Reshaping Riyadh Alsolh Square: Mapping the Narratives of Protesting Crowds in Beirut
Authors : Albarakt, R., Selim, G., & Iaaly, A.
Abstract : The conception of the state's ownership of public space and its control over its physical and psychological accessibility have shaped the spaces and the extent of public engagement. On the other side, civil movements challenge this dominance and contribute to reshaping the spaces through different modes of political gatherings. Several spaces in the Middle East have developed their significance through the competition of conflictual actors. This paper aims at identifying the spatial tools of the occupational competition for dominating the space. The article examines the method of generating time-aware maps of the spatial practices of protesting crowd out from the scattered archive of visual and verbal narratives using ArcGIS. By employing 395 archived videos which documented the protest event of 22nd – 24th, August 2015 in Riyadh Alsolh square, Beirut – Lebanon, the paper produced 144 plural patterns of the protestors' crowd movement per 10 minutes within 250 m radius of Riyadh Alsolh square's surroundings. The article defined four patterns of the crowd's territory based on their physical, unctional and relational characteristics. The conflictual sense of the contradictory crowds can be used to identify the status of competition for dominance. It also indicates the correlation between the features of the pattern and the potential of raising the conflictual sense. The examined method helps to analyse crowds' contribution in shaping public spaces during urban events; however, the more available spatiotemporal recordings, the more figured characteristics of the produced space.
Keywords : Public Space, Socio-political Movement, Spatial Contestation, Crowd Mapping, ArcGIS, Riyadh Alsolh Square, Beirut
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Cyberspace as the Public Space of Virtual Communities: A Study of Virtual Communities Members’ Behavior as an Approach to the Physical Version of Cyberspace
Authors : Al Tal, R. S., & AliBarakat, R.
Abstract : This research deals with the cyberspace as the public space of virtual communities. It assumes that the involvement in virtual communities has changed people’s conception towards their response to the sense of space. It aims at investigating the effective properties of the cyberspace, and then the
possibility of translating these properties into applicable and efficient features in the reality of the physical space. To examine the assumptions of the research, an e-survey was conducted on a sample of architectural students at Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), who share
the same physical space in their college and a cyberspace of their Facebook group – “ArchiGroup”. The research reveals students’ tendency to feel the reality of the virtual communities, and its milieu –cyberspace. Based on the results, the findings of the research recommend designers to consider the
success of cyberspace while designing the physical versions. In addition, the research seems applicable on different models that employ different variables to investigate a mechanism of producing a physical space as productive as the cyber version, achieving the real version of participation.
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Radicalism vs. Consistency: The Cyber Influence on Individuals’ Non-Routine Uses in Public Spaces, the case of Cairo.
Authors : Albarakat, R., & Selim, G.
Abstract : Since the emergence of the concept of user-generated content websites—Web 2.0, Internet communications have developed as a powerful personal and social phenomenon. Many Internet applications have become partially or entirely related to the concept of social network; and cyberspace has become a space about ‘us’ not ‘where’ we are. This paper investigates the theoretical grounds of the effect of cyber experience on changing the individuals’ uses of the public spaces, and sustaining this change through maintaining the ties and reciprocal influence between actions in physical and cyber spaces. It aims at examining the impact of cyber territories on the perception, definition and effectiveness of personal space within different circumstances; and its role in changing the uses of spaces where people used to act habitually. The personal space, here, will be represented as the core of both: change and consistency—the space of bridging the reciprocal effect of cyber and physical counterparts, which is transformed through the experience of physical events mediated into the cyberspace. The paper is part of a study which looks at the case of Tahrir Square during the Egyptian political movement in 2011. We will compare the activists’ actions and practices in the Square during different events of non-routine use of the square and its surroundings. The case study will show the level of consistency in the features of the produced personal space within different waves of the revolutionary actions for all that different circumstances, motivations and results.
Keywords : Cyberspace, activist, personal space, political movements, public space
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