Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life

Public space is a frequent theme in recent writing about cities; scholars describe ways in which urban activities, histories and identities are prescribed, controlled and homogenized. Yet, everyday urban dwellers encounter spaces that are loose, that manifest great variety and unpredictability, that simulate imagination and intervention. Loose spaces are places of possibility.Loose Space is first and foremost a book about physical spaces, their capacity to shape and support behaviour. Aimed at readers who are interested in spaces, how they look, work and how urban space can serve social life, Stevens and Franck discuss how the task of design might address those parts of the built environment that are undesigned or underdesigned.