We can thank Oscar Newman for defensible space: the concept of influencing negative social behavior through architectural and urban design.  I only recently became aware of his fascinating and widely influential work with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, and his book, Creating Defensible Space.  I learned of Newman when I was reading an excerpt about skateboarding in a pamphlet called Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities by Nicolas and Fabien Girardin.  Here’s the quote that got me thinking:

“An obvious target of defensible space are skateboarders.  The addition of metal plates on benches or covering city structures such as handrails has been meant to prevent skateboards form rolling on them or grinding angles. Empty spaces are also “augmented” with pointed clips so that people could not sit or lay on them, eventually targeting vagabonds and bums. Defensible space is a common feature of our cities of the 21st century, projecting new norms about what is acceptable or not down the streets.”

Maybe I’ve got too much of a heady, utopian way of looking at things, but despite the great successes of defensible space I’m wondering if its not a short-sighted and reactive design approach when creating public spaces for the 21st century.  Time and time again, when public libraries try to create good teen spaces they find that the spaces they create are rejected and that the teens would rather utilize discoverable space: they hang around in a random corner, by the drinking fountain, or wherever they feel like it.  Can architects of public spaces (and I’m talking about libraries as much as parks) borrow from the lifecycle development model developed by Braungart and McDonough in Cradle to Cradle?  Can Clay Shirky’s participatory culture argument be interpreted to include the participatory place-making as well?  Will the open-source software movement’s ideals be reflected in buildings, courtyards, and streets?  Can the future of public space be some kind of customizable, fluid, non-model?  Was Archigram right on?

As I left the Mesa Library I watched two kids with rollerblades just sitting around on one of the ramps, and I imagined that if it weren’t so cold perhaps they’d use the ramp as a picnic table or play a card game on it.  If teens stopped skating in the skatepark, I wonder what Predock would think?

btw- Thank you to the nice and helpful librarians at the Mesa Library!  Cheers!