What Fits in the Void? Terrain Vague and Cities That Resist Planning

"Every city carries, woven into its fabric, fissures that resist capture: ruins, vacant lots, leftover infrastructures, and gaps that persist at the margins of the official narrative. These are places that slip through the logics of planning, emerging as unexpected counter-scenes within a territory that seeks to present itself as coherent. In the rush to organize and predict, we rarely pause to notice what emerges from such unforeseen conditions."

"Yet it is precisely in them that new forms of urban life begin to take shape. Free from pragmatic control or predetermined codes of conduct, these spaces reveal another layer of the city - one that, in its continual state of latency, opens room for new modes of appropriation."

Cities contain fissures such as ruins, vacant lots, leftover infrastructures, and gaps at the margins of official narratives. These spaces evade planning logics and become unexpected counter-scenes within territories seeking coherence. In the haste to organize and predict, such unforeseen conditions are often overlooked, yet they incubate new forms of urban life. Freed from pragmatic control and predetermined codes of conduct, these marginal zones reveal another layer of the city. Their continual state of latency creates opportunities for improvised use and collective appropriation, enabling emergent social practices and spatial negotiations outside formal regulation.

Read at ArchDaily