Collective Spaces for Superdiversity

Today, one of the biggest challenges in architecture, urban design and planning of collective spaces is addressing the increasing socio-spatial complexity of the cities in Europe. This complexity is exemplified by the fragmented migration from multiple, foreign origins towards European cities and metropoles leading to an emerging condition called: 'super-diversity'. Coined by Vertovec (2007:p3), this term describes the diversification of diversity. It is a new condition of permanent increased, varied and fragmented pattern that can be detected in European cities. It surpasses the conventional way how interculturality and diversity are understood as it faces us with novel challenges (Meissner and  Vertovec, 2015). The most evident challenge of all is the diversification of interests as a result of super-diversity. The diversification of the diversified needs of the society creates inter-cultural conflicts and makes it difficult for the urban design and planning practices to find a common ground to build upon.  Furthermore, super-diversity creates diverse and novel forms of everyday life. As a result, tensions between the newcomers and the established population increase and give birth to new problems of co-existence.

In order to address these challenges, we need novel approaches that enable the architects, urban designers and planners to understand the rapidly evolving demographics and needs of their citizens and engage them in the making processes. There is a need to develop novel ways of understanding, recognizing, representing and making collective spaces in super-diverse contexts.  In this context, This research project focuses on making collective spaces for super-diversity.

It aims to explore the following research questions:

• How can we make future collective spaces for super-diversity?
• How can we transform super-diverse conflicts and needs into fruitful design strategies?
• How can we redistribute the social and spatial infrastructures to accommodate inclusiveness and productivity?

The research framework will employ three interactive processes to address the questions above: recognition, representation and redistribution (Fraser, 2008).

Recognition will cover a triangulation of 1) Structured Individual Observations (diary, sketches, objects), 2) Data (Cases, Maps, Statistics), 3) Interviews with key actors. Exploratory representations will enable novel ways of seeing and have direct reflections on the research questions and links to the theoretical background.  

Redistribution will be closely linked to the recognition and representation processes and involve developing Design Strategies addressing the research questions and the translation of the strategies into a larger scale plan (macro level); Demonstration of the implications of the master plan at the architectural scale (meso level), construction principles and details, in close connection to the feedback of the building technologies courses (micro level).

The area of study and intervention is Saint-Josse Municipality in Brussels. This municipality is officially the poorest and one the most super-diverse in the Brussels Capital Region and Flemish Brabant.