Main entry:

Lopez-Pineiro, Sergio, author.

Title & Author:

A glossary of urban voids / Sergio Lopez-Pineiro.

Publication:

Berlin : Jovis Verlag GmbH, [2020]
©2020

Description:

239 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references.
Preface. A glossary of urban voids -- What does the term urban void imply? -- How to define something without naming it? -- What is the image of the urban void? -- Notes regarding the structure of the essay -- 1. Urban Voids. Vacancy -- Voids of the urban fabric -- On the origins of the term urban void -- "Terrain Vague" -- Internal yet external to the city -- The exterior of a pervasive interior -- 2. An Alternative Type of Public Space. Terrain vague versus public space -- Open or public? -- Accessibility -- The conundrum of public property -- Publicness out of emptiness -- A return to culture? A return to nature? -- 3. Intervals of Space. Holes within the continuous city fabric -- States of suspension -- Curation as publicness -- Self-determination as publicness -- Recirculation as publicness -- 4. Gaps of Time. Is temporality an intrinsic characteristic or an emerging quality? -- Interruptions within hegemonic spatial discourses -- Temporary and autonomous zoning -- Extracted openness and inserted publicness -- 5. The Whiteout Effect. What effects does a whiteout process have? -- Opportunities in inherent exteriors -- Subjectivities from places outside of culture -- Reflections of empty mirrors -- Inversions of representations -- 6. Unspecified and Underspecified. Neither this nor that -- Places that just are and that are designed for people to just be -- The unnamable complex -- Unspecified programs -- Underspecified grounds -- We know what they look like -- 7. Unneutral Neutrality. Patterned reality -- Neutrality as divorce between intention and act -- Neutrality as commitment -- Neutral buffers -- Blankness as break between frame and content -- Blankness as commitment -- Blank or empty spaces -- 8. Voids as Things. A thing is a hole in a thing it is not -- How to design a void -- Protecting the void I -- Protecting the void II -- Neglecting reconciliation -- Neglecting codification.

Summary:

This book is a critiqued collection of over 200 terms regularly used to name the urban void, from the terrain vague to the buffer zone. As the landscape architect James Corner has pointed out, a void cannot be labeled because "to name it is to claim it in some way." By listing existing terms, A Glossary of Urban Voids is an attempt to name the unnamable, to define that which should have no precise definition. It records terms, names, and labels used to designate leftover spaces resulting from processes of urban abandonment that originate from some kind of obsolescence or loss. Besides obvious consequences, these processes of abandonment open up the space, liberating it from existing ideological frameworks (such as financial, capital, or cultural frameworks), allowing for divergent spatialities to emerge, and ultimately offering opportunities for the imagination and conceptualization of an alternative type of public space. Using the glossary as a theoretical tool, this book presents the most relevant questions on the issue of the urban void and its potential role as public space.

Resources:
Table of contents & interview with Sergio Lopez-Pineiro

ISBN:

9783868596045 (paperback)
3868596046 (paperback)

Subject:

Land use, Urban Terminology Dictionaries.
Vacant lands Terminology Dictionaries.
Freifläche
Stadtplanung

Form/genre:

Dictionary
dictionaries.
Dictionaries.
Dictionnaires.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 307924
Call No.: BIB 253386
Status: Available