Imprints of the Everyday: Architecture for Incremental Interventions

Abstract

Urban erasure, as a result of tabula rasa redevelopments and the privatization of public spaces within London, are wiping out the idiosyncratic imprints of the city’s inhabitants. Through unfolding the power of ephemeral urbanism, the thesis aims to reimagine alternative concepts of public space in which acts of civic participation can occur, in order to reclaim the city. The notions of the Static and Kinetic City, first conceived of by Mehrotra, serve as a fundamental framing device for this thesis. Intending to extend this theory beyond the adaptive reuse of existing elements, the thesis proposes a series of architectural interfaces to facilitate a unified urbanism, celebrating the strengths of both static and kinetic facets. Allocating space for the production of urban commons, these interfaces allow interventions to plug-in and morph, allowing the public to create an ever-changing fabric of indeterminacy, aiming to improve of the power of the urban experience.