Defensive Landscape Design

LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014

DEFENSIVE LANDSCAPE DESIGN

- How an element of the built environment can function as mechanism for exclusion

by Natalie Coquand

1 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 Abstract

This paper aims to uncover how political ideals can be communicated through built form and how this can be understood and read in terms of landscapes. This research has been done by using the sloping benches in the underground stations of the light rail system the City Tunnel in Malmö as an example. It is no secret that the benches are sloping to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them, but what are the consequences of this for our society? This is often a byproduct of a society where the city is being marketed in order to attract money and tourism to compete at a global scale. A branded city demands a well designed city centre, and homeless people are, as a consequence of this, being excluded from the public space by various kind of defensive landscape designs, such as the sloping benches. In this paper, I use these benches as an example to describe how seemingly simple elements of the built environment can function as mechanism for exclusion. I also focus on displaying how the benches can become a mediator of social practices of power and thereby help producing a culture that aims to exclude homeless people from public spaces. The paper begins with an introduction to the benches and how they got a lot of attention in media when they were ﬁrst produced. I then explain, by using Emberto Eco’s article, how the bench can function as a mediator of social practices of power. To supplement this, I then use Don Mitchell’s work in order to attempt to expose the benches in a larger context and show how the benches can contribute to producing a culture where homeless people are excluded from the public space and how this is a consequence of our society. Using Eco, I show that the more an object functions according to our cultural code, the more one can hide political messages without anyone noticing. Therefore, it can be very hard to read landscape and to understand what ideals are really behind a design. Mitchell shows that even though the political ideals are embedded in our everyday life, it is not impossible to read the landscape. He also shows how complex it is to read and understand it. My conclusion is that one needs to understand and take into consideration both Mitchell and Eco’s aspects if one want to fully understand how we relate to our environment. In other words, one has to take into consideration the historical, cultural and social context to be able to see the hidden messages that the objects that make up our built environment contain.

2 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014

1. Introduction

Throughout history our built environment has been used to portray images of power, status and political will. The relation between humans and the built environment is complicated and multidimensional. Elements in the built environment, are thus designed and created by humans which then, in turn, project powerful symbolic ideals over us both physically and psychologically.

In 2010 the City Tunnel, a light rail transit system, was introduced in Malmö. The benches used in the stations have a peculiar design aspect in them: they slope so that homeless people aren’t able to sleep on them (Bornudd, 2008). This paper aims to uncover how political ideas can be communicated through built forms by using the sloping benches in the train stations of Malmö as an example.

Catarina Thörn argues that the kind design that actively exclude homeless people from the public space, such as the benches in the City Tunnel is a consequence of a kind of trademark-thinking. Cities actively work with branding as a way to attract tourists and capital ﬂow. According to Thörn, cities are being seen as products to be sold on the global market and in order to compete cities need to be seen and to stick out. The focus is thus naturally turned towards the city centre: how can the centre be developed in to the ’creative, vibrant and exciting environment that all politicians and merchants dream about’? Thörn argues that the city centre is then being reduced to a stage to be glamourized and that the citizens are playing the roles of living creative consumers. In our modern western society, cities are being treated like companies and the urban development is based on a branding philosophy where political decisions concerning the city are weighed solely on the basis of whether a development project is positive for the city’s trademark or not (Thörn, 2008).

This development can be even be seen on a more detailed scale: a branded city demands a designed centre. The public space is often being referred to as a ’living room’ - a comparison that implies that the room should be directed by well-being. It goes without saying that most people would agree upon the fact that you wouldn’t want a homeless person sleeping in your living room. Thörn argues that in this kind of a society, homeless people are considered a threat to the trademark, thus marketability of a city. In North America it has been a trend for quite sometime that homeless people are actively being pushed away from the city centre by different forms of what Mitchell refers to as defensive landscape designs. Building a bench that you can’t sleep on is only one example of this new trend, and it’s growing popularity is getting more and more creative in it’s exclusionary measures (Mitchell, 2008 p. 45). The obvious downfall to this type of thinking is that social problems remain, but it is generally comfortably enough for the middle-class consumer as long as the problem is moved out of sight (Thörn, 2008). The sloping benches of the City Tunnel in Malmö is a proof that this trend kinds of defensive landscape design has in fact began its spread and reached Sweden.

As landscape architects we generally work in a small scales and within details of the built environment, for example benches and other features of a landscape. Regardless of their size and seaming insigniﬁcance one must wonder if these elements can also be implemented with political ideas? Are we corroborating politic ideals in our design? How can this be understood?

The purpose of this paper is to examine how political ideas can be communicated through built form, using the benches in the City Tunnel as an example, The following questions have guided my research are:

- How can one, seemingly innocent, element of the built environment function as a mechanism for 3 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 exclusion? - How it is possible for an object of the built environment to communicate ideological ideals and thereby become a mediator of social practices of power? - What kind of society are the benches a consequence of and what do they imply? - How can one read and understand the political messages embedded in objects of the built environment?

2. The Story of the Benches

On the 12 of december 2010 the new City Tunnel opened in Malmö. The six kilometer long train tunnel under the city is one of Sweden's largest infrastructural investments and connects Malmö and Copenhagen via the Öresund bridge. The tunnel has two underground stations: Malmö central and the Triangel station. The stations have a similar design. Among other things, they are provided with the same benches. These benches have a peculiarity: they slope (see ﬁg 1). The reason for this is to not attract homeless people or others that would want to use the benches for lying on (Bornudd, 2008).

Fig 1. The benches. Picture: Fredrik Edin (29-11-13 source: http://arbetaren.se/artiklar/den- luffarsakra-banken/)

The slope of the benches did not go unnoticed and before too long citizens started voicing their concerns regarding the function, or lack thereof, of the benches. Newspapers like Metro and Sydsvenskan received a steady stream of comments and concerns regarding the benches as the issue was discussed quite intensely in the media. One citizen even reported the benches to the swedish equality ombudsman claiming that disabled people, children and older people could not use the benches at all (Anjou, 2011).

Even the owner of the station, the city of Malmö, has a policy document pertaining to furniture public spaces which states that all furniture should be accessible for everyone, including the disabled and children. In addition to this, a disability association complained to the city of Malmö resulting in a slight adjustment of the degree of slope. The project leader from the Swedish Transport Organization (Traﬁkverket) and the one responsible for the benches, Wolfgand Liepack, explained in an interview that they decided to make the benches slope less so that disabled people

4 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 would be able to use them. In this same interview he admitted that the intentions of the sloping benches were initially to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them, a point that was slightly weakened by him saying that ’because of cameras and guards they would not be able to anyways’. (Bornudd, 2008). This begs the question that even though Liepack knew that cameras and guards would be in place to prevent undesirables from sleeping on the benches, why did he slope them?

3. The Benches as a Mediator of Social Practices of Power

To begin the investigation into a deeper understanding of how an seemingly innocent object can spread ideological ideas and thereby become a mediator of social practices one must first understand how an object can become a sign. To establish this, Umberto Eco’s article ’Function and Sign: Semiotics of Architecture’ provides an insightful starting point. Semiology is the science of recognized systems of signs. Eco is a semiotician, however, in this article he adopts a middle ground between semiotics and rhetorics where strives to avoid understanding language as having an infinite meaning. He displays how and why we create representations and invest meaning in the elements of the built environment. He also exemplifies how landscape can be read through signs, being collective products of historical, social and cultural interactions allowing architecture be a means of communication (Eco, 1997 p.172).

Eco argues that architecture (the term architecture is used in a broader sense, indicating phenomena of urban design as well as phenomena of architecture proper) is a challenge to semiotics because architectural objects are not meant to communicate but rather to function. A roof serves to cover - a glass to hold liquids and a bench provides an opportunity to sit down. Eco poses the question: is it possible to interpret functions as being directly connected to a means of communication? From a phenomenological point of view, he argues, our relationship with architectural objects tells us that we commonly do experience architecture as communication on a daily basis, even whilst we recognize its function (Eco, 1997 p. 173).

The fact that architecture can communicate is essential to help us realize what makes us attach meaning to an ordinary element and hereby embed it in our everyday life. It thus becomes a cultural code. To show this Eco uses the example of a stone-age man who hides in a cave to take shelter from a storm. Once the storm is over, he leaves the cave and reconsiders it from the outside where he notes the entryway as ’hole that permits passage to the inside’. Here an ’idea of the cave’ takes shape, which is useful so that he can think of the cave later on as a possible object in case of rain. The next time it rains he hides in another cave. Thus, he learns to recognize the concept of the phenomena ‘cave’ and it’s accompanying assumptions. The concept makes it possible for the cave man to recognize a cave from a distance since he has now learned that a cave can assume various appearances. He would now probably be able to communicate the model of the cave to other men by means of graphic signs and symbols. The architectural code would generate iconic code, and the ’cave principle’ would become an object of communicative intercourse. Eco quotes Roland Barthes to show what exactly it is that has happened: ’as soon as there is a society, every usage is converted into a sign of itself’. The cave will then later become a home, representing family and comfort. Consequentially, the cave has gone from a element in nature with no invested meaning to become a symbol for family, living, love, comfort, security etc. The cave signiﬁes something other then it’s primary function even when it’s not being used as such. In other words, architecture can, even if intended to be primarily functional, also works of a form of mass communication (Eco, 1997 p. 175).

The caveman example also shows how an object can get a codiﬁed meaning. These codes are, in semiotics, characterized by the basis of codiﬁed meanings that in a given cultural context is

5 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 attributed to the object. The ﬁrst meaning of a bench is determined by its function, by what one can or must do with it. The architectural object denotes a ’form of sitting’. The object of use denotes the function conventionally, according to codes. Form follows function: the object must, besides making function possible, also be able to denote that function clearly enough to make it practicable as well as desirable. A form cannot be functional without the support of existing processes of codiﬁcation. Otherwise, the architectural object would become a work of art: an ambiguous form, capable of being interpreted in the light of various different codes. Eco calls this architectural denotation, and distinguishes this as the primary function, being architecture as a functional object (Eco, 1997 p. 177 ). Relating Eco’s architectural denotation theory to the bench at hand, however, creates quite a contradiction because although the object very much resembles a bench and our every-day experiences make us presume it is a bench, it is very much unsittable due to it’s design thus complicating our perceptions.

By returning to the cave in Eco’s example of the caveman, we can observe how it came to denote a shelter function in it’s very nature. However it’s functions don’t stop at shelter but when examined connotively they also began to take on other meanings such as family, group, security, etc (Eco, 1997 p. 174). Eco therefore distinguishes a secondary function. If the primary function is architecture as a functional object, than the secondary function is architecture as symbolic object. A seat tells one that they can sit down, but it could also be regarded as a place to rest, a place to have a coffee with friends, a place to wait for others, etc. Different forms of seats can carry different functions. If it is a throne it must do more than seat one: it serves to seat one with a certain dignity and reﬂect the power entailed in the seats sitter. The connotation of dignity can become so functionally important that the basic function, to seat one, may even be slanted, and the throne becomes pretty uncomfortable to sit on. From Eco’s point of view, the most important function of the trone is the ‘symbolic’ one, thanks to the complex of conventions it connotes. (Eco, 1997 p. 178). Returning again to the example of the benches in the City Tunnel: the primary function, to seat people, was being overlooked. Their original primary function of a bench was overshadowed by another additional primary function of not allowing people to lay down on them. The designer was thus so ﬁxated on the idea that homeless people may not sleep on the bench that he jeopardized what should have been it’s primary function, sitting, thus rendering the bench near useless as well as all the accompanying denotive functions.

There is however a great difference between the throne and the sloping benches that one must consider: the sloping bench is not embedded in our everyday life and cultural code and their primary function is ruined because of the slope. A throne we take for granted that it has to be decorated and that only people with dignity can use it, because we have learned this through cultural code (Eco, 1997 p. 179) The representation of a throne as being a symbolic item of power is embedded in our culture. The sloping bench, on the other hand, is a new phenomena that we don’t necessarily connote with the fact that homeless people are not allowed to sleep on it. When people were upset over the sloping benches it was not because of their connotive function but of their lack of function in itself. People got upset about the fact that the benches did not fulﬁll their primarily function: they where too uncomfortable to sit on. No one seemed to be upset about the fact that the benches purpose was to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. In fact, the project leader even assured the newspapers that homeless people wouldn't be able to sleep on the benches anyway because of cameras and security (Bornudd, 2008). A troubling truth is that most people take simple objects in the built environment for granted: a bench is for sitting on. This relegation of built form to the unquestioned frame is the key to its relations to power. The representations, or the cultural codes, are so embedded in the framework of everyday life that we don’t see the need to question it. The more that the structures and representations of power can be embedded in the framework of everyday life, the less questionable they become and the more effectively they can work as mediating power (Dovey, 1999 p. 2).

6 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 To highlight this another example of a bench located at Malmö central station can be compared to the sloping benches. The main difference can be noted byt the fact that instead of a sloping lower section, they have ‘arm rests’ in the middle that makes it impossible to lie on them (see fig 2). The purpose with them is the same as the sloping benches: to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. They are comfortable to sit on and thereby their denotive function is still being fulfilled. However a search on the internet reveals that, unlike the benches at the City Tunnel, these benches have not gotten any attention from the media1. This further exemplifies that by using our representations and not interfering with the primary function, it is possible to ‘hide’ messages in elements of the built environment. Thousands of people walk past, and sit on, the benches at Malmö central station without paying the slightest bit of attention that they are also designed to prevent homeless people from sitting on them. No one will be able to see these messages from just looking at the object itself, which makes it clear that you have to dig deeper and go further in to the bench if you want to read and understand it. It is indeed an odd twist of fate that one must almost thank Liepack for choosing a bench so poorly that it brought attention to the hidden agenda of preventing people from lying on the benches, so that one can look for this same design tactic in other object throughout the built environment. J.R. Short (2006) argues that the city has many hidden messages effecting people and that it is through production and consumption of these symbols and myths that ideologies and images are created and spread.

Fig 2: The benches used in Malmö central station. (Source http://nola.se/products/no2/)

From what we have seen above it is clear that the built environment is more than just the elements it consists of. The built environment is human activity, using the elements as means to express things, both concisely and unconsciously. A single object of the built environment can be used as a

1 Search on google: bänkar malmö, bänkar armstöd malmö, bänkar malmö central, bänk citytunneln, bänkar citytunneln. 7 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 mediator of social practices of power and one will not be able to see these messages from just looking at the object, which makes it clear that you have to dig deeper and go further into the bench if you want to read and understand what it really initials. These assumption will be further elaborated upon during the next chapter, where the benches will be put into a context and read from another contributing point of view by examine the question: what type of society are the benches a consequence of? To answer this question, Don Mitchell’s contributions will be used, speciﬁcally where he provides the reader with new axioms of reading landscape by showing how landscape can help to produce cultures.

4. The Benches as a Consequence of Our Society

In the most recent decades, it has been a trend in landscape studies to maintain a critical and historical approach to understanding what the landscape is and more speciﬁcally what it means. Geographers like Coscrove, Daniels, and Duncan started to explore how the landscape had not only cultural meaning but also ideological ones. The aim was to uncover how landscape, both physical and representational, was essential in maintaing and reproducing class relations and is capable of re- enforcing projections of elite power (Mitchell 2008, page 31). Speciﬁcally the article ’New Axioms for Reading the Landscape’ (Mitchell, 2008) sheds even more light on the origin of defensive landscape design and how this can be applied to the sloping benches and furthermore what kind of ideologies these benches are a consequence of.

In Mitchell’s article, the author argues that understanding landscapes requires theories of capital and labor circulation, attention to the way labour ﬂow differently in different eras and close attention to what struggle in and over the landscape is about (Mitchell, 2008 p. 33). Mitchell argues that focus need to be turned from meaning and towards the means of production to begin to see how and why landscapes exist before one can fully understand it’s contexts, both cultural and economical within a capitalist system (Mitchell, 2008 p. 31). In order to do this, Mitchell sets forth six axioms for investigating landscapes. This section will brieﬂy outline the six axioms for leading landscapes as provided by Mitchell, followed by a short discussion on if, and how these axioms can be applied to the benches in the City Tunnel stations in Malmö.

Axiom 1: The landscape is produced; it is actively made: it is a physical intervention into the world and thus is not so much our ’unwitting autobiography’ as an act of will (Mitchell, 2008 p. 34). Mitchell then continues that this will need not necessarily reﬂect the will of the designer, rather the social and political will of the society as a whole. It is evident that there exists a great deal of will within the simple bench at hand.

To begin it expresses a unwillingness of the designer and society of the regarding the acceptance of homeless people taking shelter in built environments. Furthermore, if we examine the project of the City Tunnel in Malmö as a built environment echoing the societies wills of production and commodities it is quite obvious that this project in it’s entirety is profit driven. 14600 people commute using the Öresund train everyday, a 120% increase since the project began not to mention the projected population growth in the region of 200,000 people, something that Malmö Business boasts as a ‘increased workforce range due to a young population in Malmö (Näringslivskontoret Malmö). This bench, if taken as a symbol of the greater project surrounding the Öresunds region of which it is included in, thereby reflects the societies wills surrounding economic growth, increased trade and labour force. The bench echoes the the hopes of the region to become a fast paced business minded region, where profitability is key, and there does not exist any profit in creating a space for relaxing, enjoying a moment or those seemingly stuck on the perimeter of our society.

Axiom 2: Any landscape is (or was) functional (MItchell, 2008 p. 35). 8 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 Although similar to axiom 1, axiom 2 revolves around the functions of the built environment. In this case the bench is located in a heavily trafﬁcked fast-paced train station where the function is to move people from place a to place b in the most efﬁcient way possible. The functions of this bench are obviously to be used for very short periods of time while waiting for the next rain to arrive. In this manner, it appears Liepack has chosen ‘the right’ bench for this landscape, mostly because most people would refuse to attempt to sit on it for any longer than they absolutely had to.

Axiom 3: No landscape is local (Mitchell, 2008 p. 38). This axiom attempts to study the landscape both from it’s local context and from outside it’s geographical location in order to provide a more thorough background. Not only do these benches exists in the stations responsible for connecting two countries, Sweden and Denmark, but also connecting airports; creating a gateway to not only Malmö, but Sweden as a whole. These benches, thus, could be the very first object a visitor see’s when coming to Sweden, a not so welcoming sign almost screaming ‘Welcome to Malmö, no sleeping on the benches or relaxing allowed’. Continuing on the international influences on the train station, it could be that the designer was heavily influenced by international images of underground stations from abroad. We often picture underground public transportation stations such as those in London and New York as dark, often unsafe and overtaken by homeless people and vagabonds. In this case, the designer could have trying to prevent this from occurring in the Malmö stations and overcompensated by using defensive design in order to try to prevent it. Furthermore, the stations somewhat reflect Sweden’s design culture using minimalistic styling, white walls, cement, flashing lights and films presented on cement walls; reflecting Malmö’s aspirations as being design and technology centre.

Axiom 4: History does matter (Mitchell, 2008 p. 41). Accounts of history play a large role in in how landscapes are shaped and furthermore landscapes are formed after changes in time. Malmö has from long back in time had a history of being a working class industrial city, but that all started to change in 1990’s. With the development of the Öresunds bridge, Malmö University, Västra Hamnen and a rebranding campaign Malmö began to take shape as a technological hub in the world, and thus it’s image change from that of a working class town to a ‘future city’ (Möllerström, 2011). This bench is much more a reﬂection of todays fast paced Malmö than that of the city it once was.

Axiom 5: Landscape is power (Mitchell, 2008, p. 43). This power is not limited to expressions of power by those deciding how the landscape will look, but also includes the power ver how the landscape will be used. Returning again to the bench, it is very apparent that this bench is not to be used for relaxing, and absolutely not to be slept on. In addition to that it also implies a certain power over who may use it and how it is to be used. The materials themselves also project images of power even from a distance when one is not even sitting on the bench. Black cast iron bases, sharp lines and a perforated stainless steel seat and backrest give the benches a very aggressive, industrial and overall not very welcoming appearance.

Axiom 6: Landscape is the spacial form that social justice takes (Mitchell, 2008 p. 45). In this example however it is more relevant to discuss the lack of social justice. The benches imply that they are made for only one type of individual, the individual who is actively taking part in the capitalist system that they exist it. They are certainly not meant to be relaxed in and say to all those who see them that this is a society that probably doesn’t take into account that equality should be seen as a social justice. Rather, they seem to prescribe an assimilation and that there is only room for those who are participating in the capitalist system i.e. commuters, business travellers and those who have payed to use the train. It is also worthwhile to note at this point that a heated underground stations have historically been used in many places as somewhere homeless people can take shelter from the cold rather than sleeping outside during extreme cold. Thus, a train station need not be a place where social justice is impossible, with the right attention given during the design process and 9 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 a more welcome environment all could beneﬁt equally from such infrastructure projects.

We can also look internationally to ﬁnd more positive examples where social justice can be used to create a positive outcome in landscape architecture. In Bogota, for example, they actively used the fact that landscape can help to guide in their planning processes. In the article ’Symbols and Rituals of Democracy in Urban Spaces’ by former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa describes how the city built libraries in poor areas and made them work as symbols to show how important knowledge is. Penalosa argues that even if we have accepted private property and the market as the best way to manage most of society’s resources and thus an impossibility of income equality exists, there is still lots do to to create equality of quality of life and inclusion. During his administration of Bogota the city strived to construct by following equality as a principle was used throughout many means of planning. For example, the city built 4 large libraries and a dozen small ones, mostly in very poor areas. The libraries served their obvious purposes but also aimed at constructing values, they were also used as symbols which showed that children and education where important (Penalosa, 2014).

Discussion & Conclusion

One needs to understand and take into consideration both Mitchell’s and Eco’s aspects if they want to understand the complexities of how we relate to our environment. Using Eco’s theory, I showed that the more an object functions according to our cultural code, the more one can hide political messages without anyone noticing. Therefore, it can be very difﬁcult to read landscapes and to understand what ideals actually hiding behind the mask of design. Mitchell shows that even though the political ideals are embedded in our everyday life, it is not impossible to read the landscape, although it requires a thorough scrutinization of the object. He also shows how complex it is to read and understand it due to the many factors, of which, many are not initially available to the observant. One must have the possibility to see the historical, cultural and social context to even begin to be able to decode the hidden messages. In other words: the more embedded the object(s) is in our everyday life, the harder to notice, read and understand it is, thus becoming even more risk for carrying hidden ideals.

As landscape architects and designers it is imperative that we are aware of this notion. I would argue that designing public spaces is not only about creating beautiful environments but also about seeking answers to questions regarding different groups access and relation to the public space. From a landscape architect point of view, I argue that we should ask ourselves what kind of values we are corroborating in our design. I think that architects, as architecture being a form of art, have a responsibility to ask questions to the general agreement in society, and not corroborating this elitist agreement. The risk of not reﬂecting on these issues as a part of the design process is that one just instance based on objects own logic regarding cultural codes and representation could easily result in these instances becoming more rooted and normalized.

Design must serve as a responsible example and show that a public space should welcome everyone equally; where homeless people are not being pushed even further to the periphery, so that the middle class does not have the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ excuse when addressing social problems. Urban design and the way of life it fosters, as well as urban symbols and rituals, can contribute to the development of a more humanistic way of treating of homeless people through meaningful interactions in public spaces rather than separation and misconceptions. Perhaps being aware of this, being more transparent in our designs, and trying to tell the landscapes story to work together with everyone who is using the space is one way towards a more inclusive public space. Mitchell suggests that in order to fully understand the power entailed in a landscape, our duty as landscape architects is that we need to learn ’how to better intervene into the landscape, to make better guesses about the reasons for and the impact of our designs or just do a better job of telling the 10 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 landscape’s story’ (Mitchell, 2008 p. 47).

In theory, these are great ideas but at the same time the suggestions are very vague and lack speciﬁc procedures when it comes down to the design process therefore they are difﬁcult to apply on a practical level. How should one attempt to use all of these ambiguous ideas when transforming them from a simple idea into the concrete object the designer is designing?

Like I wrote in chapter three, Eco argues that an object must besides making function possible, also be able to denote that function clearly enough to make it practicable as well as desirable. A form cannot be functional without the support of the existing processes of codiﬁcation. Otherwise, the architectural object would become a work of art: an ambiguous form, capable of being interpreted in the light of various different codes (Eco, 1997 p. 175). I personally do not agree with this. Take the rose in Folkets park designed by Jitka Svensson an an example (see ﬁg 3): it is used as a bench, a playground, a work of art, a meeting point and a place to bathe all at the same time. Even though it does not denote these functions through the cultural code I would argue that this is still an architectural object. Maybe this could be one way to start experimenting with architecture in order to deliberate ourselves from the cultural code which are embedded in the framework of our everyday life and thereby can be implemented with politics?

Fig 3. The rose in Folkets park, Malmö. (Picture: Ahtorpmedia AB, source: http://www.malmo- time.se/frontbilder-och-aktuella-evenemang)

Last but not least, I feel the need to point out that even though design does matter, it is not the only thing that matters. In the case with the sloping benches, design is being used to push out a bigger problem out of sight for the middle class consumer. By doing that, the politicians will not feel as urged to address the real problem: to provide homes for everyone. Excluding groups from the public space is a easy way politicians to not have to deal with the real underlying problem. The sloping benches raises an important question: who has the right to the public space - the citizen or the consumer?

11 LK0189: Landscape Theory in Architectural and Planning Practice !30/5-20014 References

Anjou, M. (2011) Sluttande bänkar ‘avlutas’ (Sydsvenskan (online) 23-03-11: tillgänlig via http:// www.sydsvenskan.se/malmo/sluttande-bankar-avlutas/)

Bornudd, J. (2011) Kritikstorm mot de lutande bänkarna (Metro (online) 04-03-11: tillgänlig via http://www.metro.se/nyheter/kritikstorm-mot-de-lutande-bankarna-i-citytunneln/EVHkcd! jANvjBzGD8mWQ/

Dovey, K. (1999) Framing places - mediating power in built form. London: Routledge.

Eco, U. (1997) Function and sign: The semiotics of architecture in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Edited by Leach, N. London: Routledge.

Mitchell, D. (2008) New axioms for reading the landscape

Möllerström, V. (2011) Malmös omvandling - från arbetarstad till kunskapsstad. Lund: Media-tryck.

Näringslivskontoret i Malmö (utan angivet datum) The öresund region - a quick guide (online: tillgänglig via http://www.malmobusiness.com/articles/the-oresund-region-a-quick-guide)

Penalosa, E. (2014) Symbols and rituals of democracy in urban spaces in Tidningen Plan nr 1 2014. Stockholm: FFS.

Short, J. R. (2006). Urban Theory – A Critical Assessment, New York: Palgrave MacMillan

Thörn, C. (2008) Vem får rätten till staden - medborgaren eller konsumenten? (Göteborg fria tidning, (online) 14-10-08: tillgänlig via http://www.fria.nu/artikel/75330)