2021_Neha Keshari — SEA Archives

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Memoryscape: a psychogeographic understanding of street

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Neha Keshari, 2021

When streets are designed today, they are designed in terms of efficiency, and as a result, they are seen as a product of maintaining order and restricting movements. They are designed with an engineering logic for a vehicular imagination of the street. This leads to road expansions or new infrastructure projects to relieve traffic congestion in the city and pathways to facilitate efficient pedestrian movement. The thesis argues that when cartographic street plans are made for a neighborhood that has settled over years, they are made for engineering efficiency without considering the relationship of a place to its people. When streets are transformed, new development causes certain disruptions in existing relationships, practices, and memories of streets.

In this dissertation, I argue that studying street memories can help one comprehend the current relationship individuals have with space. People through association recall a certain spatiality to which they are emotionally linked or have assigned a specific meaning. Furthermore, this thesis attempts to understand how memory creates a sense of space for a street. Through 3 street narratives, I realized that people’s perceptions of the street are constructed through the lived experiences of the street edge. The thesis finds that people's memories of streets were never about efficiency; rather, they were about multiple logics the space afforded, allowing the space to perform as a retreat space, hold multiple practices, and facilitate sociability in the street interface. If these memories of people are mobilized in redesigning streets, they will afford a much more liveable city space.

Read also under ‘Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation’:

Architecture of congestion

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Deep Shah, 2018

Urban ruins

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Gauri Sarang, 2021

Spaces of lived experiences

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Mahek Malaviya, 2021

Architecture for mobile densities

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Nishi Shah, 2018

Festive spaces

Cultural Dimensions of Inhabitation
Rithik Mali, 2021

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