Everyday Spaces

Everyday Spaces: The potential of neighbourhood spacesPauline Gallacher, Thomas Telford, 2006

Pauline Gallacher’s book is a ‘must-have’ companion for urban designers as the lessons learnt from the careful improvement of everyday spaces in Glasgow’s working class suburbs, have far reaching applications. Looking with hindsight on one’s own projects can be fraught, but Gallacher was able to assess the results of the five interventions after five years with a critical eye and without seeking excuses. Her own learning process forms part of transferable knowledge conveyed in her book.

The aim of the five projects was to be an examplar, trying something new and having good reasons for doing so. The projects were also a starting point for public debate about public space in neighbourhoods and how best to make and manage them.

Clearly the absence of local control, ownership, strategy and finance for maintenance were key grounds for failure, while the lack of supervision, surveillance and lighting maintenance worsened security. Contradictory funding conditions blighted the projects and funding agencies demanded ready designs and trusted delivery mechanisms, while participatory principles would have derived design solutions with inbuilt community involvement. Similarly, different stakeholders had contradictory expectations, consultants expected secure funding, while community volunteers were expected to invest themselves without financial reward.

Gallacher extends her action research into local identity and adds a list of cultural issues which could complement UDAL’s PlaceCheck method. She acknowledges the need for a comprehensive and inclusive policy framework, a critical landscape in which even the most modest intervention would find its place.

Culturally-based physical regeneration and design solutions are context bound. Nevertheless, the reflections leading to Gallacher’s hands-on approach, the way she engaged with the local population and mobilised outside forces as positive catalysts have produced at least partially positive results. And we all can learn lessons from them.

(This review was first published in Urban Design (Quarterly) Issue 98, Spring 2006 and is reproduced with the Editor's kind permission)