Space and Place

“We will argue that the critical property which designers are seeking, which we call appropriate behavioral framing, is not rooted in the properties of space at all. Instead, it is rooted in sets of mutually-held, and mutually available, cultural understandings about behaviour and action. In contrast to “space”, we call this a sense of “place”. Our principle is: “Space is the opportunity; place is the understood reality”. Place is a fundamental concept in architecture and urban design, and we can learn from those disciplines how to think about

place in collaborative systems. Place derives from a tension between connectedness and distinction, rather than from three-dimensional structure, and we can see this at work in a variety of collaborative systems.” (Harrison & Dourish, 1996). 

I guess my big problem with this is our architects seeking to create place or are happy just to define space. My feeling is that architects are frequently trying a create places. The big message from a developer I once saw was "we build homes not houses".

My own Phd thesis on the spatial structure of neghbourhoods was that space gives the affordance for place.

I am currently reading An Architecturally Situated Approach to Place-based Mobile Interaction Design by Mikael Wiberg as part of the background to a paper I am writing. It is a stimulating work and deserves a read.