Space, Place and Territory: A Critical Review on Spatialities

by Fabio Duarte

Overview

Space, place and territory are concepts that lie at the core of geography and urban planning, environmental studies and sociology. Although space, place and territory are indeed polysemic and polemic, they have particular characteristics that distinguish them from each other. They are interdependent but not interchangeable, and the differences between them explain how we simultaneously perceive, conceive and design multiple spatialities.

After drawing the conceptual framework of space, place and territory, the book initially explores how we sense space in the most visceral ways, and how the overlay of meanings attached to the sensorial characteristics of space change the way we perceive it – smell, spatial experiences using electroence phalography, and the changing meaning of darkness are discussed. The book continues exploring cartographic mapping not as a final outcome, but rather as an epistemological tool, an instrument of inquiry. It follows on how particular ideas of space, place and territory are embedded in specific urban proposals, from Brasília to the Berlin Wall, airports and infiltration of digital technologies in our daily life.

The book concludes by focusing on spatial practices that challenge the status quo of how we perceive and understand urban spaces, from famous artists to anonymous interventions by traceurs and hackers of urban technologies. Combining space, place and territory as distinctive but interdependent concepts into an epistemological matrix may help us to understand contemporary phenomena and live them critically.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317085683
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/12/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Fábio Duarte is scholar and research lead at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Senseable City Lab, and professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Curitiba, Brazil.

Table of Contents

Introduction, 1. Constructions, 2. The Enactment of Space, Place, and Territory, 3. Sensing the City, 4. Mapping the City, 5. Conceiving the City, 6. What is Next? Conceiving the City, 7. Challenging the City, 8. Final Remarks: Spatial Negotiations

Editorial Reviews

"Space, Place, and Territory makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the processes of urbanization. It is equally adept in describing the qualities of the built environment as it is the conceptual tools that bring about its transformation."

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

"In this book Fabio Duarte makes a novel and important contribution to the understanding of the core concepts of space, place and territory in urban studies. The core problematic USPT addresses is the distinctive uniqueness of each concept whilst simultaneously exploring the complex interdependencies between them. Creatively empirical analyses of sensing, mapping, conceiving and contesting the city USPT builds and populates the metaphor of the spatial matrix - a novel framework for analyzing how society is profoundly shaped by spatial features."
Professor Simon Marvin, Director of the Urban Institute University of Sheffield

"Fábio Duarte manages to assemble a very rigorous conceptual discussion about space, place and territory and a rich documentation on very diverse urban settings. Accounting for the urban experience required his careful and engaging attention to words, emotions, and objects in the same move".

Dominique Boullier, Digital Humanities institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

From the Publisher