ABSTRACT
When a piece of infrastructure such as the old high line for coal transportation, “Kulkransporet“ (KKS), in Aarhus, Denmark grows out of age and is transformed into a spatial backbone in new developments, its ‘raison d’etré’-based relation between form and function is challenged. As industries and industrial zones and areas are outdated, they often are changed into recreative assets and these transformation projects and the way they are programmed are highly relevant to study from an urban life perspective.
The paper analyses KKS, and considers the interplay between the built, the imagined and the lived spaces as a condition for design for “social life”, and a “social infrastructure” from three perspectives or three known concepts within the field of urban design. The three concepts are: Rem Koolhaas’ / Soviet Constructivists’ ‘Social Condenser’, Haijer & Reijndorp's ‘Public Domain’, and the activation conceptions or strategies of William H. Whyte's ‘Triangulation’.
