Dive into a compelling exploration of the often overlooked “In-Between Spaces” that shape our daily lives and the profound impact they have on urban planning and architectural design. This talk will unravel the complexities of spaces that exist between the private and the public, revealing how they contribute to community, biodiversity, and the very fabric of our cities, urging us to rethink and cherish these transitional areas. Daniel Fricke hails from Ulm, a quaint town nestled in the southern depths of Germany. After completing his Bachelor’s degree at HafenCity University in Hamburg, he is currently finalizing his Master’s degree in Urban Planning in Milan. Daniel’s fascination with urban planning was sparked by his experiences in various places, leading him to ponder the origins and development of cities. This curiosity blossomed into a passion for understanding how people interact with urban spaces. He is eager to share this enthusiasm and knowledge with others, hoping to inspire a similar fascination in the intricate dynamics of city life. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
[Applause] hi uh good welcome bonjour chiao also from my side um the two previous presentations were super fascinating I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to be here and to speak so yeah my name is Daniel I’m an Urban Explorer and an urban planner and I would like to show
You today um my Fascination about Courtyards and I research about them as in between spaces and would like to share that with you and also share how you can by understanding the different types of places around you um interact more with your surrounding so let us
Take a tour through the cracks of our cities some of you may Wonder okay why is he looking into Courtyards so my f for me to uh bring together my Fascination and passion about them I wrote A Small poem that goes what am I people wonder within me
Yet I’m not a street people find shelter in the community yet I’m not a house all the that I am is what’s left in between it makes me wonder what is it that we’re doing in our ordinary environments what is a do it that I’m doing in my Courtyard I walk through it
Receive mail repair my bike um or just having a quick chat with my neighbors if you think about it it seems a bit similar to a public space but is it really no because it’s an ordinary space not an extraordinary that means they connect to our daily habits
And life and not trying to be a spectacle but maybe first what space it seems to be everywhere from the blank space behind me to the space here the room in which we have our talk the important thing of space is you or we as people are relevant we are the
Cause for producing space adding diversity making it a fluid and dynamic condition I would like to introduce to you Josh perek with his beautiful book uh species of spaces here he Marvels about the different spaces uh even those that you might never have thought about from the page
Of a book to the bat to the staircase the apartment the building You Name It ultimately to space itself he writes spaces have multiplied been broken up and diversified there are spaces of every kind every size every function and every use to live is to pass from one
Space to another while doing your very best to not bump yourself for his planners though it’s necessary to distinguish define space and its components to be able to add new elements relationships create situations in order to Pro improve on the existing condition so here it is my cour really
Is relevant it shows the struggle between the planners that are setting the stage and the inhabitants that are trying to manage ways how to live with it or within it in my Courtyard for in in my Courtyard for instance I really like that um to have a small chat with
My neighbors and to see how they adjust and adapt to spaces adding Greenery adding uh small things in front of their houses but what I really adore and love about the about my Courtyard is that on the ground floor we have a connection with several restaurants shop owners
That are constantly like uh working below uh sometimes also in the courtyard um in the storage spaces and you have like small interactions chats with them that chats that I would never have without my Courtyard the focus on the physical attention of planners really is a virtue and proved effective but planners have
Become close-minded they have gone too deep down the the rabbit hole and believe they can design and control everything I hope you’ve watched this beautiful movie of jaati playtime which shows perfectly the trajectory that the 20th century was on towards Simplicity uniformity and predetermination imagine living in such
A city where there’s nothing to bump into uh these uniform massive buildings with a big street and you’re trying to just like find your space where to be as much as we wish for spaces to be a spectacle we have to accept that they continuously change the in between
Spaces are part of this territory of spaces and only another condition just like here in the map of Rome where Batista not only captured the streets and squares but also the in betweenness the courtyards and alleys everyone here starts to encounter space in their everyday life
On our way to the bakery to work or um or just meeting people with our body we experience and sense the urban script around us which which makes us part of this chaotic and complex networks of spaces for instance in this example here you have on the left side um the street
With some people walking through not very busy some shop owners going up out and inside again on the right an extension where some people like two people people trying to just have a little chat together imagine being in that space how you would feel how you would walk through and interact imagine
Maybe the those two people kind of look over to you and like you feel a bit okay yeah they don’t want to have me there um our bodily presence and also like the presence of others interact uh shapes how we how we feel in Space the in between we get to know for
Instance is here is not often particularly pretty it could be rough untidy cold but at the same time if you think about it it actually is it’s honest it’s simple it’s personal you can find a lot of things with these firstand experiences we often have an architectonic perspective on the spaces
Around us they have a particular influence over us since we’re directly involved in it and cannot exclude ourselves from it the in between gives the designer’s context of how people are using the spaces because often these spaces are not very like not created with a big design attention behind for inhabitants
On the other side it fulfills basic needs for instance air ventilation um providing Greenery or just um on the ground floor as in my Courtyard a communal semi-public space which creates a sense of belonging here the spaces in between are backgrounds backstage stages that are necessary to to help the foreground the
Public and private spaces to function better for instance here you see some um some entrances of Milan um where people kind of like use them also to communicate with each other for instance in the picture below someone announces that their child was born or share books together um in they can also be
Interstitial spaces that offer connection from one room to another like a passage surpassing different thresholds a good example here is again our friend the courtyard that with its sequence of uh doors and corridors um create creates this passage from the apartment to the street and has different levels of intimacy where we
Also interact and react to either going towards our private apartment and we become a bit more calm and ready to be relaxed or we come to the street and we get prepared to go out and experience this is a key element um and allows the creation of different
Subspaces pocket spaces and holes in the urban Fabric and each of them might create a character that surprises us another example is the vast amounts of abandoned or underused spaces leftover spaces which for us planners is Treasures they’re amazing um these faes are they have lost their original uses
Or attention sometimes even uh aren’t part of the economic or political processes of control this offers them to become a stage for subcultures with their informal uses and um that might not be appreciated Elsewhere for instance squarters but we can discover the in between also on a more urban scale I
Mean I’m an urban planner after all here we can find them for instance at around Regional or national borders for instance as here on the us or Mexican border where at the border area there are a lot of abandoned or uh spaces that controlled at the same time that offer
Some hidden areas where people then might venture to but also at the peripheries or um at at the peripheries of our cities new Urban settlements form such as American suburbs or here the intertwined glomeration of the ranad spaces in between are quite literally between definitions and objectives here different
Characteristics merge and form something new this blurry and uncertain situation is exactly what we call liminality they are free of outside oppression and show the real faces of the people that are using it just like in a soccer game where constantly new situations emerge so this stable uncertainty makes it so
Difficult for us planners to set them in any any clear direction we can only nudge or prepare those spaces are often used passive left alone until someone or something activates them and shows that they have possibility if I want to inspire you today it’s definitely not that you have
To become an urb planner my message is less about the concrete spaces but it’s more about what it stands for and the sensibility that they come with that I would like to share so they put us into an uncomfortable position of being between the known and unknown and help us make
Connections within our cities that way they open up multiple possibilities and obstacles at the same time just like here where with each step your perspective changes and you’re not yet sure in which direction as we see in between spaces share some characteristics that might be interesting for urb dwellers you and me
But at the same time also for designers the they are individ idual yet Collective by being subjective spaces that create a shared space for the inhib inhabitants they can be multiple or have multiple characteristics and ofer Stage for different uses especially when looking at their daily rhythms and they
Blur the conventional definitions of space they’re left in a passive State and distant from the outside influences just waiting to be activated and they can be porous so open for an exchange for some with the surrounding so we should stop looking at cities in order to simplify or regulating them because they’re complex
There can be something productive out of the inod or logical out of the illogical inside our cities the spaces in between appear where we interact with one another and they take us from one space to another we should embrace this condition of in between such as the breaks between meetings just like in
Italy where people are used to take a Qui quick coffee break in in a bar or somewhere else and prepare take a break just because uh just before they continue with the daily tasks more so these are places of resonance between people of a community or within a
Society this is where we learn to connect with one another as Richard senet says or argues for a more open City I believe that within the city uh in particularly the in between spaces hold important for creating resonance that strengthens our communities as Urban dwellers we are the
Activators of space we’re the users we have to start being aware of that power that we have and propose Alternatives give meaning to places that planners don’t see anymore for instance when we use our Courtyards or the porches or in front of our Windows uh and put some
Little things into them you add diversity you add a new layer uh of how to live with your with within your environment on a higher level at the same time uh they might be citizens that try to create more uh new spaces for that that share some democratic aspects
And occupy the abandoned buildings and open them up so we cannot solely rely on planners and I see definitely here a limit what design can do because spaces are more conditions rather than actual well-designed spaces for urban planners on the other side we have to accept this and we have
To look for different interpretations and the unknown values of spaces we should look at the disruptions and expand the Horizon of what makes them uh yeah what makes them a part of our lives in Europe especially after the co pandemic we’re trying and we should try
To find ways to lose our rigidity and become more flexible there’s an example in Milan in the last design week um that had a beautiful created a beautiful space um in the storage spaces of under the Central Station called SOI in which planners inhabitants came together and
Tried to like open up that space uh and they didn’t try to uh design it in a very well manner so that you would feel comfortable sitting in it it was kind of rough but at the same time they they provided this open space and let people
Curate it and say what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it in it so for a short while it was a workshop for furniture uh constructions then it was a space for watching football another time uh in the evenings everything was closed they had a spontaneous Gathering and had
Some beers there and other times it could be just to discuss about planning the beauty here is like that it’s a collective space and it kind of like makes the people understand and think about okay what do I want spaces to be so finally after hearing all of this
What what would I like you to take away to your daily lives to your city to your to your homes except of that I might be a bit too much of a city Enthusiast here I definitely did not reinvent the wheel here and I’m really grateful for this
Opportunity to speak here and learn more together with you about the spaces in between what I would like to share with you though today is to start becoming aware and grateful for the spatial artifacts and spaces around you embrace the urban Adventure om to Tony here in
My opinion captures this in his art beautifully um in in that he shows how spaces is constantly uh in a relationship between people and humans uh and City sorry every city has their own notion of inbetweenness that in their own right influences the daily lives of the inhabitants and The rhythms
Of cities when we understand this we can change our way we live in cities by changing the environment around us the ones that you’ve never heard about that seem mundane and not really worth of much attention it’s these spaces guiding us through uh through our daily lives though sometimes they’re
Forgettable take this enthusiasm the knowledge that you make a difference and hold the planners accountable and planners take the daily practices that are hidden in the in between seriously on a last note I would just uh if you want to start for instance today or tomorrow here in denh to discover the
Inbetweenness yourself I just put some personal pictures that I took yesterday on a stroll maybe this these could be spaces that you start venturing into the in between thank you