I Like Space

 After watching Edward Soja’s lecture, it’s clear we need to take a better look at spatial awareness. spatial injustice is real and while we as designers can’t solve every problem with design, we have the power to open the conversation on how to improve. Minority communities constantly get bullied into living in unhealthy areas – whether its areas with higher hazardous waste, water pollution, or air pollution. The COTE 10 semester focusing on communities impacted by highways really opened my eyes to this issue in those communities either get divided or completed destroyed and whoever remains has a higher risk of asthma and other highway-induced health problems. This reminded me of a documentary I saw about the high-line in New York and the mixed-income housing along it. They interviewed people on both ends of the financial spectrum and it was evident that even though the mixed-income housing was helpful, it still brought along discrimination. There were two entrances to the building. The main lobby was extravagantly designed with marble and other luxuries, but the elevator only went to the higher floors of the building (the luxury apartments). The other entrance – located off the main street – did not have such luxuries, was much smaller, and only led to the affordable housing units. While I’m sure (well, hope) the designer was thinking of elevator efficiency with this approach, this door ended up becoming known to the community as the “poor door.” Like I said before – we can’t solve every problem, but we can at least try a little harder.

I like Edward’s thought of space and the environment and how it is much more than just the built environment around us, but it is also how the space is lived in and socially produced. Just because a designer provides public space or immense “community-space” does not mean that the community will actually use it. Edward states, “The city was being shaped by forces beyond the control or even access of a large portion of the population.” We need to see space and environment as a two-way street – we shape our environments and they shape us. Capitalism shapes our environment so, how is that affecting us?