Theory and Practice of the Public Domain at TU Eindhoven

Daryl will start a new lecturing and tutoring role at TU Eindhoven, responsible for coordination of the Theory and Practice of the Public Domain Course for Master Students. During the course the students perform a public life survey looking at the life of a place before making proposals for a design intervention.

“public space is understood as streets, alleys, buildings, squares, bollards: everything that can be considered part of the built environment. Public life should also be understood in the broadest sense as everything that takes place between buildings, to and from school, on balconies, seated, standing, walking, biking, etc. It is everything we can go out and observe happening ”. Jan Gehl

The course balances the practical work with the theory form an number of urban scholars leading students to question what is public space and what is the public domain at large? Does its morphology and use define it, or what else plays a role in how we understand and draw meaning from it? In this interdisciplinary course we will examine public spaces as physical and social constructs created over time. We will try to answer how these spaces of congregation, occupation and circulation can be defined, analysed, visualized and understood leading to the development of proposals for their improvement.

DVRC Hong Kong, Daryl Mulvihill