A deconstruction experiment

It is the questions raised about the relationship between urban design and deconstructive procedures that is our focus. The aim of this paper is to highlight the concerns of deconstruction by looking at an example and to posit some questions relating to planning and urban design.

We aim to show that some characteristic 'deconstructive procedures' can be brought to light through an experimental example. A "play" is made between uncertainty, discontinuity and the base reality of what exists. The experiment may, for example, be preoccupied with complexity, and the expression of complexity through irregular and intentionally obscure and difficult to read compositions, this being seen as a simulacrum (3 ) of city form. It would possibly employ basic geometric forms: lines, arcs, triangles, points, but in fragmented or distorted forms and surfaces, perhaps a synecdoche (4) of both the physical form and the social processes of the urban context. Reference might be made to the mathematics of chaos, as against the certainty of cadastral boundaries, built form and roots in urban morphology. It would necessarily work beyond concerns of style (Dear, 1986).

While recognising that the nature of the characteristic 'deconstructive procedures' mentioned are expressed in somewhat abstract and perhaps unfamiliar terms, the application to an example, developed below, will hopefully explicate the characteristics.

We emphasise that this example is an experimental exploration, not necessarily overly concerned with practice application. The authors are particularly interested in exploring the deconstructive procedure, within the context of urban design, in a well established Australian urban / suburban precinct. The general thesis is that deconstruction is firstly significantly inimical to 'built form' planning controls, but at the same time may facilitate development processes. There is also a more specific question: where deconstruction is a fundamental concept in urban design, do the very precepts of retrograde (5) planning, historicist (6) development control in particular, come under challenge. To begin to examine this thesis, a deconstruction experiment has been tested on a section of Battery Point, an old inner Hobart, mixed use area.

There are at least three basic questions arising from the thesis:

- can planning controls that aim to define land use and built form, accommodate projects that have as an objective the    deconstruction of existent patterns of development?

- might a deconstruction procedure facilitate development?

- what happens when retrograde urban design instruments meet a forward looking narrative in the form of a 'deconstruction'?

The paper is not conclusive about all aspects of all these propositions. There are unanswered questions of a very broad nature, for example about how planning deals with proposals that have 'disruption' as an objective, and there are questions of a detailed nature, about scale, for example, that require further testing. However the experiment does highlight some of the nuances of the dialogue and herein lies its value. The common experience of frustration and obstruction, often encountered by innovative urban designers when dealing with retrograde planning instruments, should not be ignored.