Written and Unwritten Building Conventions in a Contested City: The Case of Belfast

Ralf Brand
Additional contact information
Ralf Brand: School of Environment and Development/MARC Humanities Bridgeford St, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK, ralf.brand@manchester.ac.uk

Urban Studies, 2009, vol. 46, issue 12, 2669-2689

Abstract: Many design conventions are legally binding, state-issued building codes and regulations, but many others derive their authority from other sources, are enforced by other means and exist for other purposes. This paper therefore introduces a scheme to cover the wide variety of de facto building conventions. Particularly interesting examples of seemingly atypical conventions can be found in Northern Ireland where the specific socio-political situation requires particular design approaches. Many design conventions guide the creation of artefacts that attempt to influence people’s behaviour. The distinction between corpo-active versus symbolic mechanisms and socio-fugal versus socio-petal effects is introduced in order to grasp further differences between such socio-active artefacts. The latter are of special significance in situations where communities in strife are slowly learning to practise a peaceful co-existence, as is demonstrated with one specific case study.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098009345538 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:46:y:2009:i:12:p:2669-2689

DOI: 10.1177/0042098009345538

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().