DC Metrocentric

Everyone has an opinion on architecture, what’s yours?

By Spencer Lepler

This past weekend I was up in the Dupont Circle area neighborhood during Capital Pride and came across something that really got me thinking about temporary architecture and its effect on the urban environment.

Like most festivals, there were official temporary structures: tents, booths, and the performance stage; what sparked my interest was not these official event creations, but instead the neighborhood response. Along 17th street many of the business had strung fabric bunting from their buildings and along their fences. Along with adding color to the urban landscape and showing support for the event, they also created new architectural dynamics along the street.

There were two different kinds of space that were created and defined. The first, which to me is the more obvious, was the fabric that ran from the building facades to the ground plane. This was seen in front of some of the cafes and while these strips of fabric created a tent of sorts they provided no shelter. What they did though was capturing space and adding it to the building’s semi-private zone. In essence, they created a temporary fabric arbor over the outside seating.

The other space making that happened, which I find to be more subtle but yet more intriguing, was a redefining of transparencies by stringing the fabric through fence-posts. This act transformed the iron fences that already delineated space but did not structure any views. Instead now they acted as soft partial height fabric walls and in doing so created a different kind of spatial boundary; a boundary that while festive and welcoming because of the fabric used also acted as a much greater physical deterrent and demarcation between public and semi-public space. The best way to understand this phenomenon is to think about a chain link fence which by itself creates a sense of enclosure, but because it allows an outside observe to see in it is not in of itself forbidding. When you weave slats through a chain-link fence it becomes a privacy fence, which while defining the same space, creates a whole different attitude towards the observation of this space. It is no longer an area to be appreciated form the public sphere but instead is now specifically private.

Much of the comfort of walking 17th street is the interplay between what is private and public; while these changes were temporary, I have to wonder how they will affect my understand of the spaces in the future. Will I see the outside seating as sidewalk cafes or outdoor rooms and will the iron fences be dividers or barriers?

[Photo: esshots]

Spencer Lepler is an architectural designer nearing the end of the architecture licensing process. He has lived in the DC metro area since 2005. He posts on a semi-regular basis to his blog – selophane.com. In addition to blogging he is currently engaged in pursuing freelance design work.