Samadar Aukal

The term order is used constantly in architectural discourse to describe elements arranged in a certain way; columns used to form a grid, a grid that leads to symmetry, and eventually creating order in space. That order includes hierarchy in labelling spheres according to their use and more importantly, the users who are permitted and not permitted of entering them. However, imposed order in the city either in a building or public space, has social implications and consequences. Some of these consequences are architectural and social elements which led, and keep supporting, the capitalist system dominating the world. When the architecture produced is no longer designed to serve public gathering or encourage social interactions, rather it becomes a way to govern the city and control the market.

As a response to imposed order, people- especially architects, artists, theorists and activists, were always able to find a way through time to challenge the system and negotiate their way into creating a response of disorder, either by social acts, or by using physical architectural elements to enable their resistance through space. Some of these attempts have been taken to the extreme whether by turning disorder into complete chaos and destruction, or by marketing it and advertising it as the new trend, thus eliminating its essence and main resolution.

The importance of order is evident in the city and we can’t argue its value to human history, culture, architecture and civilization, however, I argue that the importance of disorder in the city is crucial, nevertheless. The role of architecture in creating and designing the Liminal Space is critical, for this space is not only social, but it is also physical. The role of architects to be that political, change should be incorporated in the architectural discourse from within.

The temporal, agonistic moment in between order and disorder, is the active disorder that needs to be appreciated and comprehended in the city. When disorder is located in that Liminal space, is where it becomes active and influences social, political and architectural change the most. To look at the Liminal space between order and disorder is like looking into Foucault’s Heterotopia in a way. Its existence is located in the space and time frame between the two opposites.

We are located in a delicate time where architecture has been used to maintain order and control the capitalist system, however, it is also a time where we, not only the architects and city designers, but all residents of the city should keep resisting the imposed order through an Active Disorder, for without the search and longing for it, we will remain a non-rebellious, passive society accepting whatever form of power, control and order the state may impose on us.

It goes beyond saying that many elements from order and disorder are incorporated into the Active one, however, a single use of solely one of them is not sufficient for its existence or survival. For even the state of Active Disorder is temporary, I do not suggest that it's obsolete or permanent, rather it can change at any given moment and turn into chaotic destruction or marketed order. I do believe that what could keep it in that Liminal Space and Active, is constant conflict and dispute. The investigation is not a solution or a resolution, its location in the Liminal Space depends on the continuous negotiations between Order and Disorder. The existence of the Liminal Space in the city depends on the survival of the Active Disorder, for one cannot exist without the other. The role of the architects is to get involved in the architecture discourse and influence it through designing the elements of the Liminal Space which will keep the created disorder Active. The designed spaces should be flexible and dynamic, both qualities that keep people in constant negotiations and interactions amongst themselves. Since those negotiations which emerge from conflict will keep the created Disorder in fact Active, and not thrown to either side of imposed order or chaotic disorder.

Talking about London, one speaks, often unaware, of an overlooked majority of ethnically diverse, young city dwellers. A decisive number belongs to 10% of the most deprived areas of the UK. Already facing numerous challenges in one of Europe’s densest and most expensive cities with a severe lack of care services for its population, it is the urban youth which faces the biggest negative impacts through the Coronavirus Pandemic. Living in the traditional family apartment with the needs but missing recourse of emancipating from their family home to start their own independent life in a (non existent) housing market and therefore gain society's trust as a valid resident of a community. Already we experience a generally more intense and thorough governance of public space. Adding to the challenges is the high unemployment rate they are facing. The city will not be what we are used to and will be even less able to react to new rising demands other than with increased surveillance and rising capitalism. The urban realm as we know it, and especially the High Street will have high numbers of empty retail spaces and the possibility of decay or at least the illusion of that very is about to become part of a new reality.
Suppressed parts of society feel the need to claim their space in a world which ignores or works against them with an occupation of unsurveilled urban space. There is no doubt that in a post pandemic world the worst affected group of city dwellers, the young, will meet, yet again, a universal will to change a previous governance system and especially, to express it spatially.
Creating an agonistic resistance, the post pandemic City could be built on social equality. If care structures, independently, will be enabled to expand from the domestic into the urban realm, the very act would create common goods of education, the exchange of ideas and with that a communal self-governed organization of resistance amongst residents, neighborhoods and the city. A common responsibility would establish a ‘‘Young Urban Cooperative’’. In this every resident no matter which age group gets assigned the same dwelling space, whereas the internal living quarters get created communally according to the residents’ shared needs. This inner community structure is its own tool to express their opinions, needs and place in the city. It then gets expressed externally as a neighborhood cooperative network.
The youth resistance begins with taking over the parliament, a building considered as ‘holy’ metaphorically, and distributes part of it across the city in order to enable the youth to be part of the decision making. Taking apart the parliamentary building exclaims an act of resistance, a declaration that youth are regaining their voice in democracy and their influence over what happens in the city is as crucial as their existence. When the parliamentary act becomes part of the streets, the houses, the public squares, educational institutions and local shops, it ceases to be an institution where certain people summon in a closed building and decide the fate of a whole nation, but rather becomes part of the daily life, where youth can express their right to have a voice of change. A cluster of these Youth-occupied High Streets, organized through their very own self-governed structure would enable the exchange of goods and services across the city.
The city has the opportunity to change now! It must resist in order to create an agonistic society. It is now, that the Urban Youth will be ready to claim its rightful space and that very should be surrendered in order to enable a much needed agonistic resistance.