This document examines the public spaces created by the built environment of the city and asks: How is it that the apparently benign and benevolent activity of designing public space can in fact reinforce values that effectively marginalise and exclude significant groups of people? It contrasts the consequences of design decisions that are based on a value system of ???either/or??? with the possibility for designs based on ???both/and???. The perception of boundaries, the desire to dwell, the need to belong and the relationship of these phenomena to an understanding of ???self???, is proposed as the key means for analysing how public space is experienced by the user. The document uses the language of barriers and boundaries to interrogate how the value systems of those with the control over resources is manifest in the built environment of the city, and examines the impact such environments have on the user???s desire to ???dwell??? and need to belong. The potential for an alternate paradigm based on a system that recognises ???both/and??? to produce beneficial outcomes is then proposed, with a focus on an ethic of care to complement the ethic of justice that currently guides design decisions for public space. Personal interviews with architects, town planners, representatives from relevant government agencies, and users of public space, participation in public meetings and systematic observation of specific sites have been used to inform the argument and assess the validity of claims. The document is extended by a body of visual work that further interrogates the need to belong and broader issues of the primal significance of ???sanctuary??? to the ability to ???dwell???. The making and maintaining of boundaries, necessary to form a sanctuary, is portrayed as a process fraught with insecurities and vulnerabilities necessitating, in circumstances where personal power or the ability to influence one???s environment is diminished, the use of subversive tactics in order to create a space in which one can belong.

This document examines the public spaces created by the built environment of the city and asks: How is it that the apparently benign and benevolent activity of designing public space can in fact reinforce values that effectively marginalise and exclude significant groups of people? It contrasts the consequences of design decisions that are based on a value system of ???either/or??? with the possibility for designs based on ???both/and???. The perception of boundaries, the desire to dwell, the need to belong and the relationship of these phenomena to an understanding of ???self???, is proposed as the key means for analysing how public space is experienced by the user. The document uses the language of barriers and boundaries to interrogate how the value systems of those with the control over resources is manifest in the built environment of the city, and examines the impact such environments have on the user???s desire to ???dwell??? and need to belong. The potential for an alternate paradigm based on a system that recognises ???both/and??? to produce beneficial outcomes is then proposed, with a focus on an ethic of care to complement the ethic of justice that currently guides design decisions for public space. Personal interviews with architects, town planners, representatives from relevant government agencies, and users of public space, participation in public meetings and systematic observation of specific sites have been used to inform the argument and assess the validity of claims. The document is extended by a body of visual work that further interrogates the need to belong and broader issues of the primal significance of ???sanctuary??? to the ability to ???dwell???. The making and maintaining of boundaries, necessary to form a sanctuary, is portrayed as a process fraught with insecurities and vulnerabilities necessitating, in circumstances where personal power or the ability to influence one???s environment is diminished, the use of subversive tactics in order to create a space in which one can belong.

Thesis (M. Des. (Hons.))--College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, 2004. / Also available online.