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Transcript of Production of Trialectic Spatiality UCL 2011
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development Word count: 10,021
Josue Robles Caraballo
Development Planning Unit University College London 5 September 2011
ii The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
iii The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
DPU DISSERTATION REPORT DECLARATION OF OWNERSHIP AND COPYRIGHT FORM
All students MUST complete one copy of this form to cover the MSc dissertation report. Please print, sign and date the form and submit it with your dissertation to the Administration Office in the DPU building. If you fail to submit this statement duly signed and dated, your dissertation cannot be accepted for marking. 1. DECLARATION OF COPYRIGHT I confirm that I have read and understood the guidelines on plagiarism produced by DPU and UCL, that I understand the meaning of plagiarism as defined in those guidelines, and that I may be penalised for submitting work that has been plagiarised. Unless not technically possible and with the prior agreement of the Course Director for my MSc programme, the dissertation report must be submitted electronically through TurnitinUK®. I understand that the dissertation cannot be assessed unless both a hard copy and an electronic version of the work are submitted by the deadline stipulated. I declare that all material is entirely my own work except where explicitly, clearly and individually indicated and that all sources used in its preparation and all quotations are clearly cited using a recognised system for referencing and citation. Should this statement prove to be untrue, I recognise the right of the Board of Examiners to recommend disciplinary action in line with UCL's regulations. 2. COPYRIGHT The copyright of the dissertation report remains with me as its author. However, I understand that a copy may be given to my funders (if requested and if appropriate), alongside limited feedback on my academic performance. I also understand that a copy may also be deposited in the UCL E-prints public access repository and copies may be made available to future students for reference. Please write your initials in the box if you DO NOT want this report to be made available publicly either electronically or in hard copy. YOUR NAME: Josue Robles Caraballo MSC PROGRAMME: Building and Urban Design Development SIGNATURE: DATE: 05 September 2011
iv The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
v The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Content List of Images vii
Abstract: The Production of the Trialectic Spatiality ix
1.0 Introduction: Trialectic Spatiality 1
2.0 Thirdspace and Trialectic Being 5
2.1 The Real and the Imagined 6
2.2 Power and Capacity of Use 7
3.0 Literature Review: Community identity & Collectivism 10
3.1 An Individual Ontology within Communality 10
3.2 Community: Singular Identity within Communality 13
3.3 Production of Thirdspace as a Community Stronghold 14
3.4 Active Collectivism 15
3.5 Community and Entities of Power 16
4.0 Precedence: Rendering the Thirdspace 18
4.1 Precedence and Study Cases 19
4.2 Urban Agriculture Organic Center in Habana 20
4.3 Casa Familiar 21
4.4 Inner City Arts (Not Submitted) 23
4.5 Bangkok Community Networks 25
5.0 Conclusion: Thirdspace as a Comprehensive Approach 29
Bibliography and References 31
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vii The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
List of Images 1.0 Introduction: Trialectic Spatiality
1.1 Diagram: Trialectics of Being 2
1.2 Diagram: Trialectics of Spatiality 2
2.0 Thirdspace and Trialectic Being
2.1 Photograph: Public space, down in San Francisco's Mission district. 7 2.2 Photograph: Wisconsin, demonstrating against a proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights. 9
3.0 Literature Review: Community identity & Collectivism 3.1 Photograph: Floating Market, Thailand 10
4.0 Precedence: Rendering the Thirdspace
4.1 Photograph: Havana resident transporting bananas 19
4.2 Photograph: Urban agriculture organic center 20
4.3 Photograph: Urban agriculture organic center 20
4.4 Rendering: Casa Familiar, Possible Design Implementation 21
4.5 Rendering: Casa Familiar, Possible Design Implementation 22
4.6 Rendering: Casa Familiar, Community Kitchen 23
4.7 Rendering: Casa Familiar, Design Typologies 23
4.8 Photograph: Inner-City Arts 23
4.9 Photograph: Inner-City Arts, Multipurpose Courtyard 24
4.10 Photograph: Inner-City Arts. Center 24
4.11 Photograph: Inner-City Arts. 24
4.12 Photograph: Development Workshop 25
4.13 Photograph: Development Workshop 26
4.14 Photograph: Bang Poo Community 26
4.15 Photograph: BMP Design Proposal 27
4.16 Photograph: BMP Housing Project 27
5.0 Conclusion: Title
5.1 Photograph: Inner-City Arts, Arts Program 29
viii The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
ix The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Abstracts The Production of the Trialectic Spatiality
“We are first and always historical-social-spatial beings, actively participating individually and collectively in the construction/ production – the becoming – of histories, geographies, societies” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 73).
The ontology of spatial use is only but a product of the
user’s position within an array of socio-cultural forces. The
state of those forces according to the Lefebvre and Soja lies
within parallel flux of space, history and societal continuum.
This tri-partita condition was referred by Soja as the
thirdspace. Us as trialectic beings are often reduced to the
relationships of History and Societal conditions, and space is
often but a container or a threshold of activities (Soja E. ,
1996). Therefore, neglecting to understand that ones
perspective of history, society and space are in constant
interactive state, continuously sculpting each other. It is
therefore that one’s relationship with any given built spaces
is the reaction to these 3 conditions, not one or the other
but all of them constantly responsive to one another. Within
the continuum of this tri-partita understanding, space can
be engaged in a manner that is more comprehensive of the
user needs and how the users can potentially be affected.
Thus, awakening the need of appropriate delivery of built-
form and preventing potential neglect of particular users or
groups.
With that in mind, this effort will render the
conditions and the forces within the capacity of use of the
built-form through the trialectic spatial scope. Discussing
the allegory of discourses and ideas behind the
understanding and manifestation of the user. Subsequently
this critical depiction, illustrates cases or circumstances that
x The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
render built interventions that correspondingly empower
users at one or many levels. Epitomizing means of
architectural and spatial vehicles that empowerment both
the individual and the collectivity. Generating the thirdspace
as a place of individual/communal or collective resistance.
Providing options while challenging current socio-spatial
oppressions.
1 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Introduction
In 1989 Ray Oldenburg in his book The
Great Good Place, he refer to the thirdspace
as a place that was neither ones home or
place of work, but all those secondary and
supportive spaces within the community that
were complementary and often the means of
communal identity (Oldenburg, The Great
Good Place, 1989). Oldenburg emphasized the
importance of these built spaces of communal
congregation as means to facilitated social
engagement. These informal places of
gathering can allow a continuum in the spatial
engagement. Nonetheless, Oldenburg over
simplify the socio-cultural implication
entwined within the capacity of spatial use.
Along with the socio-cultural genealogy of
space, the experience and relationships
constantly engaged a series external and
internal forces.
In 1996 Edward Soja , departing from
the allegory of ideas from Lefebvre, Bhabha,
Spivak and Hooks, generated a discourse that
presented the thirdspace as a “three-sided
sensibility of spatiality-historicality-sociality”
nature. Unlike Oldenburg, Soja focuses not
only on the built manifestation but in the
parallel perception of the tangible and
intangible forces within space. Thus,
accentuating the user’s individual perception
of the built form as a product of space, history
and society (Soja E. , 1996). “Thirspace: The
space where all places are, capable of being
seen from every angle, each standing clear;
but also secret and conjectured object, filled
with illusions and allusions, a space that is not
common to all of us yet never able to be
completely seen and understood” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 56). It’s the individual and communal
space of harvesting and generating the ideas
in wish the ideas of fulfillment and resistance
take place.
The thirdspace is the only and actual space.
The threshold of opportunity generated by
the thirdspace its where all forces and societal
implications are concurrently synergized. The
thirdspace its where all conditions both real
and unreal, simultaneously gel into the
individual perspective. Therefore, awakening
the necessity to understand the holistic
2 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
complex tissue that renders ones being.
Because only when the complex tissue of the
individual its contextualized a fitting delivery
of space and place can take place. The
thirdspace “it’s a crude picture of the nature
of societal being, of human existence, and
also of the search for practical knowledge and
understanding (Soja E. , 1996, p. 70). The
thirdspace is where ones practical information
of being it’s pragmatized by ones relationship
with Historicality-Spatiality-Sociality (Soja E. ,
1996).
1.1 Diagram: Trialectics of Being. The historicality-spatiality-sociality. By Soja, 1996.
Soja states that the foundation of the
trialectic spatiality lies within the sensorial
core of simultaneous cultural spatial
acknowledgement based on all experiences
that we have lived, perceived and conceived.
The trialectics of spatiality including both real
and imagine conditions and experiences. The
trialectics of spatiality uses the parallelism of
the ream and the imagined to open an spatial
language that rationalizes ones interpretation
of a place. To elaborate in the simultaneous
acknowledgment we can think of Juan Luis
Borges novel, The Aleph, were he personifies
the experience of the real and the imagined
as way to understand the continuum of
spatial cognition. Thus, provoking and
emphasizing the importance of the ones
capacity to relate and experience the space
where all forces exist simultaneously (Borges
& Hurley, 2000). It is therefore, how to built
tangible elements influenced the use as now
tangible elements like social strata, religion or
beliefs. As the individual relative perception
of space expands thorough the intervals of
the non-tangible and the tangible, one most
utilize the perception of space as means to
empowerment users as the space becomes a
societal tool.
1.2 Diagram Trialectics of Spatiality. The lived-perceived-conceived. By Soja,1996.
This perception of empowerment
illustrates the importance of flexible
communal spaces that allow them to conduct
and manifest their aspirations, while engaging
the collective paradigm. Thus, developing the
individual-communal capacity within “a space
of collective resistance” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 35).
The discourse of use and manifestation
generates the question, of how do we identify
and represent space and its relationships
between individual/community, use and
3 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
social-cultural imposition. It is therefore, that
the thirdspace’s spatiality-historicality-
sociality sets in motion the trialectics of being.
Nonetheless, the individual as a being can also
take part of a collective effort as ones
conditions might allows. From the standpoint
of an individual or a community, more than
just built-form utilized for congregation it’s
required to be empower or disempowered. As
Soja reiterates, the importance of scale and
its spatial implications, as the collective sum
of individual perspectives that translates into
a communal forces within me experience of
thirspace.
The thirdspace is a user subjective
condition that it’s used as a space of
resistance at many levels and circumstances.
As means to illustrate the complex
manifestation of resistance within thirdspace
one must explore a diverse array of study
cases. This effort will utilize cases that best
showcase the individual and communal
threshold of socio-cultural spatial resistance.
Additional to illustration the particularities of
the socio-cultural resistance, the cases will
illustrates how the capacity within the
threshold of resistance allowed the user to
fulfill their needs, as both an individual and a
community. Depicting, factor such as socio-
cultural of forces, difference in scale, built
form, education and economical strata. The
analysis will use projects in Havana, California
and Bangkok as means to contextualize the
different cultural ethos of the trialectics of
spatiality and more important how theses
conditions created a route of social
betterment for both the individual and the
community. In many cases generating a social
capital that ensures or at the least induces
future generations to have a greater range of
option and faculties of development.
In an effort to render and valuate the
threshold of maneuver within thirspace one
has to allow and create future sensibilities in
the development of socio-spatial
engagement. This effort will illustrate a
number of cases to highlight a common line
within the different levels of resistance
throughout the threshold generated within
the thirdspace. The threshold enables “the
individual to have choices is the best way of
realizing freedom in the contemporary
society” (Kahatt & Leguia, 2011, p. 23).
Reiterating that the production of Trialectic
Spatiality its only but a state of awareness of
the pulsating polyphony of forces and
conditions that are a part of the individual
conditions as a product of past experiences. In
an effort to gain ground, its crucial to identify
how this individual cognition is then the
catalyst to design spaces of empowerment.
The value of this effort grounds itself
on the understanding of the socio-cultural
forces and particularities of any giving
situation, then establishing the current
capacities and obstacle respective to the case
for the betterment within disadvantaged
groups. The method and delivery for the
4 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
betterment of ones trialectic spatiality can
only be established by the particularities of
the case at hand and groups being affected.
Thus, not limiting the effort to policy, built
form, and or finances. As Soja states, the
delivery and understanding of an appropriate
engagement its based in a cross-disciplinary
approach (Soja E. , 1996). It is therefore, that
the trialectic spatiality betterment as a
product of the acknowledgement could
encompass more than just a specific
professional discipline. As it can tackle a
number of conditions within an specific
context.
The thirdspace and the trialectic
spatiality opens the discussion of how and the
nature in which one can generate a space to
facilitate the everyday capacity of use. Initially
by acknowledging that the contextualization
ones position and relationship. Moreover, its
only because of the historicality-spatiality-
sociality experiential filters that the delivery
has to be a cross-disciplinary approach that
can best tackle the synergy of the trialectic
beings. “We are first and always historical-
social-spatial beings, actively participating
individually and collectively in the
construction/ production – the becoming – of
histories, geographies, societies” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 73). Thus, rendering the future
spatial application and how they empower
their users, whether this is thorough
opportunities and choices within policy, space
or knowledge.
5 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Soja’s idea of the thirdspace roots
itself in the experience of place as a
continuous and parallel perception of space,
history and culture, in relationship to past
experiences. However it’s fair to say that you
can not mention Soja’s thirdspace with our
mentioning the individuals that he built this
idea upon, primordially Lefebvre. Sojas idea of
the thirdspace its greatly founded on Lefebvre
idea of spatial thriding. Introduced in mainly
in his book the production of space in 1974
(Lefebvre, 1991). These spatial thriding
provides a more insightful cognition of one’s
capacity to use space. Illustrating the
individual and communal allegory within the
experience of space and the built form. In
other words, the thirdspace encompasses
“every life, every event, every activity we
engage in is usually unquestionably assumed
to have a pertinent and revealing historical
and social development” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 2).
The thirdspace can allow spatial
practitioners to identify disadvantage groups
and how they stand within their socio-cultural
position. The threshold on the different
groups perspective is illustrated by Spivak
discourse on the subalterns as a social group
that the reason the voice of many groups
can’t be heard it’s not the product of lack of
knowledge or will, its due to the socio-cultural
forces that muffle their voices. Thus, one
trialectic’s reality most levels the experiential
plane field as one that everyone can use, one
that constantly transform itself to
accommodate for different users and groups.
Thus, addressing a great number of
professional disciplines.
As the thirdspace or the trialectic
spatiality acknowledges the numerous layers
engaged by the users of space calls for the
need of a “trans-disciplinary scope” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 3). Acknowledging, that the
production of space it’s not a derivative of
cartographers, urbanists, architects or
exclusive to any other professional discipline,
but a multi disciplinary scope and
denomination. The scope of the thirdspace
focuses on the individual subjective threshold
of social capacity, therefore, engaging several
disciplines. A cross-disciplinary scope that can
6 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
appropriately formulate a way of action,
sculpting a spatial threshold for communal
interaction and betterment. This threshold
illustrates the opportunities and capacity
within the use of space. Identifying the
thirdspace, as both a place of resistance and
“social trajectory of development” (Coleman,
1988, p. S95). Thus, the cross-diciplinary
synthesis of delivery of space can produce a
fitted solution to space without neglecting
conditions or opportunities.
2.1 The Real and the Imagined
Considering the levels experienced within
the constituents of everyday spatiality. Socio-
cultural impositions are a language in
avertedly used by ones cognition of spatiality.
Lefebvre believed that the perception and
understanding of space is a product of the
“thirding of his own longstanding interest in
the dialectic of the lived and the conceived,
the ‘real’ and the ‘imagined’, the material
world and our thoughts about it” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 61). It is therefore, that one has to
draw equal value to the built-form and what
does it imply or relates too. An appropriate
space for one user could manifest something
polar opposite to another. Rendering the
simultaneous cognition of the tangible and
intangible equally important, as they feed
from each other (Soja E. , 1996; Lefebvre,
1991).
The built, the felt and the tangible are
conditions that are engaged by all users of the
built space, and therefore, space is
subjectively interpreted through our
individual subjective scopes, as illustrated by
Borge, previously discussed. “Social space
takes on two different qualities. It serves both
as a separable field, distinguishable from
physical and mental space and also as an
approximation for an all-encompassing made
of spatial thinking” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 62). The
particular instances of self or societal
governed forces are only a product on
continual forces in space and policy. The
empirical methods of individual spatial
cognition rely on the parallel continuum of
one’s ability to manifest and pursue ones
individual and collective objectives. The
dimensions of “social space comes to be scan
entirely as a mental space, an ‘encrypted
reality’ that is decipherable in thoughts and
utterances, speech and writing, in literature
and language, in discourse and text , in logical
and epistemological ideation. Reality is
confined to thoughts and things” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 63). It is therefore, that one’s
perception of space is a constant
reinterpretation of the physical while
simultaneously assimilating non-tangible
forces, such as past experiences, policies in
use and or social strata.
As the levels of needs are respective to
the scale and the scope of the users within a
community, thus, the trialectic spatiality is to
link and correspond to the respective fields of
resistance. “Everything comes together in
7 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Thirdspace: subjectively and objectivity, the
abstract and the concrete, the abstract and
the concrete, the real and the imagined…
,everyday life and unending history” (Soja E. ,
1996, p. 56). As the imagined along with
physicality becomes a constant perception of
space the imagined or the ideas that one’s has
in regards to space can empower or oppress
the users. Communal empowerment roots
within the particular stronghold that provides
the community and the individual their
identity. An identity heavily lies as a series of
occurrences, time or history. The ethos of
ones identity can also be identified by
acknowledging ones trialectic spatiality.
Identity and space are one of the cultural
elements that conglomerates individual in to
a social group. Many times positioning the
individual within a privileged position. On the
other hand, identity as a product of race,
gender or creed can be the means of social
marginalization (Madanipour, 2006; Hooks,
1984). Thereby, spatial identity is also a social
means of contestation that has to be
considered when designing and producing
space, as means to stand and integration with
the many social groups.
2.2 Power and Capacity of Use
“Power its both a positive and a negative,
it both liberates and oppresses” (Dovey K. ,
2008, p. 10).
Within the individual positioning in the
numerous social ideal stratum, one most
acknowledge the dualism of the individual
and the communal experience as a collective
and continues state of spatial resistance. The
dualism of singular and communal are all too
different in scale, nonetheless, one is a in
fractal product of the other. The composition
and therefore the necessities of each
community are respective and particular to its
own conditions. The faculties of spatial
appropriateness it’s rooted by the users
longing. The appropriation of space is a
construct of relationship of entities of power.
These power entities take place apart from
the resident’s needs, the communal use or
collective of or within communities (Dovey K. ,
2008).
2.1 Photograpg: A public space, down in San Francisco's Mission district. By Robby Virus, 2009.
One cannot talk about societal power
without addressing marginalized groups. As is
within does group that an intent of
empowerment is particularly needed. Hooks,
Mandanipour, Cornel state that marginalized
groups have used whatever space they have
8 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
access to exercise their resistance to their
oppression from force. Hooks illustrates how
homes for female african-american become a
sanctuary of personal resistance, as their
capacities to use other spaces are limited.
Thereby, that power contestation of new
spatial development can help leveling the
plain field for marginalized groups. Space
becoming a tool of contestation against forces
for all engaged groups.
In the challenges posed by the great
number of power figures and entities we most
highlight the concern in which this entities
could disempowered and marginalize many
groups and or sector of society (Madanipour,
2006). The agenda of this power forces
translate into the built-form in a great
number of ways. Impositions of power to the
built-form vary from a fence, a wall or
something as simple as a price tag. Forces in
many way are inviting as means to achieve
their agenda but in many cases its only
reflected as a boundary between social
groups, often depriving them from option and
a capacity to achieve their wants and needs
(Putnam, The Prosperous Community, 1993;
Dovey K. , 2008; Cruz, 1999; Madanipour,
Social Exclusion and Space, 2007). It is
therefore, that one most identify the
individual capacity to manifest it needs and
wants with the continuous contestation and
divisions generated by socio-cultural forces.
Within divisions and contestation of will,
the power struggle of social entities can
become a social capital, vehicle of socio
cultural spatial enablement. However, the
individual can also use its community or social
collectives as means to amplify its individual
voice. “Social capital inheres as a form of
supportive trust in social relations or
networks of family, friends, clubs, school,
community and society. It differs from cultural
capital by being collective rather than
individual; if you leave the group you lose the
capital” (Dovey K. , 2008, p. 40). It is
therefore, that the social capital aught to be a
product of public issues, gaining ground by
generating solutions for the communally,
apart from the patronage of power conditions
(Putnam, The Prosperous Community, 1993).
Thus, the individuality or individual fulfillment
can best echo his or her demands and needs
as a member of a community or a collective.
Shifting the segregating or marginalizing
forces from power figures to the communal
subjects (Cruz, 2011; Putnam, The Prosperous
Community, 1993; Madanipour, Social
Exclusion and Space, 2007).
The individual and collective
manifestation is constantly linked with space,
but not only a product of the built form.
“Power is not lodge inertly in built form.
Forces, coercion, manipulation, seduction and
authority are forms of everyday practice
which are inevitably mediated by built form”
(Dovey K. , 2008, p. 17). However, the built
space and its delivery becomes a platform for
9 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
old and new socio-cultural constituents of
struggle.
2.2 Photograph: Wisconsin, demonstrating against a proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights. By Getty Images, 2011.
“Power is specialized in the sense that all
agency is situated in time/space ‘locales’ –
kitchens, board meetings, cities,
neighborhoods, lectures and clubs. Locales
are akin to places inasmuch as they are
meaningful center of everyday life” (Dovey K.
, 2008, p. 20). Thus, spatial powers most
reflect a constant appropriation of the
individual and communal as means to grant
users the capacity to efficiently engage their
endeavors. A continues capacity to engage
and fulfill everyday endeavors can induce a
system of social capital (Putnam, The
Prosperous Community, 1993). As it sets on a
platform that could induce a continues
empowerment even for future users. Users of
both the built-form or the system that take
place within space.
As all the built-form will engage with all
user according to their respective trialectic
beings, the delivery of the space most be
shaped as a socio-cultural enabler. Taking in
consideration the implications and the forces
that it can render for a particular group. This
is while maximizing the amount of
opportunities that it can provide and the
projection of power created. It is therefore,
that the power creates the “links between
space and knowledge, power, and cultural
politics must be seen as both oppressive and
enabling filled not only with authoritarian
perils but also with possibilities for
community, resistance and emancipation”
(Soja E. , 1996, p. 87). The spatial power is
contextualized to the multisidedness of
options required by one and all users.
10 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
The thirdspace directly enjoins all
actors and elements involved, displaying a
way to engage development projects by
addressing the specifics and the many entities
of power. Posing the need to identify the
different the levels of individual positioning,
as both a member of a community and as a
member of a collective (Soja E. , 1996;
Carpenter, Daniere, & Takahashi, 2004). The
levels of affluent action within a community
or a collective translate to different option in
the negotiation with power structures. It is
therefore, that as trialectic beings we most
address the power structures and how they
manifest and potential affect the community
and how the collectivity can counterpart
societal forces. With that in hand, one most
also acknowledge the communal and the
collective implications as means of identity,
and what that identity reflects. The socio-
cultural identity is in constant retrofitting of
the individual perception of space. This part
of this the production of the trialectic
spatiality will focus on the dichotomies of the
communal versus the collective and how this
translates to the individual’s notion of
identity.
3.1 An Individual Ontology within Commonality
3.1 Photograph: Floating Market, Thailand. By Russ Bowling, 2004.
“The telling of the individual story and the individual experience cannot but ultimately involve the whole laborious telling of the collectivity itself” (Bhabha H. K., Nation and Narration, 1990, p. 292).
The understanding of becoming of
community is but a conglomeration of
individual perceptions and perspective. The
11 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
binaries of singular collectiveness translate
into the particular ethos of any given
community. One “cannot entirely endorse this
insistence on the determinative vigor and full
autonomy…, for practical exigencies will not
allow such endorsement to the privilege
subaltern consciousness. …a definition of the
people (that place of that essence) that can
be only an identity-in-differential” (Spivak,
1988, p. 284). Spivak elaborates onto the
ideas that the spatial flux occurs in relation to
the individual particularities, such as gender,
age and social strata. Thus, situating a shifting
balance between knowledge and the
individual capacity and the nature in which
they disseminate their voice. “perhaps it is no
more than to ask that the subtext of the
palimpsest narrative of be recognized as
‘subjugated knowledge’, ‘a whole set of
knowledge’s that have been disqualified as
inadequate to their task or insufficiently
elaborated: naïve knowledge’s, located low
down on the hierarchy, beneath the required
level of cognition or scientify” (Spivak, 1988,
p. 25). Thus, the willingness of an individual or
a community is not always up to par with its
disposition. For example, Putnam illustrates
how the business and community of the
Tuscan states in Italy have utilized collective
action as a way to achieve their needs in
concord with their civil needs and not market
demands (Putnam, 1993). The voice of the
marginalized groups can be subjugated as well
as well as their capacity. Thus, collective
exercise of power is needed by the individual
and the community to persuade or work
around imposing social obstructions. Thereby,
in the development and creation of thirdspace
the capacity along with will most be equally
earnest.
The notion of the subjugated
knowledge does not suggest that particular
groups are more or less capable, it only states
that the socio-cultural forces within a given
time can muffle particular groups differently
at different historic periods. Spivak states and
“often been taken out of context to mean
that socially and economically subordinate
cannot act or speak because they are
excluded from a cultural and political
representation. Instead of simply repeating
the exclusion of economically and socially
subordinate groups from the dominant
nationalist history“ (Morton, 1997, p. 10). In
her discourse in regarding to the subaltern
Spivak illustrates the how can communal
despotic forces transcend and shape the
individualism. What most be accentuated
within the discourse in relationship to the
trialectic being, its that the individual aught to
be able to have the capacity to have its voice
heard, individually or as a member of a
collective. Individualism also shapes and
transcend into the collective community. With
this token at hand, Spivak generates the
question of, how can one manifest as an
individual within the communal forces?
12 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
“Taken as a whole and in the abstract the uneven character of the regional economic and social developments, differed from area to area. The same class or element which was dominant in one area …could be among the dominated in another. This could and did create many ambiguities and contradictions in attitudes and alliances, especially among the lowest strata” (Spivak, 1988, p. 284).
The construct of power and position is
always shifting in relation to the context its
compared. The level of afluency of a group
can change in relationship to the local and
context. In order to address the singular, the
individual, one needs to understand its
relationship to the collective force. Not by
surpassing the communal forces that are in
fact the individuals but allowing for avenues
for the individual to flux within a collective,
while preserving their voice and identity. As
the collective becomes an extension to the
individuals’ capacity.
The singular positioning often dictates
the level and the nature of the participation,
exposure and particularity of the communal
socio-cultural exchange. As the individual and
the community are often empowered
accordingly to the respective level in society
apart from its capabilities. It’s all too often
that space and “place making is inherently
elite practice” (Dovey K. , 2008). For that
reason, marginalizing or subjugated most be
able to utilize space to bridge that level of
afluency and their power demands.
“The exercise of power through
discourse, demands an articulation becomes
crucial if it is held that the body is always
simultaneously (if conflictually) inscribed in
both the economy of pleasure and desire and
the economy of discourse, domination of
power.” (Bhabha H. , 1994, p. 96). Power is
pulsating unfixed allegory that constantly
conditions the spatial manifestation as a
member of a wider community. It is
therefore, “to suggest, however, that there is
a theoretical space and a political place for
such an articulation – in the sense in which
that word itself denies an ‘original’ identity or
a ‘singularity’ to objects of difference”
(Bhabha H. , 1994, p. 96). The transient notion
of singularity catalyzes the inscriptive
dimension of informal socio-spatial capacity.
The political space constrains the behavior of
the built-form and spatiality.
The preconditioning of the communal
dimension of usage and the possible gradients
of formalities in the spatial context affects
both the Individual and communal perception
of identity. “To formulate …the complex
strategies of cultural identification and
discursive address that function in the name
of ‘the people’ on ‘the nation’ and make them
the immanent subjects and objects of a range
of social and literary narratives. My emphasis
on the temporal dimension in the inscription
of these political entities – that are also
potent symbolic and affective source of
cultural identity” (Bhabha H. K., Nation and
Narration, 1990, p. 292). As a practitioner one
most simultaneously consider the individual
idiosyncrasy in parallel the communal
13 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
binaries, as both individual and community
experiences are part of the same spatial
aggregate. Thus, surfacing the importance
and the crucial role of how space can be use
in relationship to ones social identity and the
implications of the individual to the social
group.
The spatial aggregate is not but an
idea of individual collectivism as members of
a community. To habituate as a community
space has to capitalize on the diversity and
the demand for the susceptible flexibility.
“This creative spatialization involves more
than wrapping texts in appealing spatial
metaphors. It is vital discursive turn that both
contextualize the new cultural politics and
facilitates its conceptual re-visioning around
the empowerment of multiplicity, the
construction of combinatorial” (Soja E. , 1996,
p. 93). Willingly and constantly the
community and space most morph to
accommodate and induce a bond of
multiplicity as a product of the communal
behavior and best interest. Soja additionally
described the third space utilizing Hook’s
ideas, for example “a powerful revisioning not
only of the cultural politics of differences but
also of our conceptualization of human
geographies, of what we mean by the politics
of location and geohistorically uneven
development, of how we creatively combine
spatial metaphor and spatial materiality in an
assertively spatial praxis” (Soja E. , 1996, p.
97). Soja’s ontological generality situates
space within a context of time and place.
Thus, engaging in the active discourse of
localize approaches and that one size does
not fit all. Space and built-form is a radical
construct of spatiality, historicality and
sociality that forms the human notion nature
of existence.
3.2 Community: Thrialectic Identity within Communality
The human notion of existence
constantly polarizes forces by the collective
scale. Although an individual, a community or
a collective can be engaging a common
condition all would react differently, as the
scale can provide different levels of range.
The dimensions of the socio-cultural
measures that affect a given community are
practically rooted to a given local. However,
members of a community can have different
objectives. Unlike communities, collectives
are an assembly of members or entities with a
common believe or objective. Nonetheless,
the individual cognition is a subjective part of
the community and the collective.
The individual is usually affiliated with
a particular local, but can chose to be a part of
a collective of regard. “A personal project
which is symbolic and related to a collective
project, such as participation in a social
movement, is more likely to be authentic than
the two kinds just described” (Etzioni, 1968, p.
649). The relationship of social forces dictate
and shape the nature of the individual and
communal manifestation. In regards to space
14 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
of production, “field of cultural production
are generally structured in a manner which
sustains the authority of those who already
possess it” (Dovey K. , 2008, p. 41). The
correlation of groups of different scale or
interest requires an assessment of
particularities as means to have enough
power to compete with the social forces at
hand. The structured nature of a collective,
takes shape as a consequence of the
collective wants, needs or vision. This
common vision becomes an instrument of
reverberation of the individual voices. As part
of a larger voice within a collective, reaching
where the individual could not.
“The more prescriptive character of
their control processes is evident both in the
more encompassing and more intensive
relations between the state (and the society)
and the individual citizen and in the more
specific control of the collectivities and
organizations by the societal-wide political
over layer” (Etzioni, 1968, p. 443). Collectives
can pin point strategies as the scope and
effort are channeled by similar or a definitive
approach, philosophy or ideology. The
individual and the communal as a member of
a collective conjunction can employ different
means to improve the sustainability and well
being.
“The collectivities as meaningful societal units and exploring the consensus-formation among them; collectivities are the starting point rather than the individual member of society. Moreover, it should be noted that the relations among the collectives are not
completely given: thus, more encompassing units can be formed through society-wide consensus-building process. The collectivities are by virtue of their positions in a stratification structure, related to each other, and this structure limits both the need and the capacity to build consensus. We now explore these more encompassing relations, shifting our frame of reference from that of a collectivity (and its sub-units) to that of a society (and its components)” (Etzioni, 1968, p. 440).
The forces, visions, and needs within
a community are not homogenous, unlike the
common vision of a collective. It is therefore,
that the space and built-form most be able to
constantly shift as means to accommodate to
different particularities. Social spatiality
thirding for both the individual and
communities can operate as machinery with
several moving parts or components as an
active collective. Thus, constantly adapting,
changing in effort, scope or scale. Thus, being
capable to socially adapt to social forces for
the betterment of the individual/community
within a collective.
3.3 Production of Thirdspace as a Community Stronghold
The account of space goes beyond the
utilitarian capacity of use, it’s a place where
the individual can manifest his or her will and
become a member of a community. However,
is within the simple use of space than identity
can take place. Thus, in the reflection of
Spavik, Bhabha and Soja’s perspectives the
collective notion needs to be reflected by the
built-form as “a space of collective resistance”
(Soja E. , 1996, p. 35). “There is a growing
15 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
awareness of the simultaneity and interwoven
complexity of the social, the historical, and
the spatial, the inseparability and
interdependence. Soja’s theoretical praxis
directly encompasses a relation to all spatial
related practitioners as it connects and
engages spatial condition at a local level.
The Third-space within a community
is to represent and allow the nature of the
native ethos. In the communal capitalization
of spaces, that the conduciveness and
accessibility of the spatial use most act as a
tool and not as an obstacle for community
members. “Take enablement to mean the
ability or willingness to provide the means
with which to open doors and create
opportunities in order to build livelihood,
reduce vulnerability and sustain development.
With community enablement, to focus clearly
on the people and on building their capacity”
(Hamdi, 2010, p. 147). To reengage with the
ideas that we have previously discussed the
individual enablement is synonymous to the
community itself, It is therefore, that planning
and conveyance of the built-form is not but a
product of the collective delivery.
3.4 Active Collectivism
When depicting the meaning of
community in space, one most depict the
active nature of the current paradigm and
more important how the community wants to
render itself as a solidarian active member of
a collective. “Shifting balance between
constantly competing levels, between the
freedom and rights of individuals and the
order of collective responsibility, between
large-scale organizations and small ones”
(Hamdi, 2001, p. xviii). In the flux of the built
cognition, one can “seek to build architecture
of possibilities in the broadest sense of the
term and give this shape, spatiality and
organizationally” (Hamdi, 2001, p. 73).The
potentiality of the community is directly
intertwined with the spatial capabilities of its
individual’s private spaces in relationship with
communal built-spaces.
The public communal spaces, or lack
off, become an extension of the private space.
Thus, the public spatialness becomes an
active part of the community member’s
individual realm. Communal spaces are of
such that acknowledges the difference with
the community want and still takes place,
allowing the different views and needs to be
fulfilled. The built-environment, is to become
a granting vehicle towards the development
of the community. Thus, space roots itself in
its capacity to morph for constant
reappropriation.
“The density of life and commerce which clusters around places where buses stop. People will gather and wait for substantial periods of time and so, often and in small steps, small shops and coffee houses will open to serve them, shoeshine boys and other street hawkers will appear. At first, a small market emerges: cheaply, spontaneously, incrementally and in response to demand and to circumstance. No-one designed a market place, no-one contrived a center” (Hamdi, 2001, p. 74).
16 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
The determination of the third-space
within a community it’s not of value to the
existence space itself, as an object, the value
of communal and public space corresponds to
the possibilities of its collective faculties. The
design and faculties of communal space can
creatively suggest or induce a future
communal vision. For example, “It takes
imagination to plant the seed of an idea of
community around a bus stops and water
points and to craft these creatively, with
reason, as centers of community life.”
(Hamdi, 2001, p. xx). It is therefore, that the
trialectic spatiality most informs the decision
making for a fitting delivery of the built-form.
This is referring to the importance of
communal spaces for the vitality of the
collective well being of the community. The
collective use of communal space should
allow for new and possible adaptation of
individuals eagerness.
In continuation to the previously
stated case, Hamdi illustrates how a member
of the community adapted and developed a
“networking of markets and people, his
entrepreneurship, his source of information
had, in many ways, enabled him to become a
development practitioner in his own way
right. His organization was emerging and
scaling up” (Hamdi, 2001, p. 76). When
thinking of the trialectic spatiality one cannot
detach from the understanding that
communal spaces are a product of spatiality,
historicality and sociality implications. In
planning and development the object of an
intervention has to address and understand
its role, for example a bus stop, but
additionally all the forces, connections and
aspirations that community members need,
apart from its subjective and architectural
particularities.
3.5 Community and Entities of Power
Within the empirical social
conscription, one becomes a compulsory
entity of reaction to history and culture. As
respectively the “rhetoric of social warfare
rather welfare, a more militant rhetoric
backed by a political calculus that demonizes
the poor in a zero-sum game they cannot
possibly win.“ (Soja E. W., 2001, p. 302). Soja’s
illustrated how Los Angeles in the past two
decades has adopted a location and costumes
driven development of the urban delivery.
Generating “movements and coalitions
consciously cross racial, ethnics, class, and
gender boundaries to mobilize an
intercultural politics of space and place that is
significantly different from a rigidly polarized
politics” (Soja E. W., 2001, p. 303).
Nonetheless, the genealogy of planning and
urbanism can sculpt by those with the most
affluence thus tilting the balance of the
capacity of those with less power to achieve
their needs. The spatial imposition of some
groups is expressed as “a relatively affluent
residential communities sealed behind a
crusty perimeter, fenced off or built within
17 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
walls” (Soja E. W., 2001, p. 306), while the
poor in public developments “are retrofitted
with street barricades and patrolled by police
garrisoned on-site” (Soja E. W., 2001, p. 306).
Socio-economical barrier within the trialectic
spatiality are one of the most disempowering
forces in space, within both private and public
space (Cruz, 2011). Segregating and
preventing unprivileged groups from
achieving their wants and need. This pressing
condition is constantly taking place in a cross-
cultural manner form California to Bangkok.
Nonetheless, there are many cases and
implementations that question and challenge
this socio-cultural barrier, generating and
developing space to provide capacity and
options within space.
18 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Rendering the Thirdspace
History shows us that communities
that were developed synergizing with both
civic and communal conditions are better
responsive to social forces (Carpenter,
Daniere, & Takahashi, 2004; Putnam, The
Prosperous Community, 1993; Cruz, 2011).
The inherent relation between the original
needs and the delivery of the space are
reflected by the possibilities of communal
capitalization within the paradigm. Bhabha,
Mandanipour, Dovey, Putnam and many
others have displayed the importance of
allowing the individuals to engage and
develop opportunities within their current
local. Nonetheless, they also acknowledge
that often many groups are victims of entities
of power, these entities of power usually
sculpt space and form in concord to their
giving agendas (Bhabha H. , 1994;
Madanipour, 2007; Dovey K. , 2008; Putnam,
1993).
Individuals or unprivileged groups
often don’t have the capacity to voice and
compete with imposition marginalizing forces.
It is therefore, that the potential
developments are vehicles that amplify those
unprivileged groups to compete and achieve
there wants and needs. When selecting the
precedence studies for this effort, the main
goal was to display a number of
developments that have overcome social
forces and provided individual and the
communities with opportunities of
betterment, while securing future capacities
of capitalization.
As mention before, the generation
and development of space has to cognate the
communal elements of diverse scales and
wants, while reassuring ways to cultivate their
respective social longevity. Respectively
addressing the legitimacy of the development
of built-form within its conceptuality, apart
from the use or typology. Generating an
understanding on how to deliver space.
Architectural manifestations such as a house,
a school, a park or a simple fence can directly
19 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
generate means of empowerment or the
polar opposite. Thus, we most acknowledge
that the greatest argument it’s not about the
architectural vehicle of delivery but
understanding how those vehicles affect all
potential users (Boonyabancha, 2005).
To make way for such interventions,
the cases selected focused and developed
their solutions in a comprehensive assesment,
considering the historicality, sociality and
spatiality of the engaged interventions. Many
of the cases selected grounded their
intervention as means to challenge the local
forces by providing options within the use and
behavior of space. Thereby all cases share the
advantage of enriching their projects by
working from the ground up (Boonyabancha,
Baan Mankong: going to scale with "slum"
and squatter upgrading in Thailand, 2005).
Created and delivering interventions that act
in response to both local forces and broader
forms of power. Thus, utilizing a cross-
disciplinary method to interplay and empower
the thirdspace.
4.1 Precedence and Study Cases
As Lefebvre and Soja state a trialectic
spatiality entwines social, history and
spatiality. Encompassing culture as a great
influences on the spatial perception. For
example, Cuba has been a product of
paramount changes in this last century. On
both sides of the coin, the political and
cultural transmutation of the individual was
not but a direct connection to the holistic and
communal transformative adaptation. In 1993
marked a new era for the lives of Cubans, as
the lack of a reliable fuel source for their
motorized means of transportation was
identified. “This fuel crisis particularly
affected food production and transformation
all over the island country” (Palleroni, 2004, p.
51). This condition translated itself into a
crucial change of the everyday life of the
individual and the communal. Creating
pressing challenges, such as, transportation
and how one navigates the city. “The prescien
mayor of Havana ordered a million bicycles
from China setting in motion a trend that
would fundamentally changes its citizens’
everyday lives” (Palleroni, 2004, p. 51).
4.1 Havana resident transporting bananas. By Bg Os, 2008.
20 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
The change of navigation from a
vehicular to a pedestrian or the use of non-
motorized transportation exposes resident to
a new array of socio-cultural forces. As many
Cubans migrate from collective motorized
means of transportation onto a individualized
driven flux within the city affects the singular
positioning within the community and its
members. As the disruption of habitual
occurrences generates a more local focus as
distance becomes an obstacle in the capacity
to acquire and manifest ones needs. Thereby,
any development created to help the Cuban
people respond to this energy crisis has to
focus not on the energy but on social systems
that the crisis affected.
4.2 Urban Agriculture Organic Center. Habana, Cuba
Expanding on how the effects of
socio-cultural conditions affecting the
experience of Havana’s residents, one can
further analyze the Cuban response to the
1993 fuel crisis. This crisis became the catalyst
for many cooperative initiatives. One of these
initiatives is the Urban Agriculture Organic
Center in Habana (UAOC). The UAOC is a
collaboration of local and international origin,
the root of the initiative was a response to the
lack of accessibility to products as the lack of
motorized transportation pressed in.
“It became apparent to the Cuban
people that their peoples future lay in the
conservation and relocation of their
agricultural resources for the capital city, this
4.2 Urban Agriculture Organic Center. By Author, 2004.
4.3 Urban Agriculture Organic Center. By Author, 2004.
meant creating a close reliable food source”
(Palleroni, 2004, p. 51). The potential capacity
of the UOAC generated a communal space of
empowerment. It empowers the community
with a capacity to respond to the fuel
shortage crisis by allowing community
members to plant and grow a number of
farming produce at the heart of the city. The
production was not enough to suffice the
food needs of the area, nonetheless,
establishes a precedence of action for other
communities. This capacity manifest as a
fractal exercise, as the individuals became a
empowered as a member of the cooperative
and the cooperative becomes an active link
with other communities. Generating not only
immediate means but a cultural capital as
urban farming is widely used in Cuba
(Palleroni, 2004).
In this case in particular, the trialectic
spatiality reflects the dialectics of social forces
21 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
that strained the community and the
individual to react to these forces. The
spatiality and the nature of UOAC allowed the
individual and community to use the center as
means to mediate with the fuel shortage
crisis.
4.3 Casa Familiar San Ysidro, California
The UAOC in Havana responded in an
specific matter to the energy crisis, addressing
a selected group within the Havana
communities. Nonetheless, the built form by
itself is not a driver of spatial empowerment,
however, it also constantly entwined in the
perception within the trialectic spatiality. It is
therefore, that the nature and the delivery of
the built form most reflect the nature and the
imposition that will generate upon the
community and individual. The following
study case embodies both a fitting
architectural response and an architecture
studio that utilizes design as means of spatial
contestation.
Teddy Cruz has utilized architecture
as means to resist unjust conditions upon
immigrants in the US Mexico border. Estudio
Tedy Cruz “proposes affecting existing
environments thorough shifts in established
infrastructure and policy” (Lepik, 2010, p. 93).
The engagement of this studio in the
generation of spatiality for communities roots
itself within the ontology of the socio-cultural
needs of the groups it’s been design for, In
this case families of Mexican immigrants in
the united states. The project of the “Casa
Familiar at the San Ysidro, California proposed
a solution for Living rooms at the border and
senior housing with children” (Lepik, 2010, p.
93). This project was challenged by the
particularity related to high flux of immigrants
in the area, while providing housing options
for elderly members of the community with
children. The paramount of this effort for
takes on the responsibility to respond to a
constant changing flow of immigrants and the
permanence of the elderly.
4.4 Casa Familiar, Possible Design Implementation. By Author, 2004
In an effort to create an architectural
conversation of the vocabulary of the built
form, “the Architect and Casa Familiar sought
22 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
to invent a system that would resonate with
dense, multiuse, and often illegal
development that has been common in the
area” (Lepik, 2010, p. 93). The production of
trialectic spatiality situates within the
discourse of the individual capacity to
paramount a part of the collective. The spatial
practice “materialized, socially produced,
empirical space is described as perceived
space, directly sensible and open, within
limits, to accurate measurements and
description” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 66). The
dominant pragmatism of the Casa Familiar
echoes the flexibility of communal use by
simple and deliberate moves. “Casa Familiar
orchestrates its many program,
accommodating a wide variety of social,
cultural and commercial functions” (Lepik,
2010, p. 94). Estudio Teddy Cruz utilized
workshops to help and inform the process
development of architectural d responses.
The workshops “discuss and challenge
conception of density, community, communal
spaces and financing with the local residents”
(Lepik, 2010, p. 96). This assisted the delivery
of the Estudio to create and produce an
architectural product and choices for both the
individual and community. The spatial choices
generated by this effort grounded on
information gathered at the participatory
workshops, by the community members
themselves.
“The multisidedness of power and its
relation to a cultural politics of differences
and identity is often simplified into
hegemonic and counter-hegemonic
categories” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 87). The modes
of the socio-cultural figures of imposition, can
engage a communal resistance from the
collective well being. The built form can be a
cultural tool of individual and communal
empowerment and resistance.
4.5 Casa Familiar, Possible Design Implementation. By Author, 2004
The design and planning of the Casa
Familiar utilize parts of the programming,
such as flexible collective kitchens, farmer’s
market, and community living rooms as a
means to enable the respecting individual and
communal activities to occur. “Those who are
territorially subjugated by the working of
hegemonic power have two inherent choices:
either accept their imposed differentiation
and division, making the best of it or mobilize
23 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
to resist, drawing upon their putative
positioning, their assigned otherness” (Soja E.
, 1996, p. 87).
4.6 Rendering: Casa Familiar, Community Kitchen. By Author, 2004.
4.7 Casa Familiar, Design Typologies. By Author, 2004.
Cruz mobilizes the collective need by
employing spatial opportunities and
challenges, of this immigrant community. Not
only providing a flexible housing delivery but
using a direct means of communication to
generate a collective solution.
4.4 Inner-City Arts Los Angeles, California
Along with the Urban Agriculture
Organic Center and Casa Familiar effort’s to
allow communities to stand and resist socio-
cultural forces, the inner-City Arts program at
San Ysidro is also allowing resident to resist
thru power of cultural knowledge. The
program it’s hosted by a scheme designed and
built by Michael Maltazan in 2008.
Nonetheless, the program was originated by
Bob Bates and Irwin Jaeger as a response to
the Proposition 13 passed during late 1970s
that virtually eliminated art programs from
the public education system (Lepik, 2010).
4.8 Photograph: Inner-City Arts. By Lepik, 2010.
24 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
4.9 Photograph: Inner-City Arts, Multipurpose Courtyard. By Lepik, 2010.
4.10 Photograph: Inner-City Arts, Center. By Lepik, 2010
4.11 Photograph: Inner-City Arts. By Lepik, 2010
Apart from the flexible classrooms,
performance and administrative spaces the
programs greatest asset is its capacity to
bridge cultural knowledge enriching to poor
groups of Los Angeles. Nonetheless, the built-
form of this program has evolved from its
humble beginnings, a storage warehouse. The
program grounded its design and
development as means to flexibly host
different activities, to accommodate the
differences of patrons within the local Los
Angeles community. The effectiveness of its
current built facilities and program is based
on the exponential growth that the program
has taken over time. Growing as a direct
relationship of the communal needs. Thus
sculpting the built-form and program to
accommodate the best implementation to
teach and share art and cultural knowledge
(Lepik, 2010). Thus, acknowledging the local
25 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
history, social and spatial elements affecting
the community. The programs organic
approach is a fitting vehicle forms the
development and enrichment of the
communal thialectic spatiality.
This programs stands as Soja would
refer, as a space of resistance (Soja E. , 1996).
The Inner-City Arts acknowledges the state
response to limit the level of arts education
for low income communities, therefore
providing the communities with means to
fulfill the need without compromising their
current condition of lifestyle. Therefore,
fighting and contesting the notion that poor
groups would not receive education at the
level of affluent social groups.
4.5 Bangkok Community Networks Bangkok, Thailand
As the study cases keep respectively
scaling-up, from Havana’s UAOC, to Casa
Familiar, to Inner City Arts, we will showcase
one last scenario that encompasses a system
that addresses the genealogy of the
thirdspace from a local household to a multi-
community network. The socio-cultural
diversity within the city of Bangkok provides a
great opportunity to illustrate conditions of
empowerment throughout the scope within
the trialectic spatiality. Along with several
number of development systems used in the
city, this effort will focus on the synergy of the
Baan Mankong Program.
In 2003 the Thai government created
the Baan Mankong Program (BMP) as means
to channel governmental funds towards the
improvement and the betterment of current
housing conditions of the poorest
communities in the country. The program
paramount’s the importance of a community-
driven development. In doing so, the funds
and energy of the development was focused
on areas that the community saw of higher
urgency. This better informed the programs
delivery as the localize effort was a direct
response to the socio-cultural forces.
Therefore, expanding the threshold of
capacity in the communities within the
generation of the thirdspace.
4.12 Photograph: Development Workshop, Bang Poo Community. By Elian Pena, 2011
The Baan Mankong Program
personified the communities as live organisms
or entities of a particular need and capacities.
Nonetheless, the best way to amplify the
voices of those individual, groups or
communities with little power or capacity it’s
to be a part of a larger collective. Thus,
translating into a collective trialectic spatiality
26 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
of possibility, one that was not able to be
heard or empowered without unifying by a
cause or common interest. Thereby, when
space is created for urban poor communities
one most look at city in its entirety.
Acknowledging that they are not isolated
individual settlements, they have friends and
allies in other communities around the city
who struggle with similar difficulties. This is
how communities start to build a larger
platform for collaboration (Boonyabancha,
2005, p. 11).
4.13 Photograph: Development Workshop, Bang Poo Community. By Elian Pena, 2011
We can view the city as a collective of
overlapping neighborhoods. Research on
communities shows how the perception of
the place it’s perceived in correlation to age
gender, class and ethnicity (Madanipour,
2007; Soja E. , 1996; Lefebvre, 1991). The
understanding of the juxtaposition of
similarities and differences within the number
of communities in the program allow the
program to deliver solutions informed from
within.
The program tackles a great number
of issues affecting the communities. Issues
varying from drains, walkways, toilets and
water supply to more complex issues such as
housing upgrading, relocation, flexible credit
and tenure (Boonyabancha, 2005). It is due to
this diversity of issues addressed by the
program that the methodology of
implementation plays a crucial role in
development.
4.14 Photograph: Bang Poo Community. By Parvathi Nair, 2011
The methodology employed by the
BKP displays a comprehensive holistic
approach of identification of the forces at
27 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
hand. Boonyabancha states that the first step
is to identify the figures of stakeholders in the
situation at hand to render fitting means of
communication among the stake holders.
Secondly, meetings between the engaged
community and the stakeholders take place to
establish a direct and continues link of
information. As a product of this constant
communication between the communities
and the enabling parties fitting delivery takes
place (Boonyabancha, 2005).
4.15 Photograph: BMP Design Proposal. By Noor Al Ghafari, 2011
This feed of information it’s known to
have a great range of stakeholders and
enables. “Several earlier projects by
communities from local and international
NGOs working in Thailand had also shown the
possibilities for improving housing by low-
income communities and networks of
communities themselves” (Boonyabancha,
2005, p. 3). Many communities of Thailand
have had the benefit international support to
assist their quest, only a product of the
constant flow of information. The constant
communication amongst the player can take
advantage of knowledge and assets beyond
the scope of their locality. Generating a
greater pool of assets for the betterment of
the community at hand.
4.16 Photograph: BMP Housing Project. By Noor Al Ghafari, 2011
Apart from a constant information
feed between community members and
enabling stakeholders, the communities need
to establish connection amongst them in
order to attain the level of social voice needed
to get their particular needs achieved. The
collectivity of communities has behaved as a
societal power core for poor communities in
Thailand, facilitating generating a pool of
negotiating avenues with the different
28 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
stakeholders (Carpenter, Daniere, &
Takahashi, 2004; Boonyabancha, 2005). This
community network has had a great level of
success in becoming a strong hold of
resistance for the poor. “The solutions may
be different in each community and region,
but the same culture of collective synthesis
and mutual assistance underlies them all – a
strength which has always existed of necessity
in poor communities, but which the upgrading
process is consciously helping to revive
(Boonyabancha, 2005, p. 12).” The constant
use of collective efforts by the community in
Thailand has set a strong precedence of
success as means resistance and facilitation of
goods in need. Thus, generating a collective
social capital that fosters inter-communal
relationship.
29 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
Thirdspace as a Comprehensive Approach
Every single individual in the planet
perceives space and built-form differently.
Our perspective in regards to space is part of
a three part consciousness, that addresses all
that it tangibles and intangibles. A spatial
conciseness, which is simultaneously
interpreting ones spatial, social and historical
association to space. The thirdspace is a
“three-sided sensibility of spatiality-
historicality-sociality it is not only bringing
about profound change in the ways we think
about space, it is also the beginning to lead to
major revisions in how we study history and
society” (Soja E. , 1996, p. 3) and therefore
the production of space. One cannot generate
the thirdspace, as the notion of the thirdspace
is a comprehensible asset. Thus the
thirdspace it’s an active vehicle that
dramatizes ones relationship to space
generating a pragmatic language that can be
use to design and shape development.
Thereby, assisting in the development
of built and symbolic means within society.
The acknowledgment of spatial users as
thrialectic beings can help design greatly
informed and fitting development. As the
thrialectic spatiality makes the conditions that
affect space tangible, displaying the
professional disciplines required to participate
and how they need to engage with each other
in the design process. (Soja E. , 1996).
Securing betterment and prosperous avenues
for future while addressing the immediate
issues.
To the precise circumstance of our
present movement. It relocates us not in the
past or in the tacitly built environment of the
city, but in the marginality and the
overlapping psychological, social, and cultural
borderlands of contemporary lived space
(Soja E. , 1996, p. 111).
30 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
5.1 Photograph: Inner-City Arts, Arts Program. By Getti Images, 2011
By the cases revised we have
observed as developers have to go further
than just addressing the situation at hand. We
have seen how the projects that were
developed in consultation with the
communities can grow to be community
identity icon. As the project grew from the
community’s disposition and accord.
There could be similarities and that
identify us with other groups that share the
same conditioning. These similarities can also
pose as social barriers from others social
groups or entities of power. As many agenda
driven projects have shown us, one cannot
generalize or identify user in to single groups
as is convenient for some institutions of
power (Madanipour, 2007). One has to
acknowledge the rich complexity of the
trialectic beings to deliver a place of individual
and communal resistance. It is therefore,
space has to address and accommodate the
number of different groups within the
community without disadvantaging any.
Thereby, Formalize and unformalize
regulation and barrier for the betterment of
the individual, the community and the
collective.
Looking forward, in this effort we
have highlighted the elements and social
particularizes that influence ones relationship
to space. To gain ground, we must ensure that
a holistic assessment, such as spatial view of
the 3rd space is use to inform future
development engagement. As Soja stated, the
thridspace illustrates the great number of
forces that presses upon spatial use (Soja E. ,
1996). Therefore, displaying and demystifying
for engagement of separate professional
spatial disciplines. Thereby, accentuating the
need of a cross-disciplinary approach that
could generate spatial responses that are at
the same level as potential individuals-
communities using them.
31 The Production of Trialectic Spatiality | University College London |Development Planning Unit | Josue Robles Caraballo
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