Third Spaces and the Collective City

Relationality in architecture is a position we have been developing in the studio and which considers relations among people and events as primary, over and above conceptions of simple particularity. Thus, by extension, single buildings are constituted by and form part of a network of relations. In this context the third space is the creation of a space that, while internal to other spaces with already determined logics of creation, is not formed or organised by those logics. The third space is defined therefore in terms of relations of indetermination. Such relations define (and create) actual openings—openings as an informed interruption and thus as a form of autonomy. At the Daesun Wheat Factory in Yeongdeungpo, questions arise around the regeneration of industrial heritage on a site surrounded by transportation infrastructure, shopping malls, residences, markets, light-industry, artist lofts, and a red-light district. We suggest that “conventional” development approaches might be discarded in favour of a strategy that weaves “third spaces” in and amongst the existing buildings and connects the site back to its context. The brief is for a small public arts library that supports the nearby arts community. Both the logics of development and the typology of the library are rethought.