The Everyday: Informing the realm of routine practice through design

When we think of the everyday, we tend to think of such words as familiar, ordinary, mundane, habitual, banal, and commonplace. Yet beyond these dictionary definitions lies a much deeper meaning and appreciation when understood as something that is experienced.

When it comes to informing and interpreting the everyday through design, early contemporary theorists Michael De Certeau, Henri Lefebvre and Georges Perec to contemporary advocates of landscape architecture, such as Walter Hood and Laurie Olin, have provided a design oriented approach to the understanding on a subject of study that has long been neglected. There lies a relationship between the quotidian dimension and design that is attuned to experience of place and individual expression.

This thesis presents an approach to discovering interpretations of the everyday and how landscape architects can express such influences in the design of urban public places. My methodology involves the use of case studies to provide design guidelines that are translated from universal to site specific values.

By adapting the common vocabulary landscape architecture with the realm of the routine practices, the city as a deep rooted, ephemeral, and evolving entity will transform the public realm into spaces that can occupy the desire to grow, change, and adapt.