Urban yards: terraires vagues of inner northern Melbourne

This Masters of Landscape Architecture investigates the occurrence of small, temporary urban voids in inner northern Melbourne. The study asks whether these spaces operate as Public Domain (Hajer & Reijndorp 2001) and uses the concept of "Terrain Vague" (Sola-Morales Rubio 1994a; 1996) to compare and contrast values defined by the different uses of different urban open space types. The research question values the inclusive qualities of terrains vagues and speculates that similar spaces exist in inner Melbourne, asking how are they currently used and, more importantly for landscape architecture, what strategies are most effective in designing with them. Specifically this study aims to investigate how the landscape architect can develop design methods that negotiate with the small urban voids of the inner city, in order to maximise opportunities for occupation and involvement, while retaining the sense and potency of Terrain Vague qualities. This is important to the practice of Landscape Architecture as it allows a contribution by the discipline to a discourse on the more effective design of public domain in the inner city context. The research understands terrains vauges in the terms established by architect, critic and educator Sola-Morales Rubio in the 1990s, as 'ambiguous, unresolved, and marginalized spaces in the urban landscape' (Solà-Morales Rubió 1994a). His initial description first appeared in the 'Anyone' series (Anyplace 1994a) and was supported by subsequent articles in 'Anyway' (1994b) and 'Anyhow' (2000). He describes them as 'empty abandoned spaces in which a series of occurrences have taken place…In these apparently forgotten places, the memory of the past seems to predominate over the present'. Two years later Sola-Morales Rubio further refined these observations in an interview with 'Kerb' (Stutterheim 1996). Here he broadens an operative function for terrain vague as supplying the need for 'alternative' spaces and uses within the contemporary city. His description of how they should be approached focuses on the idea that they are available to be reused and renovated. He notes that such needs are well known to urban planners and designers. However to ensure that such renovation still allows for ongoing alternative use and avoids the deletion of terrain vague qualities valued in the initial appreciation, planning and design requires 'a more subtle approach which is not exactly accepted' (1996 p.15). In both the 'Kerb' interview and the 'Anyplace' essays Sola-Morales Rubio offers examples of large post-industrial spaces: 'enormous urban voids' (1994a) that were once centres of production and distribution located on the outskirts of their host city. Now that these metropolises have grown the voids find them selves within the suburban fabric. A significant difference between Solà-Morales Rubió's original spaces and those of this study is size. Those of this Melbourne study are far smaller. The study intends to demonstrate how these mini terrains vagues share similar qualities and capacities as the large, essentially post-industrial spaces which were a noticeable feature of cities in the 90s. They also have an added allure and potential in that they invite a more accessible and immediate, while still ambiguous engagement, requiring the designer to consider the dense contextual relationships of the inner city. The crucial characteristic of original terrains vagues was their ambiguity of use and ownership. They are occupied and used in ways not observed in other open spaces. Naming is also an important part of describing and defining. The term 'Urban Yard' was given to the mini terrains vagues of inner Melbourne in consideration of an existing nomenclature of small urban voids. They share some similarities with Papastergiadis' ' parafunctional' spaces (2002), Kayden's 'privately owned public space' (2000) and Cooper Marcus & Hilliard Greene's 'mini park' and 'vest-pocket park' (1997). The urban yard is distinguished by a more recognisable ambiguity of function and ownership, an oblique and unintended relationship to the inner-city context, and distinct qualities of appearance, physical form and level of organised infrastructure.1 The ambiguous qualities of such terrain vague sites in an inner-city context allow a type of free engagement by the local population with urban open space that is otherwise discouraged and which is a vital and rich experience. This engagement or involvement can be as simple as an 'exchange' or 'meeting' (Hajer & Reijndorp 2001). The designer must facilitate this without the erasure of terrain vague qualities. The sanitization of these qualities was an ever present risk throughout the study. Any design of the Urban Yards could easily be over-design, where imposition of legible function onto the site supplanted ambiguity of use and the emergence of diverse uses. The quality described as 'parafunctional' by Nikos Papastergiadis (2002) comes closest to that of the urban yard terrain vague, being neither programmatically multi-functional nor dys-functional. The study concludes with an understanding that the designer must act simultaneously in two ways, from-a-far and in-the-midst of urban yards. Both ways require a particular set of strategies to arrive at the same outcome, namely the maximisation or intensification of potential use without the eradication of valuable terrain vague qualities. The former is a decisive urban planning move that provides a definitive description of the way in which urban yards operate and where they are likely to be located. The latter requires actual involvement within individual urban yards and design collaboration with occupants. Acting in-the-midst must continually provide the means for safe and stimulating occupation and reorganisation for the life of the site. It is recognised that such an understanding of context is an ambition of much design, particularly within landscape architecture, which is understood to respond to and reveal innate or intrinsic site qualities as a measure of its efficacy. In this way the findings of the study offer a means for other disciplinary engagements with terrain vague which value and enhance their unique role as the 'alternative space' for uses which established open space does not allow