Informal Territory in Public Space: A private seat in the streets of New York

Problem Statement. Today in the dense city of New York, every square meter is regulated by government. Their top-down method of city planning is driven by money, in which the use of public space has become restricted by an increasing amount of imposing rules. They have caused more barriers between the city and its residents and strongly influenced people’s involvement with their city. Goal. To explore a new design process that can connect research and design, in which the research is based on an investigation of the informal in public space and its potential that is deeply related to the everyday life, in a city where its residents are driven by the global economy. Method description. The starting point for my research is that a city functions on two different forces; the formal, belonging to governmental institutions, and the informal ones, based on the individuals activities. Although government is trying to regulate a city as much as possible, the real value system of a city is reflected in its informal side. The private chair in public space is an element that represents this informal side. It belongs to that part of the city which constitution is based on use. At first sight it might seem an insignificant element, but the fact that a private seat can be found in the streets of New York every 225 meters, shows the opposite. Despite of its small scale, the chair is of great importance in how the city functions. Besides showing courage and some egoism, putting a chair in public is a social gesture. The border between public and private place becomes a zone in which interaction between those two becomes possible. The fact that citizens create this interactive zone shows their affiliation with the city; they want to be a part of it. The private seats on the streets of New York clearly show the quality of its everyday life. With the private seat the inhabitant extends or creates a private territory within public space: a temporal territory containing the flexibility to adjust to people’s activities. To create these territories, each city got its own language. The language of New York is subject of investigation by mapping the chair, using it as a metaphor to get to an architectural level. The mapping concerned the relationship between space and movement and the position of the chair in public space. My method of investigation begins with observation of private seats which are encountered in the city of New York and analyzing their specific location. Through different ways of interpretation, the research provides a strategy for design.