URBAN CLASH

摘要

At a recent meeting of my residents' association we had the chance to sign up to an innovative treehouse project in the back garden of our estate in London. The committee rejected it on the grounds that the resulting structure — to be built with the help of children living on the estate - would become a haven for the homeless. I was reminded of this when reading Children and Their Urban Environment by Claire Freeman and Paul Tranter. It contends that designers, especially architects, show'no noticeable trends towards working with children'. This may well be because if they did it would throw up some uncomfortable tensions The authors argue that our desires for children and the places we want to live are full of 'social and space-based paradoxes'. Most intractable is our relationship with cars, which are seen as bad for the environment. The authors could have added that today's urban environments are considered so hazardous that i1 is assumed children are safer locked away in metal boxes.