« VISUALISING SOCIAL INTERACTION IN COLLECTIVE ENVIRONMENTS »

The context of the modern business environment has dramatically shifted with technological advances, yet the physical design of public spaces has so far failed to adapt to the change in social behaviour. Individuals are now utilizing digital media to create social connections and networks that extend to areas that were not previously possible in the physical world. Geographical boundaries that once constrained collectives to local communities have now been circumnavigated via cyberspace, thus rendering them largely inconsequential.

« A CITY IS A SET OF INTERTWINED ACTIVITIES THAT CAN BE VISUALLY GRASPED AS EASILY RECOGNISABLE SYMBOLS THAT ARE IDENTIFIABLE AND CAN BE GROUPED INTO AN OVER-ALL VISUAL PATTERN »

For the purposes of aiding clarification and demonstrating the different areas of research that explore the notions of public space and methods of reading it, the following chapter will be divided into three sections. The first of these sections, ‘Visualising the Graphical-Urban Context’, examines the research and studies that have investigated and suggested that space is a legible quantity that can be read and interpreted in different manners. The next section, ‘Urban Space is Sociologically Constructed’, explores the notion of urban space as a medium through which social, cultural, and political groups are able to connect, express and communicate their identity’s within a hegemonic public realm. Finally, ‘The Technological Determination of Urban Space’ counters the views of the previous section, arguing that modern urban spaces are by-products of the technical age and are therefore subordinate to the needs and requirements of technology and its proliferation.

The purpose of this thesis began as an exploration of the ways different cultural collectives engage and interact with a space and competing identities. We established the concept of Environmental White Space as a method of trying to categorize the contested space between predetermined areas of ideological activities and collective representation. However, it soon became apparent that within this macrocosm there were in fact too many microcosms of behavioural change. As such it was decided to focus upon a specific area, a ‘culture of interaction’, of business environments, and in particular, the City of London. In this place it will be more clearer to identify, develop and establish a framework of engagement that could then be used to show comparative difference in other types of environment.