Inevitable Domestication of Public Space

 

Hong Kong Bank, Norman Foster

Buildings and spaces in our modern society, through the lense of architecture, strive for order and designation. Each room has a purpose, each corridor leads to somewhere, each space has been convoluted through dimensions, material choices, structure, etc. to where everything has an explanation. This is sort of how it has to be, but a lot of times spaces themselves start having a strict design striving to be overly logical and planned, embodying the dreams of the strategy rather than reality. But by not designing for the mundane discourse of everyday life in a design we allow it to happen. By planning for it, the subject is no longer ordinary but now crosses into the realm of planned, determined, and designated. The domestication of public space, or any space really, by its users is inevitable and can't really be fully designed for and designated to a space.