Graffiti Architecture: Alternative Methodologies for the Appropriation of Space

Post-war socioeconomic shifts have reconfigured the built environment to complex networks of private, commodified zones masquerading as public space. These spaces are inextricably linked to marketing strategies, financial gains, sustained economic growth. Here, actual uses and potential new uses of space are forcefully suppressed. This is evidenced by the “War” on Graffiti.

Graffiti causes no structural damage; because it disrupts the image of space it is fought and suppressed. An investigation into its constructs might unveil a complex political infrastructure which implicates society, consumerism, and architecture. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to investigate the disconnect between mediated use of space built from image and the actual use of space built from need, to establish a methodology that translates the politics of graffiti from visual/graphic to spatial/occupiable. The found paradigms will be applied to three designs: a rural cycling lane, privacy shells in suburbia, and an urban workplace.