is mostly practiced through residents’ random daily practices. Western Harbour is constantly developing and Bo01 has played an ‘in- between’ role in the transition from economic crisis to an entrepreneurial and innovative city. A desire to harness the economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development was the powerful driver behind initiating and financing the spatial production. The production process involved government support, local branding-strategy politics, experts’ experience in environmental design, the supremacy of guidelines, and a robust physical plan to ensure visual experiences and stimulate individual perceptions of diversity and surprise. While the produced private good was awaiting its users, the space was reproduced by citizens who were not directly addressed or whose presence was taken for granted.

These dialectical relationships, as unintended consequences, offer an understanding of the production of publicness beyond the production of spectacle. They can be summarized as a set of relationships between the spatial outcomes and the unexpected actors and engagements:

- Physical visions guided the planning and design of the built form, yet social visions, such as the co-production and management of space by residents and the welfare society intentions stated in the QP, were taken for granted and never implemented. The results of the welfare society intentions were entrepreneurial city strategies and buildings for privileged residents. However, the place was celebrated by unauthorized uses, an unexpected level of publicness, and users. - Unintended economic consequences (i.e., lack of affordability of the place and accordingly loss of public trust in the project) became the driving forces supporting users’ presence in and appropriations of the place. For example, public presence and use were facilitated and prolonged by the city, soon affecting the public image of project failure (and perhaps of the

172 city’s promises) and the planning strategies for future development: i.e., strategies for more affordable housing, Scaniabadet (i.e., Scania bathing area), and Stapelbäddsparken (i.e., the skate park) were functions added to the project to enhance public life. - Unintended social consequences affected utopian visions. The intentions and strategies for the built form shifted from stressing perceptions and attractiveness (for individuals’ senses and satisfaction) to stressing social and collective encounters and togetherness. This shift was organized by the city as the owner of the transformation and initiated by changing the strategies of the physical plan (e.g., small plots, diversity, and visual qualities). Despite changing the main architect, the city kept the same guiding intention, i.e., to foster economic growth through creating an attractive environment. The dynamic knowledge–action relationship of the design process changed: the methods for identifying future needs and the levels of rationality and expert knowledge shifted to be more collaborative and participatory. Citizens’ engagement and ‘the positive conversation’ (det goda samtalet) have become part of planning discourse. - One unintended consequence of designing an accessible public place for citizens was to give them high visibility in a public space without considering the consequences of their engagement in place. This fostered knowledge of Malmö’s various cultural and economic classes, and of the importance of public space to be addressed for collective actions. - The unintended consequences of promoting environmental sustainability through branding strategies for economic growth can be observed in people’s everyday behaviour represented in public spaces. The full parking lots, luxury cars, cancellation of the rentable electric car scheme, a multi- storey car park with an ironically green facade, a ‘Saluhall’ (food market) selling exclusive ‘eco-friendly’ foods and drinks, and a huge ICA Maxi for daily mass consumption are all examples of planning adaptations to resident’s behaviour and needs. These examples are outside the scope of the case study, yet their consequences show up not necessarily on the same territory.

The publicness of the place was not the primary intention when initiating and planning Bo01. Even so, the design of the (public) waterfront territory was the subject of negotiation between the designer and the city. Though the former acknowledged the intimacy of small public spaces protected by the buildings’ façades, this vision was less powerful than the city’s regulations to preserve green areas along the waterfront. The quality of social life, diversity, and democracy (described in the previous section) were acknowledged in the design process, yet the physical space was mainly produced for individual perceptions and spatial experiences. Citizens’ appropriations at the Bo01 waterfront happened when the city and its citizens had been deprived of a good economy, and were trying to build new identity, pride, and hope. While the branding strategies focused on eco- friendly housing and high-tech living (with the help of creating public imaginations around the future of city), the waterfront provided unique access to the water, spatial qualities, complex forms of freedom, embodied experiences, as well as hope about the change happening in the city. Citizens were unintentionally

173 spatialized in Bo01, and with time, the residents of surrounding areas came to be slightly dominant.

One of the most important unintended consequences of Bo01 was recognition of the importance of the public domain and of appropriations of space that could give voice to underprivileged groups, recognizing their presence and needs. However, ongoing research in the same context revealed that this consequence was simplified in discussions and even implementation,22 being reduced to the concepts of ‘social cohesion’ or ‘open public spaces, allowing different groups to see each other’ (Nylund, 2014). Even though the public space had an important role in bringing people together, the diversity of people and their appropriations should be understood in terms of the underlying dynamics that were created, sustained, and tamed. Appropriations of space by citizens and residents allow discussion of the WHW as a ‘public domain’. The publicness of its space was shaped by branding strategies, power structures, and political–economic processes, so the existing stakeholders and the conflicts among them concerned relationships between the media, urban environment, and imagination. The experience of ‘Copacabana Malmö’, the ‘love–hate relationship’ between citizens and the WHW, and the perception of a ‘gated neighbourhood’ were all reflections on the producing publicness by way of control, encounters or expressions. The publicness of Bo01 revealed the consequences of strategies mixing welfare society values with competitiveness and entrepreneurship – market-based ideas of the local authority supported by the central government as the financer (Dannestam, 2008).

22 This can be followed and observed in other waterfront developments, for example, in Hornsbergs Strandpark (Hornsberg quayside park) in Stockholm, where the public space was first facilitated and occupied by people relaxing and sunbathing on the wooden decks, enjoying togetherness, before the construction of the buildings and streetscape was finished. The users’ engagement in physical public space (the material) was observed as successful, although the relationships of their engagement and the politics of the place were reduced in importance. Hornsbergs Strandpark was the winner of the Swedish landscape award, Sienapriset 2012, the same prize that the design of Daniapark received in 2001. Hornsbergs Strandpark became too popular among general users, to the extent that the new residents (who could afford the housing market in central Stockholm) complained about the noise level and the crowds misbehaving in public, for example, littering, urinating in public, and partying late at public (Sverige Radio, 2015).

174 Chapter 6. Discussion and conclusions

– towards transformative practice

This chapter has three sections, which contribute to the third research question. In the first part, section 6.1, in light of the findings of the two case studies, I discuss the similarities and differences of the production processes. As the quote above highlights, the processes will reveal the influences in relation to experts’ role. Then, I reflect the findings on different types of appropriations, which have been discussed separately in the previous chapters. The second part, section 6.2, continues the discussion on the potentials of appropriations in transforming publicness and the wider theoretical contributions in terms of urban design practice. Section 6.3 presents contribution of this study to urban planning and design, recommends a shift in thinking and practice for producing publicness. At the end, I point out some directions for future research.

6.1 Comparative Insights

Through discussing the similarities and differences between the producing processes in the two cases, this section discusses publicness in terms of evolutionary stages and their effects. Producing publicness is discussed at greater depth, which considering each case study alone cannot do. The findings also show how actors and actions can differ within a similar structure and societal norms. Figure 6.1 shows the two processes by which Liljeholmstorget (top) and the

175 Western Harbour Waterfront (bottom) were transformed: the former was designed to be a transit-oriented and mixed-use development and has become a place of informal togetherness and passive appropriations, while the latter is a waterfront development designed to create a new image for its host city while supporting well-being, and has become a place for (active and passive) expression.

The scales of the two case studies differ, in both the size and the scope of the intended change. The Stockholm practice was the first part of a larger development in Liljeholmen with characteristics of an independent urban centre. Although both practices followed the trend of sustainable development, particularly its environmental and economic dimensions, the publicness of both places was formed through the applied strategies, which changed during the spatial production, as examined in detail in chapters four and five. The challenges facing both cities were different at the time, although both chose spatial development as the strategy for overcoming them. The Stockholm practice is a local case at the level of the city of Stockholm, whereas the Malmö practice was initiated at a higher level through the city’s hosting of the European housing expo. The Bo01 project was a showcase for sustainable development, publicizing what was to happen in coming years in the Western Harbour area. The project’s change mandate was politically supported, so the actors had to be ambitious and visionary in advancing the process. The actors agreed to take risk and aimed for something uncertain but promising.

Figure 6.1. Publicness in becoming: top, Liljeholmstorget, Stockholm, bottom, Western Harbour waterfront (WHW), Malmö (source: top left, https://hallbarstad.se/sveriges- arkitekter/liljeholmstorget/; bottom left, Arkitektur, 2011, p. 47).

176 The comparative insights achieved here are consistent with what has been found about appropriations in each case, presented in the previous chapters (see sections 4.3 and 5.3, which summarize the findings). The insights first discuss the urban design process, comparing the differences and similarities in evolutionary stages, roles, and tools observed in the process of producing publicness and in the spatial outcome. Later, the socio-spatial consequences of the process is analysed through the type of appropriations in everyday practice of the two places. In the context of this study, appropriation has been proposed as a concept that can be used in analysing the publicness of space in relation to different production processes. The results of investigating the two cases lead to the conclusion that publicness cannot be regarded as a linear relationship between urban form and human behaviour, or as the product of a complete process involving design, development, use, and management. Both processes instead have consequences for publicness at different scales, so appropriation has been used in the context of this research for studying the tangible effects and consequences, mediated in public space. Appropriation (and the lack of appropriation) is a matter of socio– spatial dialectics calling into question how urban design thinking and practice contribute to the transformation of public spaces.

Urban design stages and influences

The similarities and differences in the process of producing publicness, i.e., through political and economic forces, land-use plans, and the provision of accessibility are discussed in the following in relation to actors’ roles and influences. Both practices used expert collaboration in the planning and design processes and can be considered somewhat participatory, because planning and decision-making processes in Sweden involve future residents/interested citizens (at different levels, a matter outside the scope of this study). Earlier scholars have emphasized the importance of the shift in urban design from top–down conventional approaches, narrowing in scope to address citizens’ needs and intentions concerning the physical environment (see, e.g., Madanipour, 1999; Cuthbert, 2007; Carmona, 2014; Lang, 2005, pp. 380–388). However, very few studies and recommendations address the reality of places in relation to the patterns of expert’s engagement in planning and design processes.

Both practices exemplify project-based urban design,23 which frames actors’ roles and positions relative to the driving forces of the project. Analysing such practices also reveals the powerful knowledge positions in interpreting values in certain directions. Both processes are project-led interventions, defined by public concerns and local authority imaginations of how such developments could benefit the area and the city as a whole. It is impossible to categorize each practice simply as an urban design typology (Lang, 2005, pp. 27–28), because the experts

23 Urban design as ‘project’ has been debated by scholars who question the ideas first called ‘urban design” in the 1950s; see further in Inam (2014, p. 5) and Cuthbert (2010, p. 444).

177 were engaged in more than one type of activity. The larger strategy of spatial development in both projects, as in other Western European cities undergoing post-industrial development, went hand in hand with enhancing the city image and place marketing, and urban design had the role of attracting economic investment at different scales (Madanipour, 2006). Experts have had different patterns of engagement in the projects, for example, in relation to developers and in designing the urban form, while policies have articulated certain expectations of the project outcomes, as described in the following at different stages of the project.

Both practices were initiated by the cities as parts of larger strategies for change, either by prioritizing certain ways in which the city functions (i.e., mixed-use development in Liljeholmstorget) or by financing the change (i.e., city branding in WHW). Both practices manifested similar approaches by suggesting spatial development as a means of change, to create a liveable ‘city-like’ environment in Liljeholmstorget and to confront economic crisis and the city’s loss of hope in WHW. In both practices, public interest was generally identified with public spaces and functions, and the city planning office (CPO) in both cases had an important role in environmental protection and enhancement.

In Liljeholmstoget, creating urban infrastructure, specifically a transit hub, was an important intended outcome, while in WHW it was the high-quality built environment. Liljeholmstorget collaborated with the private sector to finance the implementation process, while the WHW project received governmental finance and support (though the project in its first phase had a semi-private client24). The CPO in Liljeholmstorget has been involved not only in translating policies into forms jointly with the developers/architects, but also in regulating and facilitating the process to achieve transit-hub and mixed-used goals. In WHW, the CPO coordinated the design and development process by assigning a chief architect to design the physical outcome, and by designating and participating in a team to regulate the process, interpreting intentions while managing the unintended consequences. The WHW project has been implemented in several phases, and as different stakeholders were interested in the outcome of each phase, the city has unintentionally experienced a consequence-based practice. Today, the Malmö city experts welcome these unintended consequences:

In the beginning, everyday small crisis is a good driver, as is building consensus around the necessity of doing things together, and building a common understanding that we need to do it for a better society, jointly with the enterprises, academia, and all stakeholders is very important. The role of the city planning office is to be more or less a facilitator more

24 Europeiska bomässan Bo01 in collaboration with the city of Malmö.

178 than a planner – of course we are planning too, but facilitating the process is very important. (interview with department chief, 5 April 2015)

I have verified that the responsible local authority, namely, the CPO, in both cases played an important role in identifying the types and levels of publicness, other scholars have highlighted the important role of municipal planners in addressing the challenges of decision-making and implementation processes (see, e.g., Madanipour, 2006; Childs, 2010; Carmona, 2017; Khakee and Barbanente, 2003; Engström and Cars, 2013; Wänström, 2013). In each case, the CPO allocated land to developers while identifying public functions and territories (see sections 4.1 and 5.1 and Caesar, 2016; Kalbro, 2013). However, the sequences of these phases differed between the cases, allowing us to compare and discuss their effects on the produced publicness. In an early planning phase, the Liljeholmstorget site was selected as a suitable industrial area, among other industrial zones around Stockholm inner city, to be developed and become part of the city (creating ‘city- like’ environment). The strategies and measured objectives were determined based on the place’s accessible location in the city and its existing function, which was to be enhanced. The WHW was a former industrial zone chosen for redevelopment due to its proximity to the city centre, which made it suitable to be transformed into a complete city district. The development started from the waterfront site due to its unique natural setting. Waterfronts in certain European and British post-industrial cities are among the geographical entities that city authorities have chosen to redevelop for international publicity purposes, creating new civic images and identities. There are examples of such waterfront redevelopments in Hamburg, Glasgow, and Amsterdam, where urban planning and development have tried to create new city images by promoting new techniques as well as radical changes in the built environment or urban infrastructures (Varna, 2014).

Publicness was spatially built through exercising political power: by identifying public resources (i.e., land), financing the projects, and defining the level of private-sector engagement in defining the public functions, investment, and ownership of spaces to be publicly used. These macro-decisions had micro-level consequences, for example, for the size of, perceived access to, and control over the spaces. In Liljeholmstorget, the CPO in close collaboration with the developers designed a spatial plan. The plan applied a traffic logic to the design, while the CPO accommodated public facilities and created public spaces. The land was subdivided and released while the CPO was negotiating the land uses with the developers. The CPO had to navigate market conditions when negotiating trade- offs: on one hand, many developers were interested in the location; on the other hand, the city wanted a mixed-use development. The city incentivized private developers/landowners to remove offices and a few proposed public functions from the plan, while prioritizing well-structured public transport. The proposal of the private owners to build a shopping mall was welcomed by the city under the condition that a mixed-use block (incorporating different housing types) would be

179 built. The private developers of the private land thus built most of the public functions in the project.

The WHW can be discussed through the lens of place-branding strategies for making cities more competitive (Ashworth and Voogd, 1990; Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2010). The CPO promoted the project and received the national government’s encouragement to create a specifically place-based identity and to promote it to identified markets. As part of this goal, the CPO aspired to flagship architecture (by hosting the Bo01 Housing Expo and fully commissioning a master plan designer) and signalled a shift of attention to the concern of ecological sustainability, a fairly heated subject of debate at the time, while producing a space for the creative class. The interest of the development industry in urban design due to its potential to reimagine the city put urban design in a vulnerable position. Within a newly defined direction and in city promotions, urban design became a means to transform an industrial site as well as the image and memories of the city. The ‘City of Tomorrow’ Housing Expo was not run privately, as the local and national governments contributed to financing it. By involving a joint team of varied representatives (including the client and developers), the CPO was engaged in designing and managing the process. The urban design team set the design guidelines, i.e., the Quality Programme (QP), describing the expected qualities of the proposed urban spaces and setting standards for the outcome quality. The architect of the master plan had central authority to commission developers based on their agreement with the QP, and to assess the architectural proposals. The implementation process was based on collaboration with developers, including teaching sessions about the desired urban qualities and their influence on human needs (interview with the programme director, 23 February 2015). The small-plot strategy was used to increase the number of actors and the diversity of architecture styles. The property divisions were designed before the land was allocated to different developers. The WHW project was contested, as the development process had to privilege certain actors, images, and conditions over others. Such practices, as Madanipour (2006) stressed, make ‘the role of the public authority … more partisan than before (Madanipour, 2006, p. 181).

Both practices involved creative, innovative solutions for the built form based on prioritized values. In Liljeholmstorget, the CPO involved suitable experts in embedding public transport efficiency in the architecture, connecting the project to other blocks while protecting residents from public transport’s environmental effects. However, the CPO reacted powerlessly or unenthusiastically to the traffic- calming challenges faced in Södertäljevägen based on the conducted environmental studies. The city agreed to withdraw the idea of traffic calming instead of either employing experts to deal with it or revising/adapting the plan based on this new consideration. Meanwhile, the CPO had been running several housing projects in Liljeholmen (e.g., Marievik) whose residents might be users of the public services in Liljeholmstorget, and might accordingly be affected by the problems engendered by the transformation of Södertäljevägen. The municipality had to think of the city as a whole and not as a combination of parts and projects,

180 so addressing identified problems was to be prioritized and incentivized by the city. Experts became engaged in the process of designing WHW, concerning green building, infrastructure, and designing for biodiversity. As in Liljeholmstorget, the WHW process had to confront unexpected challenges. These challenges, however, were citizens’ desires and unexpected uses; the city listened to these desires, adapted the plan accordingly, and designed tactics to enable them (see detailed findings regarding this matter in section 5.3).

Both practices had the creation of public spaces as their design objective, with an emphasis on demarcations between public and private territories. In both practices, pedestrian-friendly open spaces were prioritized, stressing high connectivity of all surfaces, safety, and maintenance in order to facilitate mobility. In addition, equal accessibility of all city amenities is a fundamental consideration in developing public spaces, one that Swedish urbanism is very concerned with. As mentioned above, all spaces were to be publicly accessible except when specifically marked for private purposes. As the city regulated the physical space to ensure that it was equally accessible to everyone as shared space, it was therefore crucial to enhance the social and perceptual consequences of such access. Producing publicness is therefore about controlling and manipulating accessible places and should not be discussed or assessed based on produced territory (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2, which present the perceived socio–spatial relationships of places used for public life). Accessible places, as both cases illustrate, might be owned, function, or be dominated in various unplanned-for ways; accordingly, their users have different perceptions of these places’ publicness, which affect their types and levels of appropriation, that are not directly related to ownership, function, and use. Therefore, the publicness of space cannot be fully rationalized in terms of where, when, and how it is to arise, and its social consequences cannot be ignored. The provision of physical access, though important, is not enough. The societal accessibility of amenities and public functions should not be an afterthought to physical accessibility.

The findings of comparing the two practices verified that architects concerned about the spatial experiences in each case referred to perceptual and social factors. Yet they did not adapt their strategies based on the levels of publicness of place, which were identified fairly early when the city made decisions about the places and their future publics. The quality of place and spatial experiences were designed using empirical knowledge, models, and logic available in the designers’ minds: in Liljeholmstorget, closed blocks with inner courtyards were considered the best possible form given the site’s potentials, while densification and increasing vitality were the ‘city-like’ goal. In WHW, the experiential qualities of medieval cities inspired the designer to design a ‘robust plan’ prioritizing people’s ‘immeasurable’ needs (interview with master plan designer, 23 February 2015) – besides the geographical qualities/constraints of the place.

In both practices, the CPO and all involved experts emphasized informative collaboration, yet analysing their roles and responsibilities makes it clear that

181 designers’ engagement in determining how public was neither (consciously or unconsciously) powerful nor effective. In both cases, commissioned landscape designers were part of the process, though their area of responsibility (i.e., ‘contractual territory’) was limited and defined and they were not powerful or savvy enough to affect other actors’ decisions. Analysing the knowledge–action dialectic in the design processes reveals that the social and psychological values of place were discussed at different levels in the two cases. In Liljeholmstorget, spatial design was mainly about how the place functions, and this approach was applied to each phase and its architectural objective, so the social and psychological values of place were not designed as parts of a whole. Instead, the landscape designers focused on the significance of the square, providing a new identity and enhancing its role as a place of democracy by improving aesthetic and environmental experiences. In WHW, the spatial design was intended to enhance the symbolic values and how the place looks by imposing the designer’s choices as well as the place’s significant location. The psychological values came into focus at the master-plan level and as criteria for implementing the whole plan. Accordingly, the landscape designers added value to the appearance of the waterfront and provided complex forms of freedom for individuals’ performances and experiences. In both projects, the appearance and functions of public spaces acted as a medium of communication between locals, regulars and visitors (or commuters) and the spaces even acquired symbolic values by being practiced through unplanned togetherness.

Types of appropriations and levels of publicness

The public realm in these two projects includes individuals and groups who constituted themselves or recognized one another by their presence in space (see the concept of ‘trial by space’ in Lefebvre, 1991, p. 416). In both places, urban design provided and supported a high level of physical accessibility: in Liljeholmstorget through a transit hub, and in the WHW through a new street network and an attractive landscape along the water. The provision of access to urban spaces in both projects put them on the path to ‘equity’ (Fainstein, 2014), as Stockholmers, particularly in suburbs in the southwest part of the city, got more accessible public transport, additional public services, and an attractive suburban area, and Malmö citizens got a well designed public space in the central part of the city where they could enjoy the sea.

The consequence of high accessibility in both cases was social diversity in place. In Liljeholmstorget, however, the private landowners and developers planned to use such social density to develop a shopping galleria. In Malmö, the Bo01 project was planned and designed to house a limited segment of society, and social diversity in the new public space was an unexpected consequence of an accessible physical space. Observed spatial practices in Liljeholmstorget revealed the many collective behaviours related to daily commuting and consumption in public spaces. The daily commuters arrive at Liljeholmstorget as users of the surrounding neighbourhood, who leave the place directly, or after brief daily shopping. The regular consumers are welcomed by the shopping galleria to spend time and

182 experience informal togetherness with strangers. It should not be forgotten that many Stockholmers experience Liljeholmstorget only through changing their mode of transport. However, Liljeholmstorget has other publics as well, such as residents, regular users of the clinical services (i.e., elderly and children), and locals users of the park, whose spatial practices happen between the social amenities, with different rhythms and as parts of different spatial experiences. In WHW, the (unplanned) public visibility and interactions influenced the (planned) symbolic meaning of the place even when the (planned for) publics were still absent. The publicness produced by spatial practices in WHW surprised the city, so the city facilitated the place for them by initiating temporary activities to stimulate social life in public spaces.

Appropriations at Liljeholmstorget are the consequence of collective behaviour, in which individuals’ informal togetherness has been planned and designed for by designating defined territories for dominant functions. People’s appropriation happens in relation to their ‘membership’ in the place, for example, as commuters, daily consumers, and regular workers. Appropriations reveal more than just planned performances. Individual acts of togetherness and encounters were observed in Liljeholmstorget, identifying its ‘in-between’ character. The addressed public of Liljeholmstorget does not have an attitude of appropriation, even though they are socially diverse. Tracing the public and the place where they choose to practice their liberty, informal togetherness, and encounters reveals everyday spaces with no planned territories, uses, or dominant users (see section 2.2 and Table 2.2). In examining the accidental and emerging publicness of in-between spaces, some scholars have noted that authenticity and attractiveness do not play big roles in producing such publicness (see, e.g., Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001). However, findings indicate that people make use of spatial qualities (e.g., visual qualities or sounds) that involve their desires and emotional senses, consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, authenticity and attractiveness are not important elements of everyday practices if they have stable meanings; however, if they touch on curiosity, surprise, or certain personal desires they can affect the user’s sense of publicness at different levels, engaging them in different rhythms and types of appropriations. This can even create an unplanned informality in everyday spatial practices, while the users are engaged in places of collective and planned activities.

In WHW, appropriations happened at the level of expression, when Malmö citizens were hoping for change and where the place offered dramatic enclosures between the self and the sea in different sequences. Appropriations included different body performances and uses, all initiated by strong individual desires for freedom, playfulness, and relaxation. The place stimulated people to experience the setting, for example, through various interactions with the water (e.g., swimming, diving, soaking, and playing), capturing moments, regardless of the rules of place, that provided potential for spontaneous togetherness and activities in space. According to Cresswell, (2004), when materiality and meaning of place are practiced, people have a conscious sense of what is appropriate. People’s expression along WHW was a collective practice. The qualities discovered through

183 their spatial practices were also related to the quality of architecture and the built environment. People’s experiences of place affected those residents whose perception of the publicness of place was different. WHW has been discussed (through images and discourses) as a place of great liberty, particular lifestyles, and perhaps of a homogenous public not typical of ‘multicultural Malmö, with fast-growing social polarization and increasing gaps between different population groups in the city’ (Mukhtar-Landgren, cited by Hallemar, 2011).

On the other hand, dissatisfaction with the publicness of this place caused some stakeholders (i.e., residents) to leave Bo01 (see section 5.2). Appropriation in WHW shows how the unplanned popularity of this place meant that city planners and designers had to confront conflicts and decide what was reasonable to do, while still acting just. Swimming in WHW was prohibited for safety reasons and residents’ comfort, however the practice of swimming affected other spontaneous activities and encounters. Swimming in the city is an experience similar to skateboarding in the city. These practices of desire and bodily engagement go beyond the expected practices in the city and could be prohibited, for example, for reasons of safety or community preference (as Borden, 2014, p. 19, discusses regarding skateboarding). One should recall that over-using the park and the waterfront area, diving in the water, and swimming at WHW were expressions of people’s collective desires that were observed and leveraged by the city. Reflecting on people’s ‘collective wishes’ and ‘settled preferences’ reveals that they are manifestations of democratic decision-making (Parkinson, 2012, p. 25). Notably, tolerating and facilitating people’s swimming and expressions of desire in WHW would not affect other people’s access to the space; on the contrary, it would increase people’s trust in the city’s promises for the rest of the development.

Appropriations in both cases were not found in relation to the urban edges, although empirical studies demonstrate the potential of such interfaces to become favourable places of togetherness and encounter (see Table 2.2; see also Dovey and Wood, 2014; Stevens, 2006; Whyte, 1980; Bentley et al., 1985; Gehl, 1996, 2010). The edges are produced in the interstices between public and private territories, different ownership tenures, different designers and/or developers, and most importantly, as a consequence of the defined territory of the ‘project’. Appropriations along urban edges also happen beyond these dichotomies but reflect their consequences for urban design thinking and practice. In Liljeholmstorget, the flow of people is observed through the entrances of public buildings, on the train platform, and crossing the highway. Although in both cases the potentials of urban edges (e.g., public functions and entrances on the ground floor in Liljeholmstorget and public places on the corner of each block in WHW) were addressed in building regulations, they were affected by market interests and were deemed too expensive to be fully implemented as hoped. Both practices are physically connected to their surroundings, or rather, to adjacent projects built in parallel or afterwards, but users’ walking experiences are impeded by physical barriers. Users’ spatial experiences of publicness are divided by the consequences of different implementation phases and built territories.

184 In both cases, appropriations were not observed as part of spontaneous social encounters, even though each place plays a different role in the city. For example, individuals did not have even fleeting social encounters with strangers, even about necessary matters. Individuals were observed to be busy in their collective ‘space– time’ routines as both individuals and groups. However, in transient spaces and experiences in Liljeholmstorget and in the relaxed flâneur mode in WHW, togetherness was not mostly about encounters. In both cases, individual comfort comes first, even before personal privacy. For example, people do not necessarily prefer sitting in proximity to one another where there are alternatives that offer privacy, except when they find comfort, such as a good view or sunny spot, within that proximity. This is not applicable, however, to people with fewer mobility or public life opportunities, such as the elderly, for whom public space and other people’s company is the only alternative. Fleeting encounters were observed in WHW among playing children and animals. Both places were observed to be meeting places, however, where people choose a space to meet in advance (Liljeholmstorget) or arrive together (WHW). Meeting places are chosen in relation to planned functions and affordances.

The empirical investigations showed that appropriations were less possible in spaces where perceptions of publicness and the principle of liberty were ambiguous, for example, the courtyards in Liljeholmstorget or the small piazzas in WHW. The former are privately owned and the latter are public, but none of them was used by either residents or the public. These spaces were physically accessible to the public but had no obvious functions indicating what specific user groups were expected. In both cases, the housing associations, based on resident requests, had gated, locked, or signed the ‘open’ accessible spaces. Such separations and generally restricted uses of public spaces threaten social cohesion, particularly in Sweden where all physically accessible surfaces are considered public unless they are marked specifically for private use (see also Grundström, 2017; Minoura, 2016). In Liljeholmstorget, residents partially separated their courtyards to claim safe space from nearby misbehaviour, yet these physical spaces were barely used by them. Residents had to manipulate the spatial territories to claim their ownership of the space, yet the extent of the space and its material condition offered limited opportunities for use.

Appropriations considered in relation to the micro-practices of place indicate that the publicness of space is planned, designed, practiced, and contested in different stages and scales, and that the consequences of these relationships are interwoven and observed in space. Accordingly, the publicness of space is contingent and in constant flux. Users practicing publicness are affected not only by larger policies that grant them physical and social accessibility, but also by spatial experiences such as unconscious togetherness or desired places. As appropriations reveal, publicness is not a product of or compatible with planning, designing, or using space, nor is it only an effect of each stage of the production process, such as rules, forms, or behaviours. Rather, publicness is affected by the interstices between these processes. Therefore, the publicness of each case can be described in terms of different emergent meanings based on the levels and types of appropriations.

185 For example, while Liljeholmstorget spontaneously became a meeting place, other users chose it only for consuming experiences as a cappuccino place, and some others escaped its life by being in the park. Similarly, WHW has become the Copacabana of Malmö for its citizens, who have an unexpected love/hate relationship with the place, while others experience its publicness as a gated community. Analysing the publicness of each place (see sections 4.2 and 5.2) reveals controls, dominations, and affordances in material space, which people address differently.

The politics of urban development addressed privileged Malmö citizens and planned for them as wealthy clients, designing houses for them that have great openness and offer a view of the sea. However, the Bo01 project must be understood in a context in which planning was not about ensuring the welfare state ideal of equity, even though that was the stated intention. The radical shift targeted by the city started with communicative rationality and practical reasoning, and gathering stakeholders to write a new narrative for Malmö.

This section (6.1) summarized comparative insights into the two cases, which were individually and comprehensively examined in the previous chapters. Comparing the appropriation processes and reflecting on the roles and sequences of each urban design process entailed an effort to go beyond generalized theories (Flyvbjerg, 2006) to seek the ambiguity of intention–outcome gap. The similarities and differences between the two cases highlighted the complexity of the design process, the importance of public space when observing whose spatial practices are materialized, and the importance of understanding the power dynamic behind the project and the place (including the history of engagements and macro-socio–economic and geographical relationships).

Table 6.1 summarizes the tasks and roles in the studied urban design processes and how the publicness of space was produced in each case. Both projects started with implicit intentions to address social (Liljeholmstorget) and economic (WHW) problems. Urban design had an important role in interpreting these intentions (i.e., planning decisions) into strategies (Lang, 2005), defining urban form, and designing spatial experiences (i.e., designing the levels of user’s engagement in place, followed by selecting the site, and their actors). As is clear, to understand the urban design knowledge–action dialectic, it is not enough simply to investigate guidelines or planning documents. Nor is it enough to grasp actors’ knowledge without understanding their position, financial support, and professional rank, all of which affect the actors’ pattern of engagement. The limitations in learning about the knowledge–action dialectic in the process are obvious, yet the methodology was designed for learning about reality or places in everyday practice.

186 Table 6.1. Planning and design stages and influences on producing publicness in the two cases; author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings.

Case/design Design stages Actors’ roles and tools Publicness as process design outcome Stockholm Intention: integrating industrial site Local authority power: balancing Enhanced study into the city the production of public and accessibility private goods Densification strategies: mixed-use Social density development, expansion of public Public–private partnership with transport architects/developers in Multiple types of designing, financing, and building Site selection/publicness of place: public spaces different types of everyday needs existing transport stations, public- Planned service building Increasing efficiency in everyday togetherness with life Objectives: measurable, including territorialized public public space and public functions experiences Structural plan Incremental detailed plan: negotiations between city officials and designers/developers Public space Malmö study Intention: ‘City of Tomorrow’ to battle Political goal; state finance and New accessibility economic crisis support First phase: Branding strategies: multiple and Local authority power: initiating public space became multi-scale strategies the project, facilitating the actors object of public Site selection/publicness of place: Collective practices and individual interest, unplanned accessible for industrial workers power: make ‘best practice’ publics, and happen, leading the public– unexpected absence Designing the actors private partnership of residents Urban quality as objective Raising design quality Second phase: same Master plan: guidelines, selecting public space, National media: narratives of trust developers, meetings/teaching designed and or mistrust in the development developers managed for Observing citizen needs for public First phase: expo and WHW swimming, planned life: within and beyond the scope temporary activities of the project

Planning activities for public participation

6.2 Transformation of publicness

On a wider note, in analysing two urban design attempts in terms of socio–spatial transformation, the cases cast light on critical engagements having transformative effects on publicness. The two project-based urban design cases confirmed the designers’ role in consciously or unconsciously dealing with political–economic mechanisms, limited to the project periods and the territories of the designers’ responsibilities. Similarities and differences in the patterns of appropriations

187 reveal the importance of publicness as a consequence of the engagement of various actors, here limited to the following group of urban experts, as illustrated in Figure 6.2:

- planners – identifying and allocating public interest/regulating and controlling publicness - architects – designing physical form/manipulating the sense of publicness, and - users – interacting with the built environment and others/experiencing publicness

The transformation of space would argue for the effect of practices in terms of enabling or restricting appropriations. The argument for understanding appropriation as a consequence of the production process, as outlined in Figure 6.2, shows the relationship with controlling, manipulating, and experiencing publicness. By this logic, there is no clear dividing line in producing publicness between the legal, physical, and experiential territories. Appropriations are instead understood in terms of how and why these domains overlap, affect, and (re)produce each other.

This approach treats space as relational, which means that producing publicness does not have a linear relationship with experts’ knowledge and approaches conceived in a positivist mode. The approach to understanding space through appropriation entails going beyond the narrative that creating space would automatically lead to publicness as its outcome. Both space and its publicness are social constructs (Dovey, 2010, p. 6). The material space (simplified as public space) is part of the relations by which publicness is transformed.

Figure 6.2. Producing publicness (source: the author). Lessons from appropriations of the two public spaces reveal that understanding publicness and the potentials of physical space cannot be limited to the territory of expert’s responsibilities or user’s interactions. Different types of publicness

188 emerging from everyday practices are not necessarily spatially, functionally, or temporally compatible but are related to each group of actors (see Table 6.1). By de-layering engagement, this study revealed that public space is neither the realized objective of planning and design, nor the territory of intersubjective meanings attributed relatively to the space by everyday use. Public space is neither the pure intention of its stakeholders nor the outcome of their practice.

Publicness is about the plurality of users and, accordingly, about the multiplicity of their desires and preferences practiced in space (i.e., appropriations). Diverse spatial practices, from togetherness to encounters and expressions, are mediated in public space, which means that other stakeholders are directly or indirectly involved in such practices. Appropriations can sustain or contest publicness, as users feel belonging to or exclusion from their space. Publicness is therefore not entirely about spatial ownership or accessibility; it is also a realm of interactions and practices by the public (Lofland, 1998). Public space is then a mediator bringing these actors together, giving them opportunities for attention, recognition, visibility, and care (Young, 1990). The lesson of different types of appropriation is that one should avoid a single privileged group or meta-narrative for places. Therefore, visibility in practice requires making alternatives, which entails considering mechanisms that support different types of appropriation, beyond fixed outcomes, and not producing different types of space, architecture, functions, users, materials, or senses. The questions to ask are: Who has access to what? and Who is engaged in producing publicness through participating in space?

Appropriation entails enabling visibility or recognizing differences and their interactions in public space. When multiple publics become engaged in collective activities, based on needs or desires, this creates shared values: ‘seeing people different from oneself responding to the same setting in similar ways creates a temporary bond’ (Carr et al., 1992, p. 344, cited by Amin, 2008). Public space has the potential to strengthen or threaten collective togetherness, encounters, and expressions. Multiple publics and their various desires can become engaged in space by getting a sense of the place in question. The public and the space both benefit from this relationship, if a high degree of desired experience, or ‘intensity’ of the senses (Dovey, 2010, pp. 25–26), is considered. The impression that publics get of a place affects the place’s potentials for togetherness, encounters, and expressions (as different levels of appropriations). The important distinction here is that the diverse functions and alternatives can differ from people’s desires to enact the potentials of the built environment. Moreover, people’s powerful desire for participation in space can be reduced and overcoded by practitioners (Dovey, 2010, p. 26), resulting in a pre-packaged meaning rather than enriching differences and multiplicities.

The publicness of urban spaces is contingent, being dependent on designed, built, used, and managed spaces and their actors. For example, publicness is related to the provided accessibility and functions, to their efficacy and how they are

189 perceived, and, accordingly, to how they are adapted or transformed depending on user’s engagements. So the physical space, which itself is created within pragmatic rationality, mediates users with their multiple ideas and engagements, who might address the space differently due to their different desires, and thus publicness evolves by means of their appropriation. Appropriations are therefore milestones that everyone can practice by right of being in space and perceiving opportunities for publicness to evolve and become something else, even given the remotest primary intentions and concerns of each group of actors. As the dashed arrows show in Figure 6.2, the transformation of public space is ongoing and its evolution happens due to varied and somehow unexpected sequences.

Theoretically, in-between spaces or the territories of everyday practice are associated with established territories (Kärrholm, 2007). These spaces have the capacity to support contingent publicness, i.e., unexpected, informal, and emergent interactions and provisional togetherness (Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001; Simões Aelbrecht, 2016). Such spaces can therefore be one thing and then become something else (see the examples of practices in relation to urban walls discussed in section 2.3, p. 75). This is not to assert the ambiguity of places or their ownership, which is interpreted differently depending on the varied needs and desires of those who are in public, but rather to emphasize the possibilities of evolving meanings. Tonkiss (2013) reflected on ‘looseness’ as challenging the extreme regulation of space and over-planned cities (p. 108). People perceive the levels of publicness in these loose spaces based on their ‘urban skill to read situations that are uncertain or volatile’ (Tonkiss, 2013, pp. 108–109). Accordingly, these spaces can be taken as opportunities for expression by some, or can be left abandoned by many. They are nevertheless potential spaces with which people can engage regardless of ownership, rules, or norms of togetherness, encounters, and expression. Private owners of public spaces usually act upon on these conditions and manipulate people’s presence to promote exchange values, through what are not directly perceived as market-led influences. Regardless of private status, they become places of passive togetherness: such human-friendly environments, defined by natural and attractive elements, free public services, and temporary activities, are somehow successful in achieving social density and togetherness.

Finally, unintended consequences show that the publicness of space is progressive, and that to admit the transformation of publicness, urban design must have a more open-ended approach to its outcome. This might be assumed to be a relief for project-based actors whose engagements end in contracts extending up to implementation. However, an open-ended approach does not necessarily mean staying with the project and its consequences; rather, it entails thinking about and designing consequences in the process. Public space should be conceived in terms of the impact it allows appropriations to have. This approach offers a consequence-based framework, an integrative approach to urban design by which macro-strategies/tactics meet micro-tactics/strategies, and accordingly micro-practices can be enabled and macro-practices can be affected.

190 Overall, the present findings emphasize that good intentions are important for prioritizing public needs and maximizing citizens’ right to space. These values should be revisited to ensure that they are not the subject of trade-offs and those hidden intentions narrowing and controlling participation. Considering the dynamics of design processes and the complexity of publicness, urban design needs to act powerfully under the pressure of branding and densification strategies for producing publicness. Urban design should be part of a larger decision-making process, designing strategies and identifying visions, and should be able to reflect on such strategies in light of reality and of their consequences for micro-participations in space.

Publicness requires the revisiting of its production as a network of enabling appropriations. The space of appropriation is about the flow of desire traced in physical space, and evolves through series of events of different intensities and qualities. The spatiality of appropriations does not have defined (i.e., built vs. unbuilt) territories. For example, the architecture of public buildings is developed in terms of both size and the level of publicness, while, in contrast, public spaces confront exclusions and privatizations, and appropriations happen within both these territories. Within disciplinary thinking, it is difficult to define how to enable appropriation, as its territories, types, and temporalities are in constant flux. Accordingly, the meanings of publicness are not defined by produced open/closed and public/private spaces, even though they can be affected by them.

So, producing publicness requires a holistic and strategic understanding, not defined by or limited to the geography of responsibilities. As the findings of this study show, publicness should be considered in terms of various sequences of practice in which individual roles are less important than their engagement in evolving these sequences. Public spaces that provide accessibility and right of participation are very valuable for our cities, and should not be taken for granted. The primary concern of producing publicness should be improving opportunities for active togetherness, encounters, and expressions of desire, and generally more public places in the city.

6.3 Mind the gap – contribution of the study for urban planning and design

Enabling appropriations

Given contemporary social and communication changes, urban design should explore and interrupt the impersonal spaces and passive ways of togetherness in public spaces, which are partly the consequences of consumer society and culture (observed in both case studies). In such contexts, people are probably less dependent on the social values of togetherness, encounters, and expressions, so the mode of participation in space is more passive. The values involved in recognizing differences and enabling various types of appropriations of space acknowledge public space as civic infrastructure. Building on Hirschman’s (1970)

191 theory, urban design engagement can start by hearing dissatisfied ‘voices’, observing ‘exits’, interrupting those who ‘neglect’ the space and others, and engaging them in space and/or giving more opportunities to the ‘loyal’ ones.

This shift is critical though constructive for conventional urban design. Urban design authorities and experts could be discussed and criticized with reference to the ‘political–spatial economy’, in which economic (as well as avowed social and ecological) concerns allow unjust spatial development (Cuthbert, 2007). Perhaps that is the inherent challenge of ‘project-based’ urban practices (a criticism directed mostly towards urban planning) in which space is the real object or product. Publicness and its spatial production become mostly limited to governmental neoliberalism, which has limited transformative potential (Olesen, 2014), with liveability and attractiveness being the outcomes. Liveable city environments are produced through the competitive economy, by which citizens’ practices are translated into exchange values, and publics are translated into users of space, both physically and mentally. Therefore, producing publicness requires more sensitive authorship of urban design in order to spatialize publics’ and citizens’ rights.

For example, urban design should not take high accessibility and social density of public spaces for granted, but should design for spatial experiences. It should emphasize engagement in the urban design process at different scales, not being situated passively between planning and architecture, but rather interacting with them. Borden (2014) emphasized that a dynamic public realm requires differences, social and spatial, and accordingly that urban design entails risk- taking. This is even though Borden (2014) does not (intentionally) recommend any particular knowledge for this matter, but rather emphasizes that urban design ultimately contains utopian instincts that criticize the status quo (p. 24). This risk, which urban design is advised to take, can start with the exploration of different types of appropriations as different realities, situated in resistances or dissatisfactions. Instead of fixing the problem by achieving ‘good outcomes’, urban design should accept that ‘the absence of something wrong is what’s totally wrong’ (Goldberger, 2009, cited by Krieger and Saunders, 2009, p. 324) and explore such ‘wrong’ or ‘unintended’ outcomes as new opportunities for practice. This brings new opportunities for urban design to be a transformative practice and enables appropriations to create more public places in our cities.

On engagements

Transformative practice applies its knowledge socially by constructing knowledge in action. This does not call into question the knowledge of the built form possessed by urban design, whose creativity lies in creating alternatives during the design process, in order to enrich socio–spatial experiences. This observation is related to the ‘power’ of urban practitioners, as ‘the ability … to define and control circumstances and events so that one can influence things to go in the direction of one’s interests’ (Rorty, 1992, cited by Dovey, 1999, p. 9).

192 One good example of transformative practice is found in Central Hong Kong, where migrants from South-east Asia occupy the space underneath the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank designed by Norman Foster. These users of public space are mostly women from the Philippines living and working as domestics for Hong Kong families in some of the most exclusive and central areas of the city. They gather sitting on straw mats in public spaces, getting haircuts and manicures, playing cards, and selling goods from home. Behind such active appropriation of space are this minority’s long-term needs for a space in which to meet, interact, help one another, and, more importantly, to feel at home. The space that these workers occupy was not intended for this public and its appropriations; rather, this semi-open, accessible space was spontaneously addressed by this public.

Many Hong Kong citizens consider this engagement an ‘invasion’ for hygienic and aesthetic reasons, and because it affects the image of Hong Kong and inconveniences both locals and tourists. However, the government has enabled this appropriation (after unsuccessful efforts at relocation), and urban practitioners have tactically facilitated these people’s needs and security. These practices have sustained appropriations and accordingly attracted other cultural groups and other types of organizations to reach out to help the workers understand and protect their rights (Hou, 2010a, p. 7; Moss, 2017). Urban practice can therefore take action going beyond intentions and defined roles and tools. By observing and managing these active voices, the practitioners helped avoid ‘othering’ and ‘destructive’ responses. Such urban practitioners act for justice in cities, and not for ‘fancy’ physical outcomes; perhaps they are engaged more as ‘fellows’ than ‘authors’ (Childs, 2010) in cities rather than projects. Considering this transformative practice in terms of its strong social impacts, both experts and an unexpected public exercised their power in unconventional ways, becoming actors of change. The publicness of space was transformed by workers’ intentions, yet legalized and enabled by urban practitioners. Public space was addressed by a public who experienced a different identity and sense of belonging to society.

This study finds critique of the intention–outcome gap relevant to the rationale of urban design in claiming to possess knowledge of the future of place and of how to solve its problems. The urban design process requires ‘pragmatic rationality’ by which the production process becomes relatively deliberative and interactive. Verma (1996) argued that in dealing with ‘wicked problems in planning and design processes’, thinking of consequences and actions is not enough, as the process itself has consequences that raise concerns and must be designed. Therefore, the urban design process was itself considered a new way of thinking about practice that entails considering power relationships and the uncertain possibilities among the actors. The kind of knowledge possessed by urban design positions it in tension between science and design (Verma, 2011).

Public spaces can sustain, empower, or provoke their users to experience a sense of citizenship, and accordingly appreciate or resist the spatio–temporal environment. Collective or individual appropriations transform the predefined

193 meaning of space and can affect policies, even at larger scales. Such a dialectical approach challenges matters and levels of consistency in planning decisions and actions. In project-led urban design, the experts have the power to interpret the public interest (by means of policies and their aims), with consistency over time as to the outcome. Such consistency can be seen as adaptation to changing conditions, yet within defined and assumed outcomes. The lessons derived from the unintended consequences go beyond adaptation to the process and its consistency. They instead emphasize alternative actions that might not determine what actions should be taken, but rather as Widavsky (1973, p. 145) emphasized, ‘suggest that something better must exist without being able to say what it is’. These alternatives exist in reality, if we accept that they are to be realized and if we decide to consider them as the driving force of what should be done next. This is a paradigm shift from which contexts with high planning monopoly can learn, enabling such informalities.

This is a shift in the theory of urban design, which instead of relying on concepts, practices them in the design process. The theory of urban design is as it is practiced and its process needs the theory–practice dialectic (Inam, 2011), a version of the chicken and egg dilemma that allows us to be less dependent on ‘good intentions’ (Forester, 2012a, p. 6), instead navigating the ambiguities in the design process. This approach allows reflection on theory as practice, and on required collaborations that were unclear from the beginning (see more in Wildavsky, 1973; Verma, 2011; Bridge, 2014; Inam, 2014). It should not be forgotten that the position an expert takes regarding the process has an effect, and that an actor can also experiment with her thinking by altering her position.25 De- layering engagements in the process reveals mismatching observations as well as geographies of responsibilities, interests, and actions. The production process requires engagement that is creative and communicative in its thinking, reflective on its actions, and politically savvy in its decisions about true publicness.

25 Read more in ‘The political person is a social construct’, in Harvey (2000, pp. 233–256).

194 Looking ahead

It is of the essence of life that it does not begin here or end there, or connect a point of origin with a final destination, but rather that it keeps on going, finding a way through the myriad of things that form, persist and break up in its currents. Life, in short, is a movement of opening, not of closure. – Tim Ingold (2011), Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description

By exploring the intention–outcome gap and viewing urban design beyond this dichotomy, this study contributes to the growing literature on assessing public spaces. This approach offers critical insight into the connections between narratives of production and conceptualizations of the publicness of space.

The key concepts presented here were generative, meaning that my intention to capture the main goals and directions of the studied projects expanded to encompass users’ desires as well. People’s subjective perceptions of objective publicness became a critical lens through which to view experts’ subjective interpretations of objective norms. Manifested outcomes such as material space comprise both physical space and people’s interactions with it, with each being considered an engine and catalyst of the other. Therefore, the assessment of success or failure of urban design cannot be static. Just as experts can take critical stances and challenge mainstream norms and practices, users can also resist given settings and the pressure to practice degraded or constrained desires.

The underlying motivation of this study stressed the lack of an integrative approach in urban design. Drawing on this approach, and by undertaking nuanced analysis of two urban design processes and of the roles and effects of their actors, this study demonstrated the importance of critical inquiry into public spaces as meeting places in cities, where people participate in the production of publicness. While this study examined two cities (in a Western context) addressing different social and economic challenges, but both confronting the challenges of spatial transformation, visionary projects, and, on top of that, designing meeting places, its findings may be relevant to other contexts as well. Focusing on unintended consequences revealed a conceptualization of publicness and its production as an everyday act connecting the social, spatial, and political wills of being in public. The socio-spatial and temporal relationships of appropriations, which transform publicness, can be the subject of further research, outside a Western context. In addition, methods for mapping of relations between forces, which empowers appropriations and provide visibility to them could be studies and elaborated further.

The value of public space for cities and sustainable societies is increasingly acknowledged by governments, policy makers, urban activists, and scholars. Given

195 the current pace of urbanization and development, exploring these values and realizing them in urban design process are critical matters. Cities are competing to position themselves better globally, and public urban spaces are one of their tools for manifesting their approaches to the challenges, opportunities, and assets of their societies. Acknowledging that producing publicness is about participation in space and is an ongoing process permits discussion of new roles and influences of urban design. The present research aimed to cast light on the need for a paradigm shift in practice-thinking in urban design. In future research, it would be important to identify more transformative practices, roles, and influences, and to cast light on various alternatives and urban design creativities by which space is rendered public.

While investigating unintended consequences, I strove to retain my understanding that such theoretical and practical lacunae raised the risk of simplistic assessments of the practice of public space in terms of objective outcomes. Both visionary promises (i.e., intentions) and various standards and guidelines guarantee the creation of good public space. Both promising too much as well as oversimplifying desires and rights in places during the design process result from a lack of urban design alternatives and, perhaps, from degraded potential to transform public spaces. Producing publicness is an effort to show that our cities’ public spaces require an ongoing conversation between urban actors, in order to support meaningful togetherness, encounters, and expressions for all members of the public.

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210 List of Figures

Photographs that are not given a source in the captions are taken by the author.

Figure 1.1 Simplified diagram of the Swedish planning hierarchy according to the Planning and Building Act (source: the author).

Figure 1.2. Infill development zones in Stockholm, with the Liljeholmen area marked in red (source: Stockholm Stadsbyggnadskontoret).

Figure 1.3. Left: the site before development in 1996 (source: https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se, last update May 2017); right: the old subway platform, (source: http://www.kynerd.net/Tunnelbanan/Liljeholmen.html, accessed, 2018)

Figure 1.4. The situation of Liljeholmstorget in Liljeholmen district (source: Stockholm Stadsbyggnadskontoret; annotations by the author).

Figure 1.5. Right: Malmö in the Öresund region; left: the Western Harbour industrial area, showing the university, Malmö Högskolan, and Bo01, the case study area (source: Google maps, illustration by the author).

Figure 1.7. Bo01, Western Harbour Waterfront, Malmö (source: Arkitektur, 2011, p.23)

Figure 2.2. Examples of appropriations and producing publicness (source: bottom, http://www.adamflath.com/photoblog/subway-therapy, accessed, 2018).

Figure 2.3. Analytical framework: a dialectical approach (source: the author).

Figure 3.3. Triangulation of methods in studying the three key actors’ intentions and outcomes (source: the author).

211 Figure 4.1. Top-left panel: the primary structural plan, transforming Södertäljevägen into a city street; top-right panel: the first development phase; bottom-right panel: cross-section through the new bus terminal, showing the subway and the buildings on top (source: Stadsbyggnadskontoret, Planbeskrivning; arrows added by the author to indicate the orientation).

Figure 4.2 Liljeholmstorget detailed plans, collected and drawn by the author (source: Stockholms Stadsbyggnadskontoret, Planbeskrivning; source of the satellite map: ttps://zoom.earth).

Figure 4.3. The realm of practice for landscape designers (source: Arkitektur, 2010), bottom right: sketched by the designer during our interview.

Figure 4.4. The complex block showing different access relationships (source: Equator Architects).

Figure 4.5. Liljeholmstorget awarded the 2010 planning prize (source: left, https://www.arkitekt.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Priser-Planpriset-2010- Utvecklingen-av-Liljeholmstorget-i-Stockholm.jpg, right: https://hallbarstad.se/sveriges-arkitekter/liljeholmstorget/).

Figure 4. 6. Liljeholmstorget: view from the light rail station towards the south, with the civic centre in the background (2015).

Figure 4.7. Spatial analysis of produced public spaces and the physical connections between them (source: the author).

Figure 4.8. Liljeholmstorget, accessibility of and connectivity to the surrounding neighbourhoods and amenities (Source: bottom left: http://www.battrestadsdel.se/hagersten-liljeholmen/liljeholmen/overgangen- marievik-har-antligen-fatt-klartecken/)

Figure 4.9. Liljeholmstorget as a shared space.

Figure 4.10. The courtyards of the mixed residential blocks. The upper images are of the block sited above the bus terminal, while the block with yellow balconies is sited above the shopping galleria (source of the bottom image: Equator Arkitekter).

Figure 4.11. The gated courtyards in Liljeholmstorget: some of the gates are locked, while others have only signs.

Figure 4.13. Liljeholmstorget as a transient space; the catchment area on the northern side of the site.

212 Figure 4.14. Liljeholmstorget as a passageway: the catchment area is the subway entrance building (bottom image), connected to the bus terminal and the shopping galleria at the platform level (middle images); a passage between the park and the square (top image).

Figure 4.15. Liljeholmstorget as a square for various territorial associations.

Figure 4.16. Liljeholmstorget: meaning of the place from outside the place.

Figure 4.17. Private territories shaping the galleria’s corridors: centre of middle row, entrance to the civic centre; right of middle row, one of the main entrances of the galleria.

Figure 4.18. New type of public place modified based on users’ needs observed by mall managers.

Figure 4.19. Various public practices and spontaneous encounters in and around Trekanten Park.

Figure 5.3. Bo01 Housing Expo upon opening in 2001 (source: Malmö Stadsbyggnadskontoret).

Figure 5.5. Top, the completed second phase of Bo01, built after the exhibition; bottom, examples of visual experiences between the blocks of Bo01 (source of top image: Joakim Lloyd Raboff).

Figure 5.6. Left: three sets of gathering places designed in the park; right, Scaniaplatsen.

213 Figure 5.7. Bo01 urban edges: top, along the waterfront; bottom, between the blocks.

Figure 5.8. The Western Harbour Waterfront on a summer day.

Figure 5.9. Newspaper extracts presenting global and local visions (Jansson, 2005, p. 1680).

Figure 5.10. Spatial analysis of Bo01’s public spaces and the physical connections between them (source: the author).

Figure 5.11. (2 pages) Examples of how the material space offers affordances for temporary spatial practices, possibly depending on the time of day, etc., which affect publicness by togetherness, expressions of freedom, construction of privacy, practices of curiosity, or collective (planned) actions (bottom sources: left, www.vhamnen.com; right, Fred Kent).

Figure 5.12. Citizens celebrating the park and swimming as an unexpected site outcome (source: Thorbjörn Andersson).

Figure 5.14. Public–private exposures along the urban edges of Bo01.

Figure 5.15. Bo01 neighbourhood area: accessibility, use, and experiences.

Figure 5.16. Examples of appropriating public space shows physical adaptations and alternative uses and meanings (left; source: Arkitektur, 2011, p. 44).

Figure 5.17. User’s different spatial practices appropriated the outlook (Source: Thorbjörn Andersson).

Figure 6.1. Publicness in becoming: top, Liljeholmstorget, Stockholm, bottom, Western Harbour waterfront (WHW), Malmö (source: top left, https://hallbarstad.se/sveriges-arkitekter/liljeholmstorget/; bottom left, Arkitektur, 2011, p. 47).

Figure 6.2.‎ Producing publicness (source: the author).

214 List of Tables

Table 2.1. De-layering the characteristics of places with shared meanings (selected from theory; source: the author).

Table 2.2. De-layering the characteristics of places of encounters (selected from theory; source: the author).

Table 3.1. Hierarchy of data sources for each case study: PS = prioritized source; NPS = non-prioritized source.

Table 3.2. Information on the interviews.

Table 3.3. Selected times and conditions for the observations.

Table 4.1. Intentions and strategies for transforming Liljeholmstorget, affecting the type and level of publicness of the project (the author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings).

Table 4.2. Publicness of Liljeholmstorget in relation to different actors’ intentions/responsibilities (author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings).

Table 5.2. Publicness of the Western Harbour Waterfront development in relation to actors’ intentions and responsibilities; the author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings.

Table 6.1. Planning and design stages and influences on producing publicness in the two cases; author’s summary and analysis based on empirical findings.

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