Heterotopia of an Augmented Public Space

I strongly feel that the way our cities have evolved (rather dissolved) is a complex network of networks. They are fragmented, not a unified set and they exhibit a variety of relations inhabited by unstable communities and their lifestyles. As Foucault rightly puts, we exist in the epoch wherein the space given to us is relations between emplacements. The boundaries of public, private have been blurred by the introduction of semi-public, semi-private and similarly, peri-urban, rur-ban by the competing systems. Homogenous communities exist and try to create their own public spheres and are more often than not, backed by political influences. This leads to fragments in the public space which was ideally meant to be all- inclusive. Through the process I have understood that one of the relatively neglected issues of an urban study in urban planning is the centrality of political domination and how some spaces resist and some spaces comply with this and it affects spatial order of how our fabric gets arranged over time. For this, Foucault’s heterotopology (topology of heterotopias) provides crucial insight into the analysis of the urban environment. Today, in the Gen z generation, like many other definitions, ‘public space’ also seems to be renewed from the traditional focus on formal squares, parks to a broader conception of less formal ‘leftover’ spaces and the everyday uses that occur there.

The most exciting factor about public spaces is that they are representations of all the people who use them (drawing on Lefebvre’s lines) and exhibit the capacity of accommodating all meanings that the users give them. Hence, as we evolve, so do our spaces and expectations and meanings from them. However, it is only within our public spaces to have the potential to withstand narratives of history as they have created collective memories that relate to a mass population and the ownness is shared. 

After an intensive study of public spaces in the city to which I belong - Mumbai, I have come to the realization that a common perception of a public space is associated with a park or a playground of leisure which forces me to ask if our public spaces are limited to that. However the taxpayer’s view is not completely wrong, at least in the scope of Mumbai and it’s fringes that leisure and play comes at a paid expense with the exception of a local park, which also has its limitations to a duration. 

Heterotopias and its understandings help to identify the nature, opposition, placement, contradiction and porosity of such spaces with ‘otherness’. I must clarify that time, technology and space as terms for theory in architecture have taken leaps since Foucault introduced the concept of ‘otherness’ and thus don't comply with archaic meanings but have amputations to them. Architecture- the act of building itself- creates opportunities of violence and I suggest Heterotopias induce violence - Violence in terms of user agencies, environment, cultural differences, design languages. So, To put it in Tschumi’s terms, the relationship between a consumer of the architecture and the architecture itself is like that of a parasite and host that assembles this violence of meaning and value. Sometimes, it is symbiotic and sometimes the roles interchange.

This thesis was an attempt to- 1.  identify a PUBLIC heritage place in the core of Mumbai on the contours of public and private, slowly losing its publicness

2. To help intensify the existing heterotopic qualities of the site so that the mesh of different users and incompatible functions becomes a glorified network

3. To preserve the heritage with interventions that subtly cater to futuristic demands of the users who reside there in addition to opening up the place to tourists. And using technology as an aid for doing so. Thus, creating spaces that comply with the technology.