Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos
Streets, vital for vehicular and pedestrian traffic, are increasingly repurposed to enhance urban vibrancy beyond transport needs. This paper explores intentional and spontaneous street experiments, drawing on Henri Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis. Streets are seen as hosts to intersecting rhythms sh...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2024
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| _version_ | 1824458598667780096 |
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| author | Chan, THY |
| author_facet | Chan, THY |
| author_sort | Chan, THY |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Streets, vital for vehicular and pedestrian traffic, are increasingly repurposed to enhance urban vibrancy beyond transport needs. This paper explores intentional and spontaneous street experiments, drawing on Henri Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis. Streets are seen as hosts to intersecting rhythms shaped by daily routines and mobility, with users as performers in rhythmic interactions. While initially disruptive, these experiments strive to integrate innovative elements for cohesive urban compositions. Through a musical metaphor, the paper promotes a holistic approach to identifying rhythms influenced and introduced by street experiments. It examines how these rhythms interact, presenting as synchronised dynamics, disruptive discordance, or coexistence in dissonant compositions. Combining rhythmanalysis with spatial discourse analysis, the study ‘reads’ and ‘listens’ to temporary spaces through historical records (N = 55) of seven street experiments in Hong Kong from 2016 to 2020. Findings uncover the overly abstract agendas of these experiments — exemplified through narratives involving chairs, railings, and traffic signals — often oversimplify and exclude possibilities. The paper calls for open dialogue to capture power dynamics in street infrastructure and embodied lived experiences during the transition from vehicle-centred to people-oriented streets. It suggests rhythmanalysis as an initial tool for urban planners to envision streetscapes as symphonies, fostering sensitivity to time-space dynamics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:26:30Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:7c0fa411-fdab-4e13-96c2-3a2d402cb26b |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:28:26Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:7c0fa411-fdab-4e13-96c2-3a2d402cb26b2024-12-11T14:41:30ZRethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuososJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:7c0fa411-fdab-4e13-96c2-3a2d402cb26bEnglishSymplectic ElementsElsevier2024Chan, THYStreets, vital for vehicular and pedestrian traffic, are increasingly repurposed to enhance urban vibrancy beyond transport needs. This paper explores intentional and spontaneous street experiments, drawing on Henri Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis. Streets are seen as hosts to intersecting rhythms shaped by daily routines and mobility, with users as performers in rhythmic interactions. While initially disruptive, these experiments strive to integrate innovative elements for cohesive urban compositions. Through a musical metaphor, the paper promotes a holistic approach to identifying rhythms influenced and introduced by street experiments. It examines how these rhythms interact, presenting as synchronised dynamics, disruptive discordance, or coexistence in dissonant compositions. Combining rhythmanalysis with spatial discourse analysis, the study ‘reads’ and ‘listens’ to temporary spaces through historical records (N = 55) of seven street experiments in Hong Kong from 2016 to 2020. Findings uncover the overly abstract agendas of these experiments — exemplified through narratives involving chairs, railings, and traffic signals — often oversimplify and exclude possibilities. The paper calls for open dialogue to capture power dynamics in street infrastructure and embodied lived experiences during the transition from vehicle-centred to people-oriented streets. It suggests rhythmanalysis as an initial tool for urban planners to envision streetscapes as symphonies, fostering sensitivity to time-space dynamics. |
| spellingShingle | Chan, THY Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title | Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title_full | Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title_fullStr | Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title_short | Rethinking urban street experiments through Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis: from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| title_sort | rethinking urban street experiments through lefebvre s rhythmanalysis from vehicles and vibrancy to virtuosos |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chanthy rethinkingurbanstreetexperimentsthroughlefebvresrhythmanalysisfromvehiclesandvibrancytovirtuosos |