Here, we outline a series of modes of ‘spatial resistance’ as a means to frame the perspectives featured on this site. These concepts are derived from the publication ‘Resisting Spaciocide‘, where their implications are explored in greater detail.
Spatial Analysis
Applying the analytical skills of architecture and planning as a means to expose the present spatial reality and the mechanisms of spatial domination that construct and maintain it. These include the ability to carry out spatial research in itself – interrogating maps, aerial photographs, planning documents and legal documents, and the undertaking of empirical surveys – and the means to synthesise and communicate its findings in a vivid and graphically compelling manner to a wider audience. More…
Advocacy
Investing the professional skills of architecture and planning in political and legal campaigns to challenge the structures of spatial power. Within the dominant legal framework, this might involve offering expert opinions to support court petitions and planning objections, or the preparation of counter-plans. In a wider sense, the notion of ‘advocacy’ extends to seeking the intervention of forces outside of this dominant framework, lending the same weight of expert opinion to more overtly ‘political’ campaigns aiming to ensure an atmosphere of accountability. More…
Critical Speculation
In its broadest sense, ‘critical speculation’ could be described as the creative application of detailed knowledge of the spatial conflict in a manner devised to expose its fault-lines and to provoke critical debate and practice. As an example, the act of design – ‘paper architecture’ – allows for the selective adherence to (or subversion of) the political and legal constraints of the dominant spatial regime. In turn, this defines a platform on which to propose future plans (provocative, aspirational or eminently realisable), to frame alternative narratives of the present, or simply to extrapolate the logic of the dominant forces to their ultimate spatial conclusion. More…
Physical Intervention
Employing the physical act of building – the concrete ‘fact on the ground’ – as a means to disrupt the dominant structures of the spatial conflict. This may include acts of defiance that directly reject the de-facto balance of spatio-political power, or interventions realised within the existing political frameworks that point towards an alternative spatial future. More…