Activating Publicness through Spatial Design: A Comparative Case Study of Stony Island Arts Bank (Chicago, US) and Zuid. Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam, NL).

Introduction

While traditional understanding assumed public space as publicly owned space, public space in contemporary urban spaces has a much wider definition that relies on its experience. In the context of late modernity, the limits between the private and public spheres are continuously shifting (Bauman, 2000). Therefore, any space can become public when increasing its publicness which is defined by the accessibility, management, and inclusiveness dimensions (Li et al., 2022). Since public space quality is to be a key aspect of the urban environment’s quality, the question remains how a better understanding of these publicness dimensions can inform public space design and ultimately improve urban life.

To contribute to better urban environments, public space designs often affect public values such as liveability, belonging or happiness. However, the connection between design strategies and the intended public values behind public space design remains rather implicit. Some buildings, such as SESC Pompéia in Sao Paulo or Kulturhuset in Stockholm, have transformed their communities and served the public for decades while other public spaces do not spark social interaction nor improve inclusiveness. Particularly activating publicness when intervening in existing buildings can pose an extra challenge because of the existing material and immaterial factors such as the building envelope or community involvement.

This study explores how spatial design – bridging architecture, urbanism, media or art – in existing buildings can transform the space’s publicness (Traganou, 2009). The comparative case studies of Stony Island Arts Bank (Chicago, United States) and Zuid. Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) will show some strategies to augment a space’s publicness. The analysis of these strategies within the framework of publicness dimensions by Li et al. (2022) will show some spatial design strategies altering a space’s publicness. Insights into how public space design factors affect publicness and therefore public life could help develop more conscious design approaches to public building design.

Case studies: Introducing Cultural Programs in Existing Public Spaces

“To determine whether a space is public is to examine whether the public interest is recognized and realized in it.” (Li et al., 2022)

In this article, I will explore the design strategies supporting the publicness activation of cultural programs in existing buildings by comparing the cases of Stony Island Arts Bank and Zuid.Boijmans van Beuningen [ 1–2 ]. In both the Chicago and Rotterdam cases new public programs are introduced in existing buildings through adaptive reuse. For both, the potential for change lies in creating small-scale civic centres born from the initiative to get communities in deprived communities in segregated cities closer to art creation. Analysing the spaces through the lens of publicness dimensions – accessibility, management, and inclusiveness– will showcase some design strategies useful for public buildings' adaptive reuse.

Stony Island Arts Bank is a project led by Theaster Gates, a visual artist and urban planner from Chicago. His foundation manages self-developed initiatives to improve cultural public space in the South Side through art and architecture by offering “alternatives to gentrification that support communities rather than evacuate them, through an extended series of site-specific works” (Campbell & Campbell, 2016). In particular, the Stony Island Arts Bank shows how re-purposing a derelict bank office that holds a relevant physical and emotional place in the community by introducing new cultural programs such as an art gallery and archive­ can contribute to public life and change urban narratives. [ 3–4 ]

Zuid.Boijmans van Beuningen is a space from the renowned Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in an underprivileged South Rotterdam neighbourhood. Hosted inside the civic centre De Hillevliet, a former technical high school, it aims to engage local communities in art production. Such an attempt is framed within the “social practises” […]“a collaborative, collective, and participatory social method for bringing about real-world instances of progressive justice, community building, and transformation” (Sholette et al., 2018).

The selected cases present similarities in terms of context, history, scale, and purpose. On the one hand, Chicago and Rotterdam are post-industrial cities with a strong polarization between the north and south sides of their urban area. They are also cities divided by infrastructure and water and have undergone a period of prosperity and reconstruction. Both cases are placed in an underprivileged area – the south– although very close to the border with the “other side”. The spaces aim to stretch the threshold of public life into the south sides. Both Stony Island and Zuid. occupy previously abandoned buildings located in prominent infrastructural locations, free-standing buildings in a busy crossing’s corner. These buildings used to have public functions –bank and school– recent enough in time so that communities still hold memories and narratives of their previous function. Although both buildings have a similar scale to the surrounding buildings and a strong embedment in the urban fabric, the Zuid. case has a larger scale in height and footprint. The latter also shares the building with other institutions in a multifunctional civic centre. The ultimate similar aspect is that their purpose is to approach art and its creation to local communities where such a program is scarce and –eventually– attract visitors from other parts of the city.

Publicness dimension analysis

“In an adaptive reuse […] the disjunction between the function and the form involves reflections on values and meaning, as well as aesthetic, formal, and architectural choices” (Lanz & Pendlebury, 2022).

The two cases will be compared and analysed using the publicness framework to disentangle how space supports publicness: how citizens perceive they can enter, what they can do, and then interact with each other. In the case of Stony Island, the analysis will depart from its built reality, while in Zuid. it will include the speculative design produced by the author. The design propositions presented are part of the Fellowship performed at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen exploring how to lower the threshold for citizens to enter the space.

Accessibility: “what is in there for me?”

The first dimension of spatial publicness is that all can access it. However, accessibility has both physical and perceptive manifestations. First, it starts with visibility: the space must be visible and present a clear entrance, both in physical space and in the immaterial public sphere. In other words, citizens must know that it exists and that they can enter it and, once approaching the space, the material reality must accompany the such process. Public space accessibility is a liminal process that facilitates the transition from private individuals to engaging in the public space where liminality is a rite of passage between two states of being (Turner, 1969).

Introducing new art programs in communities where the public is not accustomed to them, demands special attention to the perceptive dimension of accessibility. To be able to access it, citizens must perceive that they are welcome through the public sphere (immaterial) and public space (material). In Zuid. outdoor signage and pop-up performances reinforce accessibility by clarifying its openness to visitors [ 5 ]. In Stony Island, the space is only open to visitors during specific times so they must be informed about activities beforehand.

Paradoxically, in both cases, the monumentality of the building hinders its accessibility because it raises the threshold to enter, it aggravates liminality. For the eventual “public” the experience towards public life is rather a threshold than a boundary and it begins once they perceive the space, which does not coincide with the building envelope or property lines let alone professional compartmentalisation ("Threshold," 2021). Stony Island’s solution was to neglect the original access through the neoclassical colonnade and to open a colourful side entrance that opens to a square [ 5 ] In this way, instead of confronting the street frontally, it creates a transitional space that accompanies liminality. The design proposed for Zuid. to create its own entrance also includes a direct yet controlled connection to the street [ 6 ] where the content is visible from the street and the activities can extend to the outdoor space.

Management: “what can I do there?”

A public space’s management determines its publicness through public values. Every public space design holds public values, either by design or by neglect. These values allow for specific uses and therefore social interactions that are enhanced or restricted by design. There is therefore a great responsibility in public space design and operations to facilitate use and appropriation enforcing positive public values. As Sennett and Sendra describe it, design “creates conditions and provides possibilities” for use (Sennett & Sendra, 2020). Therefore, to support publicness space must allow for appropriation through flexibility and change.

Cultural public space traditionally has a top-down management approach. The challenge for design is then to make space for communities to appropriate the space and possibly transform its use. Beyond the traditional narrative of silent visitors observing objects, art spaces are shifting towards spaces where art is made, publicly archived, and celebrated. Both in Stony Island [ 7 ] and Zuid. [ 8 ] the programming wants to democratize access to art and besides exhibitions, it offers cultural events, lectures, public archives and even outdoor activities.

Inclusiveness: “Is this space for me?”

Ultimately, a public space aims at attracting citizens to access and use it. Nevertheless, citizens need to feel welcome to even enter, act or return. While the space's design might aim to include all citizens, visitors might not experience it so. Accessibility and management influence a space's inclusiveness. For example, a public space with a highly-priced entrance fee and with no space for informal activities might ward underprivileged families to visit it. Or steep stairs leading to a public space might stop people with physical disabilities from using it. Design decisions can have a strong influence on objective and subjective public space inclusiveness.

Especially the inclusiveness dimension can be elusive to common design methods. Matters such as diversity, intersubjectivity, behaviour, perception and social interaction determine spatial inclusiveness yet are not common variables in architectural design practice. Public space design usually departs from the program of requirements, from a pre-defined top-down client commission while inclusiveness involves the users and their values, demanding other design tools.

In Stony Island and Zuid. inclusiveness appears from working closely with the local community and adapting programming to their needs. For example, after conversations with local citizens, the latter institution decided to give free art workshops on Saturday afternoons since that seemed to be an appropriate time for local schoolchildren. In the Chicago art space, inclusiveness is dealt with through the representation of black people, objects and spaces (Home, 2023). A gazebo representing police brutality against black people in the US stands in the outdoor space adjacent to the arts centre as a symbol of inclusiveness and acknowledgement to the black community by also offering people a space to gather informally [ 9 ]. In Zuid. I realized an experiment to invite citizens to enter the space by offering a playful way to access it through a slide. The intention was to lower the threshold to access the space by using universal symbols (bright colours, "welcome" sign, carpet) that most people would recognize. The experiment showed that offering playful ways to access public space increased its inclusiveness through diversity and interaction which later informed future spatial interventions [ 6 ].

Design Strategies for Spatial Publicness

The cases of Stony Island Arts Bank and Zuid.Boijmans Van Beuningen has shown how a space's accessibility, management and inclusiveness can alter publicness through spatial strategies. These dimensions are interrelated and build on each other: for a space to be inclusive, it must be accessible and allow for independent use. Furthermore, all dimensions have material and immaterial manifestations which strengthen each other. Spatial design can intervene in the material manifestations of publicness to influence its immaterial or perceived reality. Some over-arching topics extracted from the case studies’ design strategies and seemed to have a positive effect on publicness were: visibility and liminality, use and appropriation, and interest and social interaction.

The topics and strategies recognized in the cases appear as successful attempts to increase the publicness of a new cultural space in existing infrastructure. Within their limitations, they adapted the space's accessibility and management to benefit its inclusiveness. However, the possible strategies to increase spatial publicness are many and go beyond single expertise. Further research is needed to explore interdisciplinary spatial design tools to better “identify the pulse in that place” and “reimagine what could be”, to “revive a neighbourhood: with imagination, beauty and art” (Gates, 2015).