ABSTRACT
The objects and their arrangement are regulated and regulate: the design of space unfolds a system of rules that enable, deny, but also invite to act. The chapter analyses the regulative effect of the park’s spatial disposition in the case study of the new neighbourhood Clichy-Batignolles in Paris. More and more frequently, parks are a repository of “performative” objects that highlight the affordances that can create new uses. A performative object highlights affordances that do not correspond to ordinary uses and relies on its moral intensity and authorises unprecedented actions. Such objects force the users to restructure their semiotic resources; they carry scripts that correspond to authorisations, prohibitions, and even invitations. Planning, design, and social practices define jointly through different scales the spatial configuration of objects, pathway, fences, trenches, and buildings that substitute a vast cohort of human actants and operate consequently as a complex “moral” machine. This delegation is of increasing importance and affects a growing number of “objects”.
