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Activism by Design

This report examines the relationship between urbanism and civil protest. Throughout the report, practitioners will understand and develop strategies on how to design for spatial justice through investigating relevant theories and practice. The writing acts as an embodiment of a protest piece by mobilizing designers as advocates for spatial justice.

This report examines the relationship between urbanism and civil protest. Throughout the report, practitioners will understand and develop strategies on how to design for spatial justice through investigating relevant theories and practice. The writing acts as an embodiment of a protest piece by mobilizing designers as advocates for spatial justice.

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Activism by Design

An Examination of Urbanism and Civil Protest

Daniel Fernando Avilan Medina





Daniel F Avilan Medina

RC12 | Luke Pearson and Sandra Youkhana

BENVGU22 | Design Thesis Report

Student Number: 16086623


Many thanks to David J Roberts and Roberto Bottazzi for their supervision.



dedicated to designers

who seek spatial justice...



Key Words:

Protest, Spatial Justice, Narrative, Network, Boundary, Control,

Semantics, Semiotics, Mobilize, Rhizome, Justice, Surveillance.



Contents

1 Abstract

2 Preface

4 Introduction

6 Spatial Justice

Narrative

8 Semiotics and Semantics

12 The London Cycling Campaign: Die In Protest (Case Study)

14 Semiotic Strategy (Design Project)

Network

16 Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

and the Ring of Steel

18 Rhizomatic Revolution

20 Focus E15 (Case Study)

22 Micro and Macro Networks (Design Project)

Boundary

23 Panopticism

25 Spatial Appropriation

29 British Nail House: Wickham’s Department Store (Case Study)

31 Spatializing Surveillance: Accessibility and

Accountability (Design Project)

33 Conclusion


Abstract


Abstract

This report examines the relationship between urbanism and civil

protest. Throughout the report, practitioners will understand and

develop strategies on how to design for spatial justice through

investigating relevant theories and practice. The writing acts as an

embodiment of a protest piece by mobilizing designers as advocates

for spatial justice.

The report is made up of four chapters. In the first chapter, the theory

of spatial justice is used as a framework for extending these ideals

in terms of urban space. The second chapter frames revolutionary

narratives from theoretical perspectives, a case study that exhibits

these concepts, and the design as tactics of analyzing social space.

The third chapter examines urban networks through inaccessible

spaces of control, rhizomatic network theory, and a case study that

displays itself as a node within a larger rhizome. The third chapter

concludes with the design creating micro and macro socio-spatial

networks. The fourth chapter demonstrates urban boundaries from a

precedent on controlled urban space to theories on the issues and

solutions of spatial injustices. The fourth chapter then illustrates an

urban boundary symbolizing socio-political pressures and concludes

with the design strategies that generate spatial justice. The conclusion

establishes the groundwork for urban practitioners to use this report

as a guide to spatial justice.

1



Preface

The Relationship Between Design and Report


Activism by Design

Designers and architects have worked in ways that allow the city

to reinforce social injustice. Both the design and report investigate

how designers continue to be complicit with instances of control

that reinforce power imbalance and inequality that exist in society.

The report explores various ways in which urban practitioners have

designed for spaces of control in the era of mass surveillance. As

the report continues, theoreticians are drawn upon as links between

designers and urban social movements that critique the way spatial

injustice can be restructured through narratives, networks, and spatial

form. The report provides the design with case studies of civil protest in

London that are in turn used as methods of combating restrictions and

restraints. It also assists the design in creating a series of urban spatial

methods of resistance. The design proposes London as a game which

appropriates these tactics for urban practitioners to implement in an

authoritative super surveilled city.

The urban proposal recreates some of London’s high streets, transport

hubs, boroughs, districts, and commercial spaces as an inevitable

future state of mass surveillance. These sites include the Borough of

Hackney, Kings Cross, Bank and Monument financial center, Oxford

Street, Trafalgar Square, and the City of Westminster.

Within each of these varying landscapes, the player of the game sets

out to shape their world in order to thwart surveillance in the city.

Using theories set out by the report, the player masters a plethora of

strategies that guide other members of the city to follow. This is the

key relationship between the design and the report. The dweller not

only conceptualizes space but physicalizes how surveillance can be

seen as a spatial entity. This becomes an environment of accessibility

and accountability. As the player transverses the city, they intend to

transform the environment through theories linked in the report.

[Fig 5] Previous page:

Nike Headquarters,New York City, 2017

2


Preface

The report is as an assemblage of relevant theories, examples, and

strategies that depict London’s state of mass surveillance. This writing

thus acts as an embodiment of a protest piece. It can be presented to

designers who seek spatial justice. It can be read as a delirious report

of frantic paranoia one feels while playing the game. It sets to offer

alternatives to the misconception of designers and architects’ need to

comply with the current state of control and surveillance. Navigating

and mobilizing these relevant practices and theories set up the report

to influence the design.

By exploring the spatial relationships of socio-political urban

movements and acts of opposition, theorists and protests have

influenced the design to create a new paradigm of urbanism: one

which reinvents psychological urban space. Parallels are drawn

between the design and the report in terms of influence from urban

social movements and theoreticians who similarly use revolution as a

method of urban thinking.

3


Introduction



Activism by Design

Thousands of surveillance cameras within urban, suburban, and

even rural environments have been installed within the last several

decades as a result of increased urban control. In November 2016,

the Investigatory Powers Act passed in the United Kingdom giving the

Parliament a plethora of new machines that could track and hack with

security services more enhanced than any other country in the world

(MacAskill, 2016). Today, England has around 6 million cameras —

which is equivalent to the population of Lebanon (Barrett, 2013).

Recently, the government’s surveillance camera commissioner, Tony

Porter, spoke out about the risk of the privacy of the public. A massive

data base without the consent of the nation is collecting information

and becoming more invasive than ever before (Weaver, 2017).

The metropolis is beginning to adapt to these changes. Designers have

begun to integrate the rapid technological changes within their designs

in order to create a controlled urban environment. For instance, the

new roof of the Apple Store in Chicago looks like an enormous MacBook

Pro (Maggio, 2017). However, this detail is only visible from an aerial

perspective. The correlation between urban design and surveillance is

appropriated to be viewed from the hyper-global simulacrum of Google

Earth. Architecture and urbanism will begin to accommodate the mass

surveillance state within their plans in order to adjust to forthcoming

technologies.

However, the problem remains that designers cannot continue to

be complicit with these instances of control that reinforce power

imbalance and inequality that exist in society. Designers and architects

have worked in ways that allow the city to reinforce inequality due to

surveillance regulation that exists (MacAskill, 2016). Social movements

have found course of action that resists this structure in order to

demonstrate alternative fashions of living in the urban environment.

Theoreticians have learned from these social movement in order to

develop a clear methodology for architects and urban practitioners

to realize unfamiliar and unique city networks. This report aims to

conceptualize how urban revolution have influenced theoreticians as a

method of designing for power imbalance and spatial inequality. Three

case studies — the London Cycling Campaign at Bow Roundabout,

London’s Focus E15 campaign, and the Wickham’s Department Store

in West London — introduce three themes that structure urban social

movements.

[Fig 6] Previous page: Churchix design

tactic illustration

4


Introduction

The report is comprised of four parts: spatial justice, narrative,

network, and boundary. In the first chapter, the concept of urban

spatial justice is introduced. The origins of the idea are displayed

in terms of affordability, transport, and various freedoms in public

spaces. The report interprets urban theorist Edward William Soja’s

concept of spatial justice as a conceptual framing on how justice

translates into space. Spatial justice is then extended through ideas of

control and surveillance as an opening for design to work along within

the theoretical underpinnings. The framework of the former analysis is

translated into terms of time and space. The second chapter discusses

urban theorists and their influence on revolutionary narratives, the

London Cycling Campaign’s response to spatial injustice, and the

designs translation into space through theory and semantics. The third

chapter continues by describing the relationship between network,

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and London’s Ring

of Steel. This is followed by theories of rhizomatic revolutions and

Focus E15’s civil action as a consequence of networked organization.

The third chapter concludes with the designs investigation of rhizomes

to create spatial justice. The fourth chapter analyzes the English

philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s infamous panoptic prison scheme as a

structured boundary of surveillance. Theories are then used to define

boundaries as both limitations and spatial opportunities through such

concepts as the production of psychological space. In the latter half of

the fourth chapter, Wickham’s Department Store extends boundary,

void, and space proceeded by the designs spatial and conceptual

boundaries.

It is important to mark the influence of protest solely on the basis

of spatial, social, and contextual issues, rather than the political

agenda or the principles in which the protesters use to appropriate

their movements. Also, the report aspires to raise questions and self

reflection from urban practitioners, architects, designers, and theorists

rather than solve the issues raised in these case studies. The way in

which their actions appropriate urban space is key to understanding

social and spatial injustices.

5


Spatial Justice


“...it is also just the beginning of a new stage in the struggle

for spatial justice and regional democracy that is being made

more urgent and necessary by the deepening world economic

crisis.”

― Edward Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice, 2010


Activism by Design

Spatial justice is a theory developed on the strong influence of the

organization of space and social relationships within societies. This

approach creates an integration between equality and the urban

environment. During the 1960s through the 1970s, philosopher Henri

Lefebvre demanded a new insight into urban life and quality (Lefebvre,

Kofman and Lebas, 2008). He theorized a concept of ownership

of the city, or the Rights to the City. This idea challenged the social

class construct that continually mandated how cities are perceived

and produced. A form of justice was called for by Lefebvre in order

to promote new typologies of unprecedented spatial arrangements

(Lefebvre, Kofman and Lebas, 2008). He continued to emphasize

these linkages which influenced geographer David Harvey to write on

a Marxist perspective of the city. Harvey makes a case for the Rights to

the City by stating that:

“The Right to the City is, therefore, far more than a right of

individual or group access to the resources that the city embodies:

it is a right to change and reinvent the city more after our hearts’

desire. It is, moreover, a collective rather than an individual right,

since reinventing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise

of a collective power over the processes of urbanization. The

freedom to make and remake ourselves and our cities is, I want

to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our

human rights” (Harvey, 2013: 4).

However, Harvey’s extensive research into the city tends to emphasize

on the social aspects of Lefebvre’s theory. Urban theorist Edward

William Soja hybridizes both the urban context of Lefebvre’s concept

with the individual liberties described in Harvey’s conclusions (Soja,

2010). Soja identifies space as the fundamental dimension of human

society; where justice is ingrained. Soja then specifies these interactions

between space and societies as a necessity of understanding social

injustices (Soja, 2010). A reflection is needed in order to design space

and carry out any theory of social and spatial integrity. He refers to

this theory as spatial justice, where space and justice are crossbred

in order to deliver a new typology of urban program (Lefebvre, Kofman

and Lebas, 2008).

6


Spatial Justice

[Fig 7] A everyday individual

seeking spatial justice.


Activism by Design

According to Soja, “spatiality has traditionally been given particular

attention in only a few disciplines, mainly geography, architecture,

urban and regional planning, and urban sociology… [and] it has

reached far beyond these spatial disciplines” (Soja, 2010: 14). These

ideas of spatial integration into the thought far beyond the realm of the

city design allows the local, urban, regional, national, and global scales

to create inclusive public debates on human rights, social inclusion–

exclusion, citizenship, democracy, poverty, racism, economic growth,

and environmental policy. Urban equity can transform the way spatial

production is invested (Soja, 2010).

Soja considered the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union for a successful and

inspirational model for spatial justice. After winning an unprecedented

legal battle with the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, the buses

were mandated to reroute in order to serve the poorest residents of

Los Angeles. This victory for both the residents and for the future of

urbanism is a key example for Soja on spatial justice (Soja, 2010).

Soja continues by implying that the search for spatial justice is, for

some, a pursuit for defending public spaces (2010). It is suggested

that maintaining spaces completely public is quickly wearing away due

to privatization, commodification, and state control. Various modes of

communication, such as freedom of speech, can be at danger if spaces

continue to transition toward semi-public or private spaces (Soja,

2010). However, seeking spatial justice must not solely focus on the

struggles of public space, but the use of communication and exchange

of information is central to urban spaces that pursue geographical

freedoms.

7


Spatial Justice

[Fig 8] A protest taking place in

Trafalgar Square, 1951.


Narrative


“...a narrative, embodies an ambition, embodies intentions,

and has an aim. I think that we use some of the conventions

or laws or discipline of narrative to make sure that those are

tight and work well.”

― Rem Koolhaas, Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized:

The Complete Interviews, 2015


[Fig 9]


This chapter ties the theories of desire production, ad hoc

organization, and public space in order to understand

semantics in the urban domain. Through language, image,

symbols, and signs, social movements (such as the London

Cycling Campaign) appropriate space with the reinforcement

of semantics. The chapter then concludes with two cases

within the game that allow designers and users to see the city

throughout the established theoretical groundwork.


[Fig 10]


Semiotics and Semantics


Activism by Design

The study of signs, symbols, text, and language have largely influenced

how architects, designers, and urban practitioners have developed

the city. The public uses these tactics in a different manner by

exchanging and broadcasting their visions within the city. Without such

communication, the separation between strategy and action can break

the movement started by the public. The narrative developed by civil

action comes in a plethora of forms and materials. Spaces, slogans,

signs, and action all are forms of expression formed in urban space.

Theories that draw upon desire production, the use of language and

signs, and public space as a site for urban experiences respectively are

exhibited in this passage as a course for understanding revolutionary

narratives.

In the 1970s, a manifesto for synthesizing demonstrative direct action

for social change was written by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and

psychiatrist Felix Guattari. They referred to these theories adopted by

social movements as desiring-production (1998). They believed that

the only connections that could be established between these two

productions would be secondary ones of adopting the attitudes of

other unconscious methodologies whilst defending oneself via means

of projection. Voice and narrative is a way to successfully invest oneself

in the desire of social production (Deleuze and Guattari, 1998).

Journalist Colin Irwin explains this mode of desire through what he

believes to be the birth of modern British protest movement began

(2008). In 1958, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament gathered in

London’s Trafalgar Square for a major outing; a fifty three mile march

to Aldermaston, the center of Britain’s nuclear weapons industry. The

protest permitted young musicians to write new songs in order to arouse

support along their lengthy expedition (Irwin, 2008). The people were

aware that the desire for a new kind of politics could be constructed

by the production of song and spatial choreography. This collective

experience of chanting allowed for an authentic mode of desire similar

to that of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1998). Songs, anthems, and chants

as an assemblage of urban action draws parallels within the domain

of philology.

8


Narrative | Semiotics and Semantics

The architectural theorist Charles Jencks wrote about language as

mode of production being applied outside the realm of linguistics

(2008). It became apparent that the use of these connections could

be implemented in the urban domain. Language allowed for the

explanation of how spatial forms came alive and fell apart (Jencks

and Kropf, 2008). As Jencks states, the conventional trio of semiology

always has formality, a concept and a representation — simply a

relationship between language, thought, and reality (2008). His theory

of adhocism posed the morphing of limited resources at hand for

the resolution of present needs. He left two proposals: revolutionary

interests should be recognized rather than limited to one of class

and the plurality of ad hoc organization should be preserved (Jencks

and Kropf, 2008). Jencks also concludes the groups are the basic

institutions of freedom and civil life and must be able to spring into

existence to protect institutions and law (2008). Several sensibilities

for such narratives entail a recognition for the old and personal

familiarity with identification. Furthermore, he poses a hypothesis on

the production of space through semiotics: if [architects] were trained

as anthropologists, with an ability to comprehend the various codes

which are employed by varying groups, then they could at least design

space which communicated as they intended (Jencks and Kropf,

2008). By juxtaposing Deleuzo-Gauttarian’s desire-production and

the ad hoc organization of Jencks, social movements can create nonhierarchical

hybrids of these theories in order to remain influential and

classless actions.

For instance, the infamous international activist network Anonymous

features their trademark mask from the film V for Vendetta (2005).

Their intention is to create a face for their organization while creating a

faceless leader for the group; allowing everyone to take part in the idea

of being innominate (Anonymous News, 2004). This method is crude

but effective. The organizational structure of Anonymous can be seen

as an ad hoc way of remaining largely influential to mass culture while

strengthening the limitation of one class group. Jencks’ proposals

are seen here as a form of communication through a mask whilst the

desire to project equality through the faceless campaign creates a

Deleuzo-Gauttarian mode of production.

9


Activism by Design

[Fig 11] A cloak featuring stripes and

patterns to confuse surveillance cameras.


Narrative | Semiotics and Semantics

Communication is used by protests as a mechanism for direction

and management. Semiotics allows revolutions to organize social

production and spatial limitations through modes of declaration.

Lefebvre questions communication as a way to organize urban space

(2014). It could be considered a virtuality or to some extent a presenceabsence.

Lefebvre believes linguistics could contribute to an analysis

of the urban phenomenon (2014). However, he suggests that this is

not to say that the urban is a language or sign system, but that it can

be considered to be a whole and an order, in the sense given to those

terms by semantics (Lefebvre, 2014: 52). It can set up as a set of rules

to enact an event, a situation, a desire, or a formal production in the

sense of revolution. The definition of time and space must be refined

in order to comprehend the urban construction — a deconstruction of

voice and urban form (Lefebvre, 2014).

10


Activism by Design

[Fig 12] An aerial view of Trafalgar

during a massive protest, 2012.


Narrative | Semiotics and Semantics

Lefebvre refers to public space as a relic for this collective experience

of desire (2014). For he claims that public space is the only

conceivable site of social life. It brings people together — beauty and

monumentality go hand in hand (Lefebvre, 2014). Lefebvre declares

the very essence of, and sometimes at the very heart of a space in

which the characteristics of a society are most recognizable and

commonplace, cities embody a sense of transcendence, a sense of

being elsewhere (2014). They have proclaimed duty, power, knowledge,

joy, hope. The marches and symbolic displays of civil demonstrations

are the narrative of the public opinion. Oral, visual, and kinesthetic

means of exhibition are displayed as artwork on the streets. The urban

space responds directly to these social dialogues as familiar cries of

aesthetic power (Lefebvre, 2014). Trafalgar Square operates on this

inclination mentioned by Lefebvre. This square has been the heart for

community gatherings, and civil protests such as the climate change

protest and as early as the Bloody Sunday protest in the late 19th

century. It is ironic that Trafalgar, being built for the celebration of

imperial power, has now become London’s center for public meetings

against imperialism, militarism, and capitalism (Forty, 1976).

A complex structure like semantics deserves all the considerations

and particular attentions of urban space in order to identify the

presence in space. Urban practitioners can determine a manifold of

ideals on how semiotics can influence and affect urban space. Through

desire production, the use of language and signs, and an attention

to public space would create hybridized city environments that could

induce spatial justices. Language is spatialized as a result of civil

protest by various methods such as gestures, chantings, signs, and

symbols. Each, with its own consequence, allows for coordination and

subsequent movements to transpire. In the digital age, the circulation

of information becomes evident in its success when other groups are

inspired and arise. The speed of these networks are driven in part by

the operation of technology. The London Cycling Campaign as a result,

uses digital media to influence and occupy a tube station to mobilize

their movement.

11


The London Cycling

Campaign: Die In Protest

Case Study



Activism by Design

This case study uses narrative as a form of performance to appropriate

urban space. In late 2013, the London Cycling Campaign organized a

protest at the Bow Roundabout in east London. A cyclist was struck

and killed by a large goods vehicle on the cycle route (Stuttle, 2013).

Coordinated via the online social media platform Facebook, over

one thousand of London’s cyclist joined in to what appeared to be

the largest hit and run in British history (Stuttle, 2013). According to

the daily British newspaper, the Guardian, the organizers created a

photoshopped image of mass murdered cyclists being laid across the

front of the Transport for London (TfL) Headquarters that was circulated

to bikers around London (Stuttle, 2013). An online community was

immediately formed and an event was set to take action. Over the

next ten days, thousands of leaflets were distributed across London

in order to spread ideas raised by the image. After the then mayor of

London stated that the cyclists were to blame for the several accidents

happening in the area, the campaign took physical action. The crowd

of bikers scattered across the street, blocking traffic, and speaking on

the behalf of the deceased. Finally, the cyclist gave a list of demands to

the TfL (Stuttle, 2013).

The movement turned into a realized version of the collaged protest. The

rendering created by the protesters was acted out on the streetscape.

As the protesters lay dead on the street — as if they had too been hit

by a heavy goods vehicle themselves — they listened to the victims

names from the past twenty years whose lives were also taken (Stuttle,

2013). Some protesters crossed their arms and held their body tight

like a wake before a funeral. Others sat on the pavement with their bike

lights blinking by their side (Stuttle, 2013). The enactment went on,

each cyclist interpreting and reflecting on the victims final movements

and poses that had occurred. As they rose up, the Guardian, and other

media outlets surrounded the spectators as they recalled the violent

acts that had transpired (2013).

[Fig 13] Previous page: Cyclists die in

protest, Southwark Station, 2017.

12


Narrative | The London Cycling Campaign: Die In Protest

The campaign initially called for fifty participants. However, with the

dynamic use of the digital collage, many people were inspired by

the image to participate (Stuttle, 2013). The campaign overlaid their

psychical bodies onto the street in order to represent the act taken

shape on the urban block. The movement found that narrative is a way

to successfully invest oneself in the desire of social production. They

created a physical reenactment of the digital collage in order to display

their frustrations within the urban space. Jencks’ tripartite theorem on

concept and representation combined the use of language, thought,

and reality in order to serve the urban space as a canvas for the

photoshopped image (Jencks and Kropf, 2008).

As Edward Soja had emphasized, social justice is spatial justice. He

accentuates the case that justice in the practice of the law acts by

determining rights and assigning rewards or punishment based on this

actions (Soja, 2010). Spatially, the word justice can interweave to create

a geographical imprint on the environment. The Cycling Campaign

appropriated the urban space by applying inequality as a method

of power and hope for a better system of equality. By appropriating

space, the campaign creates a block in the street through both a digital

collage and a physical performance. Tactics like these can be formed

by designers in order for the public to learn their own strategies and

experiences with the environment.

13


[Fig 14]



Semiotic Strategy

Design Project


[Fig 15]


Urban Protest

In the design, the game uses a plethora of urban tactics in order for

the user to subvert surveillance and systems of control. This passage

utilizes these urban strategies in order to mobilize the theories set out

formerly and educate the public about surveillance.

The game allows for the player to traverse the city whilst evading

the overwhelming amounts of surveillance that surround them. For

instance, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras exist throughout

London in an alarming quantity — around one for every eleven citizens

of London (Barrett, 2013). The player can modify London’s street lamps

and adapt their beacon as disco light LED’s in order to blind the camera

as they pass. This optic fashion of influencing the urban environment

enables ad hoc methodologies of using limited resources at hand for

the resolving present needs (Jencks and Kropf, 2008). Simultaneously,

unconscious methodologies defends the player via means of projection

similar to the desire production set out by Deleuze and Guattari

(1998). This dichotomy acts as establishment of the semiotic strategy.

Using symbols within the game gives the user and the designer an

understanding of how surveillance works within the city and impromptu

approaches of subverting the control. As an urban practitioner, one

can see the spatial implications by envisioning disco lights placed

throughout varying London streets. This comic transformation creates

a enjoyable process of seeing the city in a new light while assessing the

repercussions of such actions.

14


Narrative | Semiotic Strategy

[Fig 16] Lamp posts are changed

into disco lights that blind

surveillance cameras.

DISCO


Activism by Design

The game reflects on public spaces like Trafalgar Square. Lefebvre

depicts public space as the relic for this collective experience of desire

production (Lefebvre, 2014). Appropriating ad hoc methods of design,

the player in the game can use traditional methods of camouflage

in order to mask themselves within the urban environment to avoid

Google’s satellite imagery. By using this large collective space, the

user in turn subverts surveillance and creates a new layer in the urban

environment. This layer uses similar applications to the London Cycling

Campaign by transforming a digital imprint to appropriate space (Stuttle,

2013). The layer animates the player to create a disguise against the

macro mapping software of Google. Ad hoc methods of distortion and

simulacrum can exhibit itself in public space as forms of suppressing

the excessive modes of surveillance. Viewing the city from an aerial

perspective, one may see the act transpire. However, from a street

level, this method would seem counter-intuitive. Nonetheless, urban

designers must reflect on this experience as way to deal with public

space to conceal the public from control and surveillance. Through

active learning and reconfiguration of urban space, spatial justice is

formed. If this new layer could be reenacted throughout the entire city,

a network of camouflage could begin to occur. These tactics can be an

educational application for designers and users alike to create urban

spaces that develop networks, strategies, and information on pressing

issues that exist in the city.

15


Narrative | Semiotic Strategy

[Fig 17] Above: The player using camouflage

to blend in with the environment.

[Fig 18] Below: A protester using game

tactics in Angel Islington.

MASKING

With Google Maps, real-time data is tracking for route planning


Network


“The prevalence of networks in organizing social practice

redefines social structure in our societies.”

― Manuel Castells, Toward a Sociology of

the Network Society, 2000


[Fig 19]


This chapter begins with the linkage between two socio-spatial

concepts: The Ring of Steel and Crime Prevention Through

Environmental Design (CPTED). These act as defense networks

that deny urban accessibility. Then, philosopher Gilles Deleuze

and psychiatrist Felix Guattari’s theory of rhizomes sets into

motion sociologist Manuel Castells’ theory of rhizomatic

revolutionary networks. As a result, London’s Focus E15

campaign makes use of rooted networks to take action against

London’s ongoing housing crisis. Finally, the game uses macro

and micro scaled urban networks to generate spatial justice.



Crime Prevention Through

Environmental Design and

The Ring of Steel


Activism by Design

London has used the Ring of Steel and Crime Prevention Through

Environmental Design as networks of civic control. These two

interweaving networks have established London as a city of mass

surveillance and restraint. These social structures have excluded the

public from having full access to their city.

In the early 1970s, surveillance networks were continually being

introduced at a rapid rate with the growing use of technology and urban

organization. A United States criminologist C. Ray Jeffery coined the

term Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) as a

foundation for urban surveillance (Draper and Cadzow, 2004). The

framing of this work was based on Jeffery’s suggestions that physical

and social environments provided opportunities for crime to occur, while

proving that their were also opportunities to reduce the alternating city

environment (Draper and Cadzow, 2004). Architect Oscar Newman

was influenced by the principles set out by Jeffery and approached the

concept through the term defensible space (Draper and Cadzow, 2004).

This gave way to a new conceptual network of organizing space to

prevent crime. CPTED has three overlapping doctrines: access control,

surveillance, and territorial reinforcement. According to the CPTED

program, these core concepts “offer a framework for the effective

design and use of space to minimize undesired behavior” (Draper and

Cadzow, 2004: 9). However, it does not characterize the personality of

the alleged undesired behavior (Draper and Cadzow, 2004).

[Fig 20] Previous page: Map of the Ring of

Steel, London 2017

16


Network | Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and The Ring of Steel

London created a response to this behavior by producing a new “ring

of steel” to prevent further terrorist attacks on the city. Wrought iron

security gates began to enclose certain spaces within the city, sealing

off from public access (Coaffee, 2004). Urban geographer Jon Coaffee

wrote on The Times newspaper suggesting “the City should be turned

into a medieval-style walled enclave to prevent terrorist attacks” while

other papers went as far to suggest “a national identity card scheme”

for London (Coaffee, 2004: 203). All entrances to the central financial

zone were activated through this new ring. The city thresholds were

reduced from over thirty to seven road-checked entrances guarded by

armed police (Coaffee, 2004). Coaffee questioned the balance that

many cities would face as the threats of terrorism continue (2004). The

urban network will be at threat and blur the boundaries between public

and private space. The most alarming claim was that this response of

authorities, public, and private security agencies will produce serious

consequences for urbanity and the civic realm, and in particular for

social control and freedom of movement (Coaffee, 2004).

These new rings of exclusion evidently changed the urban network.

But the public continues to reframe themselves to adjust to the new

contextual change. With these adjustments, urban social networks can

once again produce social and spatial justices within the metropolis.

A new form of network is needed in order to make the urban domain

more accessible.

17


Rhizomatic Revolution



Activism by Design

The rhizome as a network derives from philosopher Gilles Deleuze and

psychiatrist Felix Guattari who believe that this botanical theory can

influence how metropolitan networks are formed. Within the urban

realm, social movements create modes of commutation, structure,

interconnections, and systems that coordinate to exchange and interact

within the city network.

In 1980, philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychiatrist Felix Guattari’s

writings posed biological theory in relationship to the urban network:

a rhizome (2014). Similarly to plants with their arbitrary roots are

rhizomorphic in other respects altogether. They call the rhizome a very

diverse form from which creates extensions in space in all directions

to concreted nodes of importance. They suggest that the beauty of the

rhizome is the ambiguousness of the change in nature and connection

(Deleuze and Guattari, 2014). The cartographic nature of the rhizome

is not susceptible to any generative generic production; “the rhizome is

altogether different, a map and not a tracing” (Deleuze and Guattari,

2014: 12). For the map is a network in all of its levels; detachable,

reversible, susceptible and consistently modified by individuals, groups,

and social movements (Deleuze and Guattari, 2014: 2).

[Fig 21] Previous page:

GPS tactic illustration.

18


Network | Rhizomatic Revolution

[Fig 22] Anti-Oedipus : Capitalism and

Schizophrenia cover illustration, 2009.


Activism by Design

The urban relationship with the rhizome is what sociologist Manuel

Castells refers to as a “seed [that] grows every day following the

rhizomatic logic which characterizes social movements” (2015: 242).

In urban space, the rise of a common pattern in social mobilization

within the metropolis has taken shape through rhizomatic networks.

Social movements have been a lever for social change and mobilization,

according to Castells (2015). The idea of networks guides individuals by

overcoming fear of social injustice and transform into a conscious and

collective actor for spatial justice. The network society lives as a new

construct for social movements toward making a difference with sociopolitical

action (Castells, 2015). The Internet, mobile communication,

social networks online and offline, preexisting and preceding networks

are some of the plentiful forms of rhizomatic networks (Castells,

2015). UK Uncut, a grassroots civil action group, allows the public

to create their own action and organize their own event (2017). They

assist by advertising, having knowledge of legal rights, and giving

supportive feedback to there organization and those who desire

to join. Furthermore, they created an event map that lets the public

notice when the next action takes place and how to attend (UK Uncut,

2017). This type of rhizomatic networks builds and overlaps with other

institutions within the same matrix.

The complex system that creates the urban environment acts as the

structural roots that Deleuze and Guattari suggest as alternatives to

organizing and activating urban space (2014). Lefebvre finds that

understanding and learning laws governing the realities of the city need

to add concepts such as systems, divisions, arrangements and more

specific concepts like network (Lefebvre, 2014). These juxtapositions

and superimpositions should be defined, according to Lefebvre (2014).

The challenge remains that seeking spatial justice confronts with

the necessity to build diverse associations and networked social

movements in order to extend the mobilization of urban space. Greater

ties within the local communities along with expansive and widened

networks of social activism strengthen an equal geographical context

for the public (Soja, 2010). As social rhizomes start at a local scale,

such as the Focus E15 in London, they have the potential to unfold into

extensive networks throughout the city.

19


Network | Rhizomatic Revolution

[Fig 23] UK Uncut web page, 2017.


[Fig 24]


Focus E15

Case Study


Activism by Design

[Fig 25] Mums of E15 after

social housing protest, 2014.


Network | Focus E15

The London Focus E15 campaign adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s

theory of rhizomes as a way to build their network from the micro

to macro urban scale. This local and small scaled urban activist

campaign formed in 2013 in East London. The Focus E15 housing

campaign started as a group of mothers living in a housing unit E15

in the borough of Newham (Watt, 2016). This area, along with most of

London, has been affected by the ongoing housing crisis that leaves

many low-income Londoners living in absurdly small units or even

being evicted from their homes. The crisis produces class polarization

and class politics that many cities have had to face (Watt, 2016). Urban

practitioner Paul Watt explains that a large amount of campaign groups

have begun to combat the current struggle that exist (2016). He also

explains that in uber-gentrifying areas with rising rents and housing

prices, the Londoners’ Right to the City is vanishing (2016: 302).

Watt’s continues by adding that this social cleansing is being driven

by a combination of economic austerity and the demolition of councilbuilt

estates under the guise of gentrification (2016). As the mothers

from Newham were threatened with eviction, they campaigned for

housing and urban rights in London and successfully prevented the

initial threat. They then changed the original movements name from

“Focus E15 Mothers” to the “Focus E15 campaign” in order to widen

their network to other groups with similar matters (Watt, 2016).

The group began by collecting signatures for a devised petition whilst

meeting other groups, such as the Revolutionary Communist Group,

who came together to forge something new together (Watt, 2016).

The new campaign began to shift to estates that were in motion to

be bulldozed or vacated in order to evict tenants even though the

development lacked leadership (Watt, 2016). They hung portraits of

local estate residents with the help of those locally to the neighborhood.

With the help of the main stream media, the local group received citywide

attention and the campaign estimated over one hundred media

interviews in two weeks. The group now holds several social media

networks with over 30,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter, and

their own web page (Watt, 2016).

20


Activism by Design

[Fig 26] Public meetings for

spatial justice, 2014.


Network | Focus E15

A once small group of young mothers transpired into a network larger

than they had possibly expected. The relentless fight of Focus E15 led to

the high profile rhizomatic rise of the group. The campaign was able to

create a fruitful growth of spatial justice by demonstrating the political,

economic, and social contradictions underpinning London’s housing

crisis (Watt, 2016). As a network, they allowed for an indefinable center

and ensured coordination by having multiple nodes (Castells, 2015).

Castells stresses the fact that these networks become a movement by

occupying the urban space (2015: 250). Focus E15 has continued to

grow it’s rhizomatic network by traveling to Serbia to join the European

Action Coalition For the Right to Housing and to the City (Focus E15,

2017). Movements, like the Focus E15 campaign, must work at the

micro and macro scales to build their networks and seek spatial justice

as a collective group.

21



Micro and Macro Networks

Design Project


Activism by Design

The game engages with both micro and macro networks through

the urban tactics. These strategies establish a matrix for which the

player can grow their own network with Deleuzo-Gauttarian rhizomatic

manipulations.

According to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, smart

phone apps collect extensive amounts of data on users’ locations as

much as every three minutes (Sifferlin, 2015). As the player traverses

the game, they encounter this dilemma. The player adapts; repurposing

London’s red telephone box as a Faraday cage which aids them in

depositing their cell phone every three minutes in order to evade the

location network. In this instance, the player paradoxically defeats the

macro location collection of smart phones with the micro network of

neglected red telephone boxes.

At the root of the issue, the player strategizes actions that will subvert

surveillance of their location. The systemic issues of being tracked

without the desire or sometimes the knowledge of the public is fearsome.

The player dramatizes this issue by creating a physical urban network

that assists the public in fending off surveillance. The rapid paths the

player must take in order to successfully cross through the game gives

the user and the design a sense of urgency on the issue. Thus the game

mobilizes the importance of this problem in our society today. As a

society, large amounts of data are collected into major networks that are

stored without our knowledge and sometimes consent (Solon, 2016).

This is troublesome for those who wish to conceal their private lives

from the public. By using the networks at hand, a rhizomatic revolution

can occur. In the game, decrepit and forgotten pieces of architecture

are reused in the interest of the network. Transposed in the real world,

these methodologies seem improbable. However the network itself can

be studied as a way of organizing this system in terms of control. As in

the case of Focus E15, it takes the stem of one node to begin its root

and connect to other nodes within the urban realm (Watt, 2016). The

red telephone Faraday cage acts a didactic rhizome for designers who

aspire to create spatial networks in the metropolis. These networked

boundaries create a collective system of spatial organization.

[Fig 27] Previous page: Scaled model of

red telephone Faraday cage.

22


Architectural practice Coop Himmelb(l)au created a surveillance jacket

made of conductive metal in the fabric creating a Faraday cage that disrupts

Network | Micro and Macro Networks

[Fig 28] Faraday cages distributed

throughout the game.

CELL PHONE CAGE


Boundary


“Without a revolutionary theory there cannot be a revolutionary

movement.”

― Vladimir Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, 1901


[Fig 29]


This chapter introduces panoptic design as a way of

enabling control by constructing boundaries of surveillance.

Theoreticians are then drawn upon to reinvent these

boundaries by reviving psychological urban space. Throughout

the latter half of the chapter, the Wickham’s Department Store

case study creates a physical boundary to evade real estate

development followed by the game’s tactics that utilize spatial

and conceptual boundaries.


[Fig 30] The Geometrical Ascent to the

Galleries in the Colosseum,

Regent’s Park, 1829


Panopticism


Activism by Design

The panopticon design by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham created

a system of boundaries that allowed for extreme levels of control and

surveillance. Many urban practitioners and architects have been

inspired by this design for it’s fundamental principle of boundaries as a

tool for supervision that empowers spatial injustice.

Boundaries, both just and unjust, are associated with social, conceptual

and spatial organization. Through means of control, boundaries have

been used in varying approaches that either assist or dismiss spatial

injustices that these constraints may evoke.

[Fig 31] De Koepel panoptic prison

in Haarlem, the Netherlands, 2017.

23


Boundary| Panopticism

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham speculated on the idea of the

central inspection principle. Bentham came to realize his study for

his proposed prison an “Inspection House” (The Panopticon, 2017).

It entailed a circular building in which prison cells would be arranged

around a central inspection tower. This node was able to inspect all

cells at any time while speaking to inmates through an elaborate

system of communication ducts. The inmates, however, would never

be able to see the inspector within the tower itself. The idea created

a constant mode of fear and absolute surveillance (The Panopticon,

2017). Although the prison that Bentham designed was never built,

the designs influence was used to plan and build panoptic architecture

that enables control and surveillance (The Panopticon, 2017).

In 1975, philosopher Michel Foucault analyzed the theoretical

components of Bentham’s panoptic architecture (1979). The prisoner

of these cells became an object within the system of control. The

inspector who is administering the inmates must assume their

responsibility for the constraining power (Foucault, 1979). The

controller in a sense has anonymity as well as dominance. The central

inspector becomes part of the tower itself as a implicit object within the

building (Foucault, 1979). This boundary creates an assured state of

power even though the one asserting it may not be there at all. These

subtle and concealed forms of surveillance have altered the way cities

think about control of the public (Foucault, 1979). As Foucault states,

“justice no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is

bound up with its practice” (1979: 9).

Social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff makes a note that the behaviors

felt whilst inside this physical panoptic boundary could be escaped

once one exited that physical place (2015). She sees that the blurring

boundaries of both the public and private surveilled realms as

more of a concern following the leaks of former Central Intelligence

Agency employee Edward Snowden (Zuboff, 2015). However suitable

the building acted on the inmates during their prison sentence, the

idea of massive separation, individualizing distributions, and an

overhaul into the intensified control and the extension of total power

were all consequences of the panoptic visions that Bentham set out

in his designs (Foucault, 1979). This spatial boundary has influenced

cities to construct and maintain control of the urban environment.

24


Spatial Appropriation


[Fig 32]


Activism by Design

Reinventing urban boundaries is a fundamental aspect of achieving

spatial justice. Spatial boundaries in the city can create restraints or

produce possibilities of spatial justices and injustices. The former, both

narrative and network, have the capacity to challenge spatial, social,

and conceptual boundaries. However, in the neoliberal era, urbanism

has the tendency to base itself around control and order as a product

of societal and political shifts.

Since 1872, Speaker’s Corner had been deemed one of the most

important sites in London for freedom of speech. George Orwell had

described it as “‘one of the minor wonders of the world’” as he had

listened to Communists, Trotskyists, the Socialist Party of Great Britain,

Mormons, vegetarians, and many more (Coomes, 2015). This site was a

place for religious, political, social preaching, and debate. The amount

of people who attend the Sunday afternoon discussions has decreased,

but the proportion of religious meetings has increased (Coomes,

2015). The debates critique and reflect on the demographical changes

in London, especially being surrounded by high priced neighborhoods

around Hyde Park. People come together face to face and discuss

pressing issues on the corner of London’s largest public park (Coomes,

2015). Can spaces like Speaker’s Corner be replicated? The Speakers’

Corner Trust started a foundation setting up corner-style spaces where

citizens can engage in face-to-face debate (O’Neill, 2008). These

just spaces create spatial boundaries on the rights to the space and

discussion. Soja encourages the active participation of producing more

just spaces for freedom of speech in order to redefine what it means to

be public (2010). The view is to gain greater control over the generators

of urban space and reclaim democratic means of everyday democracy

from those who have been using it as an economic, social, or political

advantage. Seeking rights to city is a radical effect of re-appropriating

space is a constant challenge for theorist such as Lefebvre (Soja,

2010).

25


Boundary | Spatial Appropriation

[Fig 33] Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park,

2015


Activism by Design

The boundaries separating the specialized sciences of human reality

are illuminated by the practical uses of those sciences on everydayness

(Lefebvre, 2014: 140). The indication remains on the emergence

and urgency of a new social practice no longer typical of “industrial”

but of urban society (Lefebvre, 2014: 140). Lefebvre asserts that it

cannot exist without utopia (2014). It must recognize that there are

a multiplicity of situations. This plays in the largest cities becoming

uncontrollable, ungovernable, and problematic proven difficult to

resolve. It must combine the juxtaposing forces of revolt against a

repressive society with social forces that are capable of resolving the

problems of the megalopolis (Lefebvre, 2014).

Castells argues that Lefebvre must also consider the way in which social

boundaries produces social relationships (1980). It is the increase of

action and communication, encouraging at one and the same time

a free flowering, rhizomatic, pleasurable, the unexpected sociability

and desire. Castells states that “‘social relations are revealed in the

negation of distance’” (Castells, 1980: 90). As Castells describes, for

instance, that class struggle appears to be regarded as the motive force

of history (1980). Revolution and civil protest stretch the limits of urban

boundaries (Castells, 1980).

26


Boundary | Spatial Appropriation

For instance, Trafalgar Square is infamous as a political space for

protests against nuclear, war, apartheid, and tax to name a few. The

poor design and inappropriate structures have inhibited not only people

from walking, but organizing around the space for public demonstration

(Escobar, 2014). When Ken Livingstone was the then Mayor of London,

he seemed to make Trafalgar a more accessible place and a reflection

of London as a world city. The ideas he set out, however, were deemed

to continue the ongoing class polarization; changing the landscape

to fit those with economic advantage (Escobar, 2014). Even though

the redevelopment of Trafalgar Square led to spatial boundaries that

limited the publics capacity to freely experience the openness that once

existed in the square, it did not halt any political demonstrations from

taking place (Escobar, 2014). According to the British Broadcasting

Corporation, over 200,000 — although police put the number at

100,000 — gathered in Trafalgar in 2003 to protest the war in Iraq

(2003). There were major city center disturbances early that day as

a result of the occupation (BBC News, 2003). Lefebvrean modes of

production take place in spaces of control (2014). The urban fabric

grows and extends It borders in order to accommodate city life. The

displacement of objects throughout the square unaffected the means

of displacing information and inhabitants of the space. These are the

features characterizing the space within the city; a landscape and

appearance of city inhabitants seizing public space through modes of

production.

27


Activism by Design

[Fig 34] Brexit protest,

Trafalgar Square, 2016.


Boundary | Spatial Appropriation

Despite the need for production, an overall unease remains. Boundaries

ergo the institutional public space — the space for the formulation of

thought — is occupied by the dominant elites and their networks. Civil

movements need to carve out a new public environment that is not

limited to the Internet, but makes itself present in physical social life

(Castells, 2015). A mechanism to overcome this unsettling emotion

is social adjacencies that can confront and trespass. The contested

borders are usually those of symbolic meaning and power. This entails a

affirmation of the right to use this space and a reclaiming of speculative

property (Castells, 2015). These movements are constructed through

the hybridization of the social networks of the Internet and the formal

urban space. The former is usually recognized as a free flowing

platform used to gather social adjacencies while the latter is the stage

on which the protest is played (Castells, 2015). Designers have to

be responsible for constructing these hybridized spatial networks as

part of their proposals. Designed spaced can house protest within the

constraints and opportunities boundaries fabricate.

Charles Jencks references architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas in

his stance on the quintessential “new urbanism” (Jencks and Kropf,

2008: 306). Koolhaas claims that new urbanism must accelerate the

expansion of concepts, negating boundaries, and refuting separations.

It must discover unnameable hybrids and stop the obsession with the

city and begin to manipulate infrastructure for endless intensifications

and diversifications, shortcuts and redistributions — a reinvention of

psychological space (Jencks and Kropf, 2008).

Boundary crossing in the urban domain is part of human nature —

a stage played by the everyday citizens (Lefebvre, 2014: 140). The

paradox is both engaging and opposing the site in which they interact.

Edges, lines, points, and planes become the interface in which network

and narrative must appropriate space. Physical, social, and theoretical

obstructions hinder the impact on the space. Hybridized means that

Koolhaas sets out in his view could be a methodology used to develop

the metropolis (Jencks and Kropf, 2008). In London’s East End, local

real estate holdout creates a negotiated boundary between resistance

and control.

28


British Nail House:

Wickham’s Department Store

Case Study


[Fig 35]




Activism by Design

Real estate development has changed the urban landscape through

stringent boundaries. China has seen rapid urban growth and

development with the last several decades (Parkinson, 2015). Within

this real estate expansion, many housing estates and buildings

are demolished and replaced with contemporary high rises and

construction. However, some curious and surreal imagery of Chinese

homes and properties that holdout real estate by not selling their homes

to developers create a landscape of new and old coexisting within the

same space. These sites are referred as nail houses due to their refusal

to be hammered down by property development (Parkinson, 2015). The

nail house phenomenon has led to some owners carrying on the fight

for years while gaining widespread media coverage. It is said that some

councils cut access to utilities to encourage owners to leave or even to

demolish homes when they are out for the day (Parkinson, 2015).

The early twentieth century in London was driven by an extreme

heightened influence due to capital coming in from rapid

industrialization. Large scale development was in full swing as London

saw fundamental urban change. In the east end of London’s Mile

End Road, the industrialization created an unusual scene to a 1920s

department store (Parkinson, 2015). The Spiegelhalters, a small local

family business of clock makers and jewelers, was made an offer to buy

out their property by a neighboring business the Wickham’s Department

Store. The department store hoped to create a large colonnade and

tower in order to attract clients away from their rival companies. After

a prior displacement made to the Spiegelhalters’ family, they declared

they would not be selling their property (Parkinson, 2015). This created

an asymmetrical divide in what was to be a block long department

store. The department store continued their construction leaving a void

cutting through the facade of the storefront (Parkinson, 2015).

[Fig 36] Spiegelhalters hold out

real estate, 1920.

29


Boundary | British Nail House: Wickham’s Department Store

Almost a century later, more than 2,700 people signed a petition to

keep the façade of the Spiegelhalters as historic precedent of refusal.

Architectural critic Ian Nairn described it as “a perennial triumph for

the little man, the blokes who won’t conform… may he stay there till

the bomb falls” (Parkinson, 2015: 1). Both the English Heritage, the

Twentieth Century Society, and the Victorian Society have denied the

need for renovation or removal of the façade (Parkinson, 2015).

“Colonnadus Interruptus” was the term coined for the obscure facade

that remained from the development (Moore, 2015: 1). A case of

Lefebvre’s theory of abstract and concrete space (2014). Mile End

Road’s nail house depicts an insertion of the concrete space in abstract

space. A series of memories and symbols of small city ventures are

struck through a fatuous neoclassical capitalist development. The

boundary here seems all the more physical in its lasting appearance,

but similarly to the everydayness that Lefebvre mentions, the boundary

must be read on a multidimensional scale (Lefebvre, 2014: 140). The

mechanism used here is of economical resistance. This idea of holding

out or refusal to modify constitutes as a drawn boundary. Comparable

to the Chinese neologism, the Spiegelhalters can deem themselves

an actor for spatial boundary resistance — where the abstract is seen

equal to or part of the whole of concrete space and construction

(Moore, 2015). The two boundaries are often seen as different. The

architect separates themselves from the physical boundary of concrete

space in order to design. An architectural competition proposal to

design a “sculptural shard…to create a bold, new public entrance”

seems to create a tomb burying any recollection of the revolutionary

creativity created by the Spiegelhalters’ hold out (Moore, 2015: 1). The

social boundary broken down by the breaking of the colonnade created

unexpected social interest in the action, allowing for its existence within

the city (Parkinson, 2015). The conservationist aided the interruption

to exist as an example of the city of London civil protest. “It would have

been ironic if Spiegelhalters’, a building that Hitler couldn’t destroy

during the Blitz, was removed forever now” (Parkinson, 2015: 1). This

symbol of boundary as resistance spatialized urban real estate control.

The space is in turn regenerated to induce a pattern of boundaries that

are resolved through accountability.

30


Spatializing Surveillance:

Accessibility and Accountability

Design Project


GPS ROAD

With Google Maps, real-time data is tracking for route planning and public

transport. Customization and mobility allow for an accurate reading of the

city.

As the player traverses the city, they encounter the moment in which they

can change the building architecture in order to adjust the Google Maps

real-time data.


Urban Protest

Boundaries control urban space through modes of inaccessibility. By

spatializing surveillance, urban practitioners, architects, designers, and

users can occupy the urban environment within this context in order to

confront spatial injustice.

Cameras and other photographic electronics have become mobile

with the development of Body Worn Cameras (BWC) as tools of control

(Big Brother Watch, 2017). Within this relatively new technology come

the spatial implications that are associated with this footage. Local

authorities are able to view the public as they walk, shop, park, and

interact with urban space. As a result of these spatial ramifications,

people are no longer able to walk the city without concerns of being

surveilled (Big Brother Watch, 2017). Within the context of the game,

these technologies can be spatialized. The boundary that once was

hidden from the view of the inspected is shown in order to guide the

player around cones of vision. It may be that games ability to create

virtual elements and make them real is cliché, but in a real urban

environment, these cones illustrate the gravity of the situation.

Boundaries that become real within the game grant the user strategies

to avoid these modes of control. By carefully thinking through these

boundaries, designers can intentionally produce spaces that meander,

intersect, overlay, juxtapose, and at times even open up for the public

to traverse the city in unconventional ways. Similar to Koolhaas’

quintessential new urbanism, space must create unexpected

boundaries within the urban realm to generate psychological space

(Jencks and Kropf, 2008). Understanding pressures that control have

on society must be brought to the forefront of boundary production.

[Fig 37] Previous page: GPS Road tactic

for evading surveillance.

31


Boundary | Spatializing Surveillance: Accessibility and Accountability

[Fig 38] Body Worn Cameras are

spatialized with view cones

BODY WORN CAMERAS

Sony appears to be getting ideas from the cult satirical science-fiction show

Black Mirror as it’s revealed the company is working on a smart contact


Activism by Design

On a larger scale, Google Earth allows their users to develop their own

boundaries as they take varying paths to work, school, or home. Despite

the convenience of such technologies, these conventions track massive

amounts of user data and personalize your life without the knowledge

or consent of the consumer (Solon, 2016). The game creates physical

boundaries between themselves and the satellite by creating false

roads, parking lots, and parks on rooftops and between buildings to

avoid tracking and hacking of information. Similar to the micro evasion

of BWC’s, the directional finder reacts with the players transformation

of the urban environment. Not only is the player directly influencing

the boundary but creating consequences to the city itself. In a similar

manner to the Spiegelhalters, the physical imprint in the game creates

a tangible footprint that remains for others who long for a relatable

issue (Moore, 2015). These tactics serve the purpose of educating and

spatializing surveillance. Designers who physicalize unseen elements

of control have to opportunity to hold accountable those in control of

urban space. By creating simple boundaries — whether geometric of

conceptual — urban space becomes more accessible as a result.

32


Boundary | Spatializing Surveillance: Accessibility and Accountability

[Fig 39] Aerial tactics evading

satellite tracking.


[Fig 40]


Conclusion


Activism by Design

As the United Kingdom and the rest of the world endure the age of

mass surveillance and its foundations, the socio-spatial environment

will continue to adapt with these advancements. Spatial justice

will allow urban practitioners, architects, designers, and theorists

to conceptualize space in order overcome being complicit to these

challenges set by surveillance. By acting on spatial justice, designers

will not be bound by the power imbalances and inequality that exist in

society. This action will accommodate the public for which they design

for. Through examining the relationship between urbanism and civil

protest, these practitioners can study revolutionary action within the

context of the city and control.

Spatial justice contains the framework for designers to link urban

spaces, peoples’ Right to the City, and socio-political equality in space.

As they are extended for control and surveillance, the initial theory of

spatial justice is taken further in order to translate into terms of time

and space. Social movements emphasize spatial justice as meaning to

their urban action. Narrative, networks, and boundaries reinforce ideals

used by protest in order to mobilize relevant theory and practice.

Ad hoc methods of organization, desiring-production, and the

importance of public space develop the city through language and

meaning. Communication and symbols inspired movements such as

the London Cycling Campaign to organize a protest appropriating space

in the urban domain. These theories and actions produced the games

use of impromptu approaches to design. Whilst enabling signs, symbols

and production as a driving force, the player evades surveillance and

control. These tactics enable designers to receive immediate feedback

on the relationship between the urban realm and surveillance. This

didactic relationship between the tactics and the designer creates a

shift in perspective in respect to urban and spatial theory. These nodal

points within the game constantly interact with the user, giving them a

experience of living spatial justices and injustices.

33


Conclusion

As these applications progress, the networks of strategies were

formed as a result. By examining London’s Ring of Steel and the

CPTED program, a framework was produced to demonstrate the

dangerous effects of mass surveillance and the cities’ accessibility.

Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Manuel Castells looked toward

rhizomatic rooted networks as influence on social organizations. These

revolutions established a system of non-hierarchical, dynamic, even

anarchic networks. By viewing spatial justice in this manner, local scale

campaign Focus E15 composes their network by joining with similar

smaller scale nodes. These nodes were able to achieve ambitious

large scale projects with concise rhizomatic planning. The game

subsequently conceived cues from the rhizome as an opportunity

to provide a framework for the player. These strategic urban tactics

support the game’s rhizomatic networks by acknowledging networks

of control. As the networks of surveillance are recognized, the player is

able to evade these exterior forces. The designer can see this pattern

as a method of subverting pressure whilst analyzing the potential

for social change and movements with rhizomatic structure. The

boundaries that make up the rhizome improve social conditions.

Boundaries, such as the panoptic case study, limit architects and

designers by enabling control and constructing boundaries of

surveillance. These boundaries serve as tools of massive separation

and individualism which creates social injustice. Places in London, like

Speaker’s Corner and Trafalgar Square, are precedents for socio-spatial

boundaries that allow public interaction and debate to transpire. Rem

Koolhaas calls for a new typology of urbanism where psychological

space and spatial justice is thought of firstly and foremost instead of

an afterthought. This mechanism is reinforced by the Spiegelhalters’

hold out real estate that created a permanent physical boundary in

the city as a living reminder of resistance and inspiration for similar

events. The game takes these urban tactics and creates overlapping

and intersecting boundaries as a framework for examining Koolhaas’

theorems. The layers that the game stimulates debate and designs

that integrate spatial justice within city boundaries.

These shifting theories, case studies, and strategies come together

as a call to action. Navigating and mobilizing relevant theory and

practice embody the shift in perspective for designers. This serves

as an orientation device that organize these alternative views into

a cohesive protest piece. We as designers can speculate on spatial

justice, implement these social movements, spatial theories, and test

them in order to produce spatial equality in the urban realm.

Activism by design will mobilize urban practitioners to seek spatial

justice.

34




Activism by Design

MArch Urban Design 2016-17

University College London

The Bartlett School of Architecture



Notes

Activism by Design

1. Developed by English scientist Michael Faraday in the 1830s, the Faraday cage or Faraday

shield stops mobile phone reception, wifi radiation, and shield devices from electronic wiretapping

through the use of conductive metals and meshes (Stinson, 2013).

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Figures

Activism by Design

Activism by Design

[Figure 1] Author’s own (2017) GPS Road — The Snooper’s Charter — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 2] Author’s own (2017) Mirror — The Snooper’s Charter — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 3] Author’s own (2017) Disco — The Snooper’s Charter — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 4] Author’s own (2017) Phone Cage — Six Collages — Design Project. [Illustration].

Preface

[Figure 5] Nike (2017) Nike unveils New York headquarters topped with giant planted swoosh. https://

www.dezeen.com/2017/06/28/nike-nyhq-new-york-headquarters-giant-swoosh-usa> Site accessed 14

July 2017.

Introduction

[Figure 6] Author’s own (2017) Churchix — 20 Tactics — Design Project. [Illustration].

Spatial Justice

[Figure 7] Author’s own (2017) We Want Spatial Justice — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 8] Rob Baker (1951) Another demonstration in Trafalgar Squre the following week. 19th Jan

1951. http://flashbak.com/100-years-of-protesting-at-trafalgar-square-part-2-19449> Site accessed

14 July 2017.

Narrative

[Figure 9] Author’s own (2017) Trafalgar Square — Snooper’s Charter — Design Project. [Illustration].

Semiotics and Semantics

[Figure 10] LNP (2017) Organisers say 40,000 protesters are marching in central London to protest

President Trump’s travel ban and planned state visit to the UK. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/

article-4191186/Thousands-protest-Donald-Trump-s-travel-ban-London.html> Site accessed 14 July

2017.

[Figure 11] Author’s own (2017) Facial Recognition Cloak — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 12] World Visits (2012) Trafalgar Square – Travel Guide, London Attraction Place. http://worldvisits.com/2012/11/trafalgar-square-travel-guide-london-attraction-place>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

The London Cycling Campaign: Die In Protest

[Figure 13] Getty Images (2017) Cyclists stage a “die-in” protest in London to raise awareness of

road safety. http://uk.businessinsider.com/self-driving-cars-revolution-cycling-safety-audi-nutonomycities-2016-7>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

[Figure 14] Cycling Weekly (2015) Stop Killing Cyclists have organised a die-in outside TfL’s

headquarters on Friday evening to commemorate the 21 cyclists who have died since November 2013.

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/die-in-to-be-held-outside-tfl-hq-to-protest-cyclingdeaths-201722>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.


Appendix

Semiotic Strategy

[Figure 15] Author’s own (2017) Facial Recognition Cloak— Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 16] Author’s own (2017) Disco — 20 Tactics— Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 17] Author’s own (2017) Masking — 20 Tactics— Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 18] Author’s own (2017) Survey-lance — Design Project. [Illustration].

Network

[Figure 19] Author’s own (2017) Hackney — Six Sites — Design Project. [Illustration].

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and the Ring of Steel

[Figure 20] Harvard Design Magazine (2017) Map of the Ring of Steel, London. http://www.

harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/42/fortress-london-the-new-us-embassy-and-the-rise-of-counterterror-urbanism>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

Rhizomatic Revolution

[Figure 21] Author’s own (2017) GPS Road — Six Collages — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 22] Penguin Classics (2009) Anti-Oedipus. http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

books/305132/anti-oedipus-by-gilles-deleuze-and-felix-guattari/9780143105824> Site accessed 14

July 2017.

[Figure 23] UK Uncut (2017) List your action. http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/list-your-action> Site

accessed 14 July 2017.

Focus E15

[Figure 24] Focus E15 (2015) Social Housing, Not Social Cleansing: Focus E15 Campaign’s Victories.

https://rs21.org.uk/2015/07/30/social-housing-not-social-cleansing-focus-e15-campaigns-victories>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

[Figure 25] Focus E15 (2014) Focus E15 go to Bow County Court and win. http://thelostbyway.

com/2014/10/focus-e15-go-bow-county-court-win.html> Site accessed 14 July 2017.

[Figure 26] Focus E15 (2014) Public meeting for focus E15 campaign on the Carpenters estate 20

October 2014. https://focuse15.org/events> Site accessed 14 July 2017.

Micro and Macro Networks

[Figure 27] Author’s own (2017) Cell Phone Cage — Six Models — Design Project. [Illustration].

[Figure 28] Author’s own (2017) Cell Phone Cage — 20 Tactics — Design Project. [Illustration].

Boundary

[Figure 29] Author’s own (2017) Finance Bank — Six Sites — Design Project. [Illustration].


Activism by Design

Panopticism

[Figure 30] Getty Images (2017) The Geometrical Ascent to the Galleries in the Colosseum, Regent’s

Park, 1829. http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-geometrical-ascent-to-the-galleriesin-the-colosseum-news-photo/463974135>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

[Figure 31] The New York Times (2017) De Koepel prison in Haarlem, the Netherlands, which recently

housed migrants. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/world/europe/netherlands-prisonsshortage.html?mcubz=2>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

Spatial Appropriation

[Figure 32] Author’s own (2017) Mirror — Six Collages — Design Project [Illustration].

[Figure 33] Shoot the Street (2015) Speaker’s Corner, London. https://www.shootthestreet.co.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2016/07/Speakers-Corner-Photos-04-1.jpg.

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

[Figure 34] Margo Leach (2016) Thousands of people turned up at London’s Trafalgar Square for a pro-

EU rally on Tuesday despite organisers calling the event off. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/

pro-eu-rally-at-trafalgar-square-attracts-thousands-despite-event-being-cancelled-due-to-unprecedentedresponse_uk_5772b6c6e4b0220ef54faa0d>

Site accessed 14 July 2017.

British Nail House: Wickham’s Department Store (Case Study)

[Figure 35] Author’s own (2017) Chinese Nail House — Collage — Design Project [Illustration].

[Figure 36] Author’s own (2017) British Nail House — Collage — Design Project [Illustration].

Spatializing Surveillance: Accessibility and Accountability (Design Project)

[Figure 37] Author’s own (2017) GPS Road — 20 Tactics — Design Project [Illustration].

[Figure 38] Author’s own (2017) Body Worn Cameras — 20 Tactics — Design Project [Illustration].

[Figure 39] Author’s own (2017) GPS Park — Six Collages — Design Project [Illustration].

Conclusion

[Figure 40] Author’s own (2017) Cookies — The Snooper’s Charter — Design Project [Illustration].

[Figure 41] Author’s own (2017) Masterplan — The Snooper’s Charter — Design Project [Illustration].


Appendix


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