Die Beherrschung des Raumes - Typologien interspeziesistischer Cohabitation
Julia Koschewski
MATTER AGAINST DIVISION
Current ecological crises – most notably biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, and climatic instability – have not only intensified theoretical engagement with the relationship between humans, space, and the non-human, but have also foregrounded the entanglement of human and planetary processes (Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2009). Against this backdrop, posthumanist positions call for a decentering of the human subject and a renegotiation of forms of urban coexistence (Rosi Braidotti, 2014; Donna Haraway, 2016). At the same time, cities continue to be predominantly organized through functionally coded spatial units: parcelization, functional zoning, and infrastructural hierarchies stabilize discrete, monofunctional spatial orders and produce spatial exclusions.
This design-based doctoral project addresses the structural tension between discrete urban spatial orders and continuous ecological processes. While urban ordering logics rely on delineation, functional determination, and prioritization, ecological dynamics operate relationally – through overlap and processual continuity. This tension is not understood as a merely normative deficit, but as a fundamental condition inherent to architectural practice.
Theoretically, the project builds on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and understands urban space as a socially produced configuration of boundaries, attributed uses, and power relations (Lefebvre, 1974/1991; Schmid, 2005). Martina Löw’s relational concept of space, together with Edward Soja’s notion of socio-spatial structuring, refines this perspective by conceptualizing spatial orders as historically and politically stabilized relations (Löw, 2018; Soja, 1989). In this context, monofunctionality appears not only as a planning instrument, but as a structural logic of anthropogenic spatial organization.
Against this background, the project investigates how these logics can be deliberately shifted by transforming clearly bounded, monofunctional spatial structures in ways that enable continuity, overlap, and coexistence within existing systems of order. Particular attention is given to ecological edge and transition zones – spatial interfaces where anthropogenic, functionally coded structures encounter ecological dynamics and where their boundaries become especially pronounced.
Methodologically, the project develops an operative design laboratory. It begins with the modelling of urban sites that condense key characteristics of monofunctional spatial organization: clearly assigned uses, distinct typological textures, barriers, hierarchies, and minimal overlap. From this, a set of spatial operations is derived, including the overlapping of use structures, the densification and hybridization of thresholds, vertical multi-coding, and infrastructural recoding. These operations are tested within transition zones, elaborated through spatial models, and varied across scales. In addition, their transformation is explored through film to capture the temporal dynamics of spatial transitions.
The resulting models are not conceived as utopian total designs, but as epistemic instruments that allow for varying degrees of spatial discretization and their shift toward relational continuity. The project’s contribution lies in the development of an operative design approach that interlinks posthumanist theory, spatial theory, and design-based research in order to not only critically analyze monofunctional spatial orders, but to render them explicitly transformable.
Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 197–222.
Braidotti, R. (2014). The posthuman. Polity Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)
Schmid, C. (2005). Stadt, Raum und Gesellschaft: Henri Lefebvre und die Theorie der Produktion des Raumes. Franz Steiner Verlag.
Löw, M. (2018). Raumsoziologie (9th ed.). Suhrkamp.
Soja, E. W. (1989). Postmodern geographies: The reassertion of space in critical social theory. Verso.
Die Beherrschung des Raumes - Typologien interspeziesistischer Cohabitation
Julia Koschewski
MATTER AGAINST DIVISION
Current ecological crises – most notably biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, and climatic instability – have not only intensified theoretical engagement with the relationship between humans, space, and the non-human, but have also foregrounded the entanglement of human and planetary processes (Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2009). Against this backdrop, posthumanist positions call for a decentering of the human subject and a renegotiation of forms of urban coexistence (Rosi Braidotti, 2014; Donna Haraway, 2016). At the same time, cities continue to be predominantly organized through functionally coded spatial units: parcelization, functional zoning, and infrastructural hierarchies stabilize discrete, monofunctional spatial orders and produce spatial exclusions.
This design-based doctoral project addresses the structural tension between discrete urban spatial orders and continuous ecological processes. While urban ordering logics rely on delineation, functional determination, and prioritization, ecological dynamics operate relationally – through overlap and processual continuity. This tension is not understood as a merely normative deficit, but as a fundamental condition inherent to architectural practice.
Theoretically, the project builds on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and understands urban space as a socially produced configuration of boundaries, attributed uses, and power relations (Lefebvre, 1974/1991; Schmid, 2005). Martina Löw’s relational concept of space, together with Edward Soja’s notion of socio-spatial structuring, refines this perspective by conceptualizing spatial orders as historically and politically stabilized relations (Löw, 2018; Soja, 1989). In this context, monofunctionality appears not only as a planning instrument, but as a structural logic of anthropogenic spatial organization.
Against this background, the project investigates how these logics can be deliberately shifted by transforming clearly bounded, monofunctional spatial structures in ways that enable continuity, overlap, and coexistence within existing systems of order. Particular attention is given to ecological edge and transition zones – spatial interfaces where anthropogenic, functionally coded structures encounter ecological dynamics and where their boundaries become especially pronounced.
Methodologically, the project develops an operative design laboratory. It begins with the modelling of urban sites that condense key characteristics of monofunctional spatial organization: clearly assigned uses, distinct typological textures, barriers, hierarchies, and minimal overlap. From this, a set of spatial operations is derived, including the overlapping of use structures, the densification and hybridization of thresholds, vertical multi-coding, and infrastructural recoding. These operations are tested within transition zones, elaborated through spatial models, and varied across scales. In addition, their transformation is explored through film to capture the temporal dynamics of spatial transitions.
The resulting models are not conceived as utopian total designs, but as epistemic instruments that allow for varying degrees of spatial discretization and their shift toward relational continuity. The project’s contribution lies in the development of an operative design approach that interlinks posthumanist theory, spatial theory, and design-based research in order to not only critically analyze monofunctional spatial orders, but to render them explicitly transformable.
Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 197–222.
Braidotti, R. (2014). The posthuman. Polity Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)
Schmid, C. (2005). Stadt, Raum und Gesellschaft: Henri Lefebvre und die Theorie der Produktion des Raumes. Franz Steiner Verlag.
Löw, M. (2018). Raumsoziologie (9th ed.). Suhrkamp.
Soja, E. W. (1989). Postmodern geographies: The reassertion of space in critical social theory. Verso.
