Segregation and parallel communities

I have recently started field work in Tottenham, walking along the high road and drawing it, talking to people, and trying to find ways in to the place and its people. Ultimately, I am intending conduct some focus groups and interviews (all very spatial, of course) to begin to uncover what the high street means to people, what role it plays in their lives.

But how does one go about 'meeting people'? Such a simple phrase, so difficult to actually achieve. Of course, you meet people when you walk into a shop, you can converse with people at bus stops - but they are very brief, fleeting exchanges, Also, particularly in shops when one is, say, buying a chocolate bar, the interaction is very scripted, almost pr-ordained. It is not done to make in-depth conversation with a shopkeeper about the nature of the high street; people behind in the queue start to get huffy; and most shopkeepers (apart from the odd particularly friendly and verbose one) do not really want to have a long conversation with someone they do not know, they save their sociable chat for people they see regularly, or have some other connection with outside the customer/shopkeeper relationship.

So, I have done several things. First, I started eating in cafes, staying for one hour and observing what happened while I was there; who came in and out, who spoke to whom. I also attempted, futilely, to chat to people; but the decorum attached to adjacent tables is such that one simply does not lean across and make conversation with one's neighbour, and everyone would look at you askance if you join someone else's table if there are tables free.

Second, I have transferred the usual salon treatments I have (leg waxing, eyebrow threading) to Tottenham High Road. I said to myself, as I walked along the high road, that I would walk into the FIRST place I saw which offered eyebrow threading. However, an interesting this happened: I discovered that I was less keen to enter some beauty establishments than others. The first place I passed had only four women inside, and all seemed deeply engaged in conversation with one another. I was too shy to enter, fearful that I would be intruding on their conversation, and I couldn't pluck up the courage. This salon is shown here:

So, I proceeded until I found a place which was more similar to salons where I have been before. This one was staffed with a mix of women, and was much bigger. No-one appeared to be having a private conversation. The women who did my eyebrows was Turkish, and extremely friendly. I was not shy of this woman because I have been to Turkey on several occasions, and have met many Turkish people.

I have learned two things from this initial foray into Tottenham. First, that the parallel communities are stark, especially in hairdressing/beauty salons. As you pass by, you look in, and everyone looks like they are of the same ethnic origin, wearing similar clothes, and like they know one another. This seems to be less so with nail salons, which appear to have more of a mix of people.

The second thing I have uncovered is the relationship between the setting, and the people, and the likelihood that I will enter a particular high street establishment. It is previous experience of a similar setting which seems to be the most pertinent aspect of my decision, rather than necessarily the people inside. For example, I am very happy to enter a shop which sells beauty and hair products for black women, even though I myself am white, because I always used to use such as a teenager to buy colourful hair extensions. However, I am reluctant to enter a nail parlour, because I have never had my nails one professionally before. This seems to have something to do with the topic of the setting, ie. I have had my legs waxed before, and there are certain procedures which leg waxing involves, which do not change - regardless of the place the waxing happens (for example, I had my legs waxed in Seven Sisters by a woman whose English was very difficult for me to understand; but it didn't matter because we both knew what was happening and we both adhered to the unwritten leg-waxing code. In contrast, the nail parlour is a mystery to me; I am disconcerted by not knowing the unwritten nail-code, or any of the language (for example, I do not know what a set of acrylics is, really, how they're attached, or how much they should cost).

It is interesting to wonder to what extent these types of feelings are universal amongst people and what factors persuade them to overcome their fear and enter unfamiliar setting. I wonder if thus says something about why the high street chains have such an enduring popularity; they are eminently predictable in their context, the staff are predictable, and the experience does not vary from place to place.

A Picture of Tottenham Hale

Research and methodology development drawing of Tottenham Hale, drawn from imagination and personal experiences. Drawing is the first in a series, intended to explore the relationship between physical forms of streets, buildings, scale and social/political organisation in three case study areas, which represent urban typicalities along the A10 high road: Tottenham Hale, Dalston and Bishopsgate. 

Tottenham Hale Retail Park: A Study in the City as Shopping

Having resolved to visit Tottenham Hale twice a week, I began yesterday, under grey skies and showered lightly with drizzle.


Tottenham Hale is both a pilot study and a case study for the research project. I am using it both to test research methods, and as one of three case studies which represent typical conditions in London.  Its typicality lies in its swathes of housing constructed for 19th century commuters; its railway and tube links (it is approximately a 30 minute journey to Victoria) and the fact that it has grown with and from the high road which connects it to the centre. The texture of identikit streets of housing also relate to secondary high roads, which connect the roads which radiate from the centre.


Like innumerable London suburbs (for example, there is a similar place in Charlton, and another in North Greenwich), a big chunk of Tottenham Hale has been filled with a mecca for the shopper, particularly the shopper who wishes to purchase everything for £1; or who wants to find their clothes and shoes in the same store where they buy their groceries . . . it is a retail park.

The stunning Retail Park: a Great Shopping Experience for All The Family

Tottenham Hale Retail Rark is grey (as all retail parks seem to be), and consists in large sheds, filled with oversized stores, tastefully arranged around a sea of car parking, with 620 spaces in all. The ASDA is the biggest one I have ever seen, and there are 21 other chain stores and restaurants available to choose from: Argos, B&Q, Boots, Burger King, Carpet Right, Carphone Warehouse, Currys, Comet, Costa, Coffee, Halfords, JD Sport, KFC, Lidl, Next, 02, PC World, Pound World, Pizza Hut, Staples and Subway.


Walking about, I was clutched with an urge to pick up a few things 'while I'm here', as though things are not available to purchase in other locations. Oddly, a high street full of shops does not have this effect on me, I am more inclined to buy what I need, have a coffee and go home.  A similar thing happens to me when I go to a giant supermarket to do some shopping . . . and I come away with lots of things which I did not intend to buy. I was trying to unpick why this might be, and I have concluded that it is because both supermarkets and retail parks and physically unpleasant places to be. The massive car park, the over-scaled grey facades; the life here is about purchasing and delivering goods, and about nothing else.


I watched some staff members from the shops come outside to smoke, and loiter by the blank walls, conversing with each other, but they were the only people who paused on the footpaths, everyone else escaped the oppressiveness as soon as possible, ducking inside the stores to relieve the unpleasantness of the place with the buzz of purchase. There is nowhere to sit, unless inside the Costa, drinking an extremely expensive hot beverage (a flapjack and a cup of tea cost me about £3.50).
In its anti-social-life design, the retail park successfully encourages visitors to focus solely on spending their money.


This morning on the Today Programme, Mary Portas (Queen of Shops) was discussing her proposed review for the government on the future of the local English high street, which is becoming empty of independent shops and becoming a 'ghost town'. Evan Davies suggested that the internet is killing the high street, but it seems more likely that prior to the explosion of internet shopping, it was retail parks and giant supermarkets which sucked the life (and continue to suck the life) out of town centres.


Thinking about the future for shopping in cities, most high streets have typologies which can support a range of uses, responding flexibly to economic changes. In contrast, everything about the retail park is focussed on consumption, and specifically consumption in high-rent, massive chain stores. If you build a place which can only be for shopping, and then invent a way for people to buy things more cheaply . . . then you have dug your own grave. The internet is the 'retail park' of the present era; it is easier, and cheaper than the high street, but it has none of the other constituent parts for the support and structuring of social and civic life.

Systems of Classification

I have been busily engaged for some weeks in the mammoth task of making a map of all the uses in the vicinity of Tottenham Hale, according to the system of use classes which structures our planning system in the UK. This was inspired by out discussion with Liza yesterday, who had mapped the buildings identified by Dalston residents as 'important', and defined their 'use class' according to the Dewey Decimal System.


This is a very interesting idea. A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system where I equated the planning use classes with something a little intangible - 'levels of socialness' ie. the amount which each type of building facilitates people being sociable with one another. For example, in my 'levels of socialness' scale, offices are the most social place. So, the [simplified] use classes look like this:

A1: shops
A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)
A3: restaurants and cafés
A4: drinking establishments
A5: hot food takeaways
B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards
D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)
D2: assembly and leisure (theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)

And the re-arranged use-classes according to 'socialness' look like this: 

B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards

D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)

A3: restaurants and cafés

A4: drinking establishments

A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)

D2: assembly and leisure (churches, theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)

A1: shops
A5: hot food takeaways

Ignoring for the moment the obvious serious flaws in my classification (like, for example, the problem of groupings), re-classifying the categories makes the information look very different. For example, it starts to look as though the major routes are lined with the least sociable uses, although there are obviously further variables which are relevant, for example, people probably visit shops more often, but stay for much less time than they would visit a church.


So, perhaps it is an obvious thing to say, but the system of classification is very, very important. Again, it's obvious, but you cannot show shades of information for which there is no classification. This relates directly to the masterplan. The master cannot plan for classifications which don't exist, hence Muf's fantastically clever use of the Dewey decimal system, which has an almost endless number of subtle subcategories. The choice of categories also speaks volumes about the chooser. For example, I visit neither the gym nor the church, so to group these things together is unproblematic for me, in a way which I suspect would not sit comfortably with a regular user of both. The use classes themselves, as a system, define very particularly the kind of cities they allow to be planned,which is a fascinating idea.


As a next step, I am going to attempt to classify a street according to the Dewey Decimal system. Wish me luck!

Peripheral Practices, AHRA Conference

The High Road in the Periphery – 

Architecture as Epistemology and Practical Knowledge

Here is a submission for the AHRA conference at Belfast - Peripheral Practices


This paper will explore the notion of periphery in architecture in two respects. First, it will use Tottenham Hale as a vehicle to investigate the constituents of urban periphery, both generic and particular. Second, through this process, the paper will reveal the methodological consequences of an approach that uses techniques from a range of peripheral disciplines.

In terms of both area and population, the peripheries of London are larger than the centre. Tottenham Hale is one of many suburbs that have developed gradually over time along a spider web of high roads, in this case the A10, which began as Ermine Street in Roman times, and is clearly visible on a1559 map of London. It represents a typicality of outer-urban condition, where there is some measure of self-support, but some activities still relate to the centre. Shopping, children’s education and many services are provided locally. 

The economic and social focus of Tottenham Hale is its connective arterial routes, such as the A10. Lefevbre argues that streets are by nature contradictory: They are a meeting place which animate and are animated by cafes, theatres etc., mediating between segregation. Playful, surprising, ‘disordered’ yet alive, as compared to the rest of urban fabric. Yet also they are superficial, relationships are alienating and movement is obligatory. The network is organized for and by consumption. This analysis  lacks specificity, and fails to to engage with ‘depth’ of the street: the A10 at Tottenham Hale exists in a state of reciprocal interdependency with the embodied activity and life in the surrounding streets and blocks.

“…the rural suburb becomes a busy and crowded town, with the peculiarity that the streets in the day-time are filled with women and children; and fortunes are made in local trade, or in local speculation.”

This study will investigate the history, institutional order, nature of high street, local depth, position in London and the relation of Tottenham Hale to the commercial centre; work that is already well underway as part of a wider research project about the A10. The method of investigation is a combination of data mapping, photographing, drawing and discussions. The work consists of both interprevitist and positivist aspects and this use of mixed methods reflects the complexity of the phenomena. The sources for hard data include National Statistics and Ordnance Survey mappings, and soft data is being collected informally through unstructured interviews by the author.

The paper aims to challenge neo-liberal interpretations of city as a ‘datascape’, where planning equals economic management. The theoretical framework is phenomenology, and interpretive planning theory - that knowledge has no objective existence, and is instead constituted through embodied interactive processes. Some theories, eg. Habermas’ ‘communicative rationality’ provide an understanding of political life, but divorces that understanding from the world of embodied things. In contrast, this project begins with the embodied conditions, explored through praxis, which will allow a dialogue between the different types of analyses from a range of disciplines.

By exploring the phenomena that comprise civic life at the periphery of London, the paper will demonstrate that context and praxis are both constituents of that which we call architecture. Architecture is therefore the horizon and the containment of peripheral disciplines of economics and sociology and the political and social life of society. It can and should bridge the gap between the language of existence in an embodied world, and a spoken language of ideas about ethical practice.