Urban industrial dereliction, a strategy of engagement

Abstract

This study focuses on 'Perception'--human and cultural perception--as the medium through w ich humanity understands, experiences, and interacts with the physical world. An exploration of perceptions surrounding the urban postindustrial landscape is carried out, and a philosophy which suggests that designing for the human perceptual experience should preclude functional or aesthetic design, is put forward. This philosophy will develop into a 'strategy of engagement', engaging perceptions of dereliction which many urban postindustrial landscapes harbor. The ultimate intent becomes to utilize this strategy in the transformation of perceptions from those of dereliction to perceptions that celebrate the intrinsic and poetic sense of place, which every landscape possesses. The first clue to what lies at the heart of this study: As the technological shift becomes more apparent in the early years of the next century, more and more heavy industrial sites will cease to function as dynamic parts of an organic city. The Cities that they nursed into existence and growth are now in the early stages of an industrial weaning process. Typically between ten and twenty percent of present day north American cities are zoned as heavy industrial land, (M1-3), and in the foreseeable future a significant quantity of this land will become perceptually derelict, or at best, incipient. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)