Between territories: Incremental changes to the domestic spatial interface between private and public domains
Authors: Wir-Konas Agnieszka , Seo Kyung Wook 
Published: July 2018

Between territories: Incremental changes to the domestic spatial interface between private and public domains. Agnieszka Wir-Konas¹, Kyung Wook Seo¹ ¹Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. Newcastle City Campus, 2 Ellison Pl, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST. E-mail: agnieszka.wir-konas@northumbria.ac.uk, kyung.seo@northumbria.ac.uk Keywords (3-5): building-street interface, incremental change, micro-morphology, private-public boundary, territory Conference topics and scale: Urban form and social use of space   In this paper we investigate incremental changes to the relationship between private and public territory on the micro-morphological scale of the residential building-street interface. The building-street interface lies on the edge between two distinctively different spatial domains, the house and the street, and provides a buffer which may be adjusted to aid the transition from private to public territory. The structure of the space impacts both domains: it provides a fit transition from the private dwelling to the public territory, creates a space for probabilistic encounters between inhabitants and strangers, and maintains the liveability of the public street. The aim of this paper is threefold: Firstly, we recognise morphological differences in the structure of the interfaces and the way the transition from private to public territory was envisioned and designed in different societal periods. Secondly, we study incremental changes to the interface, representing individual adjustments to the private-public boundary, in order to recognize common types of adaptations to the existing structure of the interface. The history of changes to each individual building and building-street interface was traced by analysing planning applications and enforcements publicly provided by the city council. Lastly, we compare the capacity of each building-street interface to accommodate incremental change to the public-private transition. We argue that studying the incremental change of the interface and the capacity of each interface to accommodate micro-scale transformations aids in the understanding of the complex social relationship between an individual and a collective in the urban environment.   References (180 words) Conzen, M. R. G. (1960). Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis. Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers) 27, iii-122. Gehl, J. (1986) ‘Soft edges in residential streets’. Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research 3(2), 89-192 Gehl, J. (2013) Cities for People (Island Press, Washington DC). Habraken, N. J. and Teicher, J. (2000) The structure of the ordinary: form and control in the built environment (MIT press, Cambridge). Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1984) The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Middlesex: Penguin, Harmondsworth). Lawrence, R. J. (1987) Housing, dwellings and homes: Design theory, research and practice (John Wiley, Chichester). Palaiologou, G., Griffiths, S., and Vaughan, L. (2016), ‘Reclaiming the virtual community for spatial cultures: Functional generality and cultural specificity at the interface of building and street’. Journal of Space Syntax 7(1), 25-54. Whitehand, J. W. R. and Morton, N. J. and Carr, C. M. H. (1999) ‘Urban Morphogenesis at the Microscale: How Houses Change’, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 26(4), 503-515.