Introductory description

As Anthony Giddens (1987, p.216) notes, agency “presumes the capability of acting otherwise”. Spatial Agency provides designers with new ways of looking at the production of space and acting with agency for social good. It seeks to shift the design of the built environment away from disciplinary siloes and the patronage of clients, towards a more communitarian paradigm, built on the development of generic design skills.

Weekly activities seek to engage students with the ways that spaces can be understood, building practical skills and thus how spatial agency can be enacted. The aim is to act with transformative intent in a collaborative manner with and on behalf of communities. This can be achieved via activism or pedagogy, publications or tangible design, making stuff or making policy, or something else entirely, but all require an appreciation of how this impacts upon our collective spaces. This will happen via classroom and studio activities, with explorations of space in the real world.

Students will receive a number of pedagogical and dialogical approaches; their engagement with these ideas and practices will be assessed via a reflective portfolio, updated on a weekly basis. Finally, students will work collaboratively to produce a manifesto for spatial agency.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The module will cover a diverse range of approaches including (but not limited to) Space, Place and Agency – From the Poetics of Space to Doreen Massey via Giddens notions of Agency; The Plan – reading maps from topography to demography; Representing Space – skills for plans, buildings and landscape; Experiences of Space – Anthropology and Embodiment; Spatial Knowledge – History and theory of spatial design; Complexity and Contradiction – Heroic and Ordinary Architecture; Sustainable Ethics and Space – human and non-human spaces, with climate literacy; Community Empowerment – The People and Spatial Design, Activism and the Right to the City; Spatialising Data – Dialogical Approaches and Citizen Science and Dissemination – Communicating Space beyond the Classroom

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Recognise, identify and record the scope and complexity of spaces.
• Critically reflect upon the different processes that drive the production of spaces.
• Demonstrate an understanding of how the design and management of spaces can be used to promote the agency of sustainable communities.
• Develop skills and multidisciplinary methods for the evaluation and design of spaces.
• Articulate a tangible pathway for how spatial agency can be practiced.

Indicative reading list

Bachelard, Gaston, and M. Jolas. The Poetics of Space. Penguin Classics, 2014.
Grosz, Elizabeth, et al. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Duke University Press, 2005.
Highmore, Ben. Michel De Certeau: Analysing Culture. Continuum, 2006.
Kriz, Karel, et al. Mapping Different Geographies. Springer, 2010.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Blackwell, 1991.
Lorne, Colin. “Spatial Agency and Practising Architecture beyond Buildings.” Social & Cultural Geography, vol. 18, no. 2, 2017, pp. 268–287.
Massey, Doreen B., et al. Spatial Politics: Essays for Doreen Massey. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.
Smith, Neil. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. University of Georgia Press, 2008.
Thrift, N. J. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2008.
Werner, Marion, et al. Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues. Agenda Publishing, 2018.

Research element

At the basis of the module is the investigation of geographical sites. This will involve formal geographical approaches as well as historical, archival and sociological research.

Interdisciplinary

This module calls on a diverse range of approaches including (but not limited to) architecture, design, sociology, philosophy, politics, anthropology and geography.

International

There will be examination of a range of sites from across the world, alongside research derived from international scholars.

Subject specific skills

Modelling space using CAD design software.
Learning and utilising terminology related to space, planning and architecture.

Transferable skills

Developing understanding of co-design/participatory design practices.
Communication skills (visual, verbal, textual).
Collaborative, group working skills.