THE DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT OF COMMON SPACES FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Abstract

Public services have been usually provided by the government to the citizens, but in recent years there has been a shift in the structure of publicness and citizens themselves are developing some public services adapted to their needs and regional characteristics. Among them, gathering places created and managed by local communities, called here “common spaces”, have increased in various parts of Japan. Especially, many unused buildings are now being renovated as common spaces. This study aims to analyze and discuss these renovated common spaces from the viewpoints of design and management. The magazine “Shinkenchiku” and the “Tokyo kenchiku collection” yearbooks have been used as a source to select a total of 60 cases from 1995 to 2017. After checking the possibilities and permissions for interviews, eight common spaces created through renovation were selected. Semi-structured interviews were performed to architects and managers of each case, regarding management, design, evaluation of the involvement of the architect, and global evaluation of the common space. Regarding management, this study found that the role of architects was expanded beyond design tasks into other activities such as program conception, publicity, research, participatory design, management, etc. Also, the Existence of revenue program such as cafe, share house, guest house, etc, and the synergistic effect between them and the common spaces. Common spaces had diverse uses, such as gallery, lecture, meeting, library, concert, etc. The spatial operations performed in all common spaces were also analyzed. In order to do this, first the design intentions mentioned during interviews were classified. The spatial operations realized by the architect before completion were classified into categories such as “creating an intermediate area between inside and outside”, “creating a hall-like space by changing height levels” etc. The spatial operations before and after completion were classified into categories such as “creating furniture, finishing, and green by collaborating local residents“. The spatial operations by the manager realized after completion were classified into 3 categories such as “making partitions according to changing programs”. Regarding the evaluation about the involvement of the architect, the interviews showed both positive comments such as “architect's proposal of an unexpected ideas”, “making architecture attractive”, and negative comments such as “the problem of lack of functionality”, and “the architect gradually distancing himself away from management”. Finally, the global evaluation of common spaces showed positive effects of common spaces such as “creation of animation in the area”, “solving problems in the area”, and problems such as “lack of the expected involvement of local people”, “lack of organizational continuity”. This thesis clarifies the actual situation of a selection of common space from the view points of design and management in the hope to help them when they get involved in the establishment, design and management of future common spaces.

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