In Between Spaces

This paper aims to study the conflicts that arise from the ever-present need for housing and urban expansion, with a primary focus on creating an identity for these communities on the edge. It studies the shifting paradigm of the suburban community and proposes to reimagine the image of suburbia to balance out urban encroachment on rural landscapes through foodscaping the architecture. Concepts of communal living and communal food growing are explored spatially using design as a research tool to better understand how foodscaping can create a sense of place and social cohesion. The capacity of design to bring people together and increase social cohesion is explored through architecture that encourages communal food growing. These ideas form a preface to help broaden views of sustainable suburban living. These hypotheses are explored at different scales: from the urban scale to the building fabric scale. This study reflects on how to make in-between spaces into places; thereby giving them an identity and further exploring the way people would interact within these places using food production as a mediator. Thereby reflecting on how design at the urban scale affects the architecture of a building and vice versa. Conclusively, communal living could provide the necessary platform where the boundaries between the urban form and the building create opportune spaces to harmoniously manoeuvre the hierarchy of the private-semi-public-communal spaces while addressing food security of its citizens. INTRODUCTION While this study is not primarily focused on urban design and the form of settlements per se; it still attempts to understand the wider city context and the dynamics of its relation to the way people live in communities on the edge and the reciprocal impact it makes as a whole on the city itself. Focusing on suburban farming in semi-public spaces ranging from urban design to architectural design level, the spatial definitions of social relations, identity and quality of life of citizens within those spaces are analysed. Thereby using food production as a mediator, the Research Question to be explored is as follows: How can Communal food growing increase social cohesion and help to reimagine the image of 'Suburbia'?

In this paper, I claim that the “third space” extends beyond Western hegemonic discourse on identity and self, demonstrating that identity is not a singular and a stable subject but a multiple and fluid one. This article demonstrates that the “third space”, while opening the avenues for pluralities and negotiations, unsettles and problematizes the issues of identity, belonging, and home in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. Discussions on why Antoinette’s position as a Creole in Jamaica problematizes her status and identity, and what barriers negate herself and her sense of belonging are central to this research. I further investigate the roles of Western hegemonic presence in Antoinette’s subjectivity, and her sense of liberation and autonomy. Antoinette’s position in a liminal space not only jeopardizes her identity, her longing for home and belonging, but also creates a hybrid identity that emerges in a moment of historical transformation in Jamaican history. Hybridity interrogate...

The COVID-19 pandemic-induced social distancing restrictions imposed in many cities of the world redefine common spatial behavior and everyday life. In this context, some of the current debate topics focus on the need for hybrid spaces in the urban fabric, while some concentrate on the necessity of the fragmentation of urban space. The motivation of this paper is to emphasize the potential of outdoor spaces as effective components of this duality. This study aims to reconceptualize the change of outdoor spaces by investigating their role and meaning during the pandemic. Depending on the conceptual framework developed by the criteria defining the relationship among outdoor spaces and social interaction, this paper clarifies how these spaces are perceived, evaluated and used by people. The new spatial behavior that has changed within the pandemic is investigated via selected study areas located in mixed-use and traditional residential settlements in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. The research data are obtained with the participation of 150 residents in total: a survey is conducted to 120 participants, and on-site observations and in-depth interviews are conducted to 30 participants. The results are digitized and represented with figures and schematic diagrams. The findings developed by qualitative and quantitative analyses contributed to the literature by revealing potential value regarding the intervention of outdoor spaces in the context of a holistic planning approach. This study can help determine what variables should be considered for future social interaction through outdoor spaces in the urban design framework.