Street construction sites have been examined and analyzed from the pedestrian’s, urban walker’s standpoint. Along with questions of cityscape, the interest in this street-level study has focused on the movement of city people at street construction sites. The question was how a street construction site is arranged in relation to the collective use of urban space and to streets in general? What is the genius loci, the “habitus” of the street construction?

We could describe the urban street construction sites, ever-present in the urban landscape, through their essential functional-spatial aspects, which are closed area, front line, temporariness, restoration and performing realm. These characteristics, the distinctive observed “habitus features”, of street construction sites are based on observations which have been made in the center of Helsinki City. The material was primarily gathered by way of observation, using cameras for photography and video, which served as a research-notebook. There were observations of 125 street construction sites representing different phases of work. The street construction sites included fenced or unfenced street excavations, pipe, wire or cable works, paving and asphalt works, covered sidewalks, building facade repairs.

Timo Kopomaa
KATUTYÖMAA kaupunkikuvassa
Teknillinen korkeakoulu
Yhdyskuntasuunnittelun tutkimus- ja koulutuskeskuksen julkaisuja C 51

The research is printed in Finnish
Helsinki University of Technology
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Publications C 51

Being a path of communication the street acts as both a place of passage and a meeting place due to its dual social character. The street also has a third function as a storage place, a role particularly evident on street construction sites. A street construction site threatens the street’s movement conveying function. It is closed and marked and equipped accordingly. The collective right of use of public space has been temporarily restricted in order to maintain effective operation in the city.

Attention is focused especially on the barricades blocking street space. There is a kind of militarization of the streets, turning them into a “state of war”. The pedestrian moves as at the scene of a street battle; the outsiders have been evacuated from the site. The closure of the street space from public open use is anticipated by the preparation of an assault track. The work sites of a street, its excavations and obstacles form an assault course for the infantry of the street. A street construction site is and represents temporariness, which generates temporariness in street practices. An urban pedestrian typically avoids stepping on borderlines, or walking on a straight join, for example between two strips of asphalt of different shades of grey or black. The result is the sectorization of the use of the sidewalk according to asphalt surfaces of different colours and levels.

Repairs of building frontages and other more defined work sites with their depots can be masked for the duration of the work. They will then be camouflaged to make them as inconspicuous as possible. Another extreme alternative is to turn the work site into an impressive parade, the attention of the user of street space being intentionally directed to that part of the traffic landscape. A camouflaged facade takes shape - or disappears - as a new spatial element in the cityscape. The familiar environment acquires new meanings.

University of Helsinki
Finland
timo.kopomaa@helsinki.fi
Mr. Timo Kopomaa (D.Soc.Sc)

12/05/1999

Timo Kopomaa

research

Urban Policy > Transport and infrastructure > Roads and road transport

Pavements, Road maintenance