Even as I search for extraterrestrials
we are creatures of space.
 |
The Agora in
400 BCE |
Womb, swaddling clothes, crib, play pen, 'home', garden, neighbourhood, community, village, town, city...
Here on W2tQ cognitive and conceptual space is the focus. Hodges' model provides a space for individual or group reflection. In addition to providing a conceptual space the model can represent our physical spaces, our social spaces - incorporating the various means of denoting relationships be that social network, family - genogram, or community group.
As a unit of 'civilization' there should be civic spaces in villages, towns and cities. This is frequently not a 'civil' space as might be envisaged in the political sense. In contemplating the health of the individual we must also see the group, the citizens and ultimately the global community. If in future individual's must assume greater responsibility for their health, through which space will that responsibility be communicated? Will the channel of choice be the 2nd, or 3rd household TV, the PC-laptop screen; smart phone or merely the Parliamentary debate?
Where is 'public space', where can women and children meet in safety, where can free speech be voiced, be heard? If the presence and stability of public space is not an indicator of 'public health' what is it? What is the impact of policy? When cars are removed from an inner town and the area pedestrianised does a public space follow - the people as they
walk by(e)? Can
philosophy break out of our pubs and into other public spaces?
The following initiative is centered upon only three cities Frankfurt, London and New York, but will hopefully provide some insights:
Theatrum Mundi / The Global Street - is a new urban forum. It seeks to understand what brings life to a city, particularly in its public places and asks how these might be better designed. It brings architects and town planners together with performing and visual artists to reimagine the public spaces of twenty-first century cities.
*and listen.
My source: Heathcote, E., Design.
A breath of fresh air for public spaces. FT Weekend 27-28 October 2012. 4-5.
Image source: http://mkatz.web.wesleyan.edu/grk201/GRK201.Agora.400.html
Many here will find something of interest, I suspect, in the Working Papers series of the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, 
