What does a small residential estate communicate to the people who use it, and how?I chose an estate at 10 Lilac Lane / Usk Street, Bethnal Green (E2 0FX) as my site and visited on the 24th (sept). I set myself one rule: photograph anything that appeared to instruct, restrict, direct, monitor or organise behaviour. I kept every photograph, including the ones that seemed boring, so that nothing was filtered out before I had analysed it.
I chose a council estate because of its apparent ordinariness and repetition. The spaces often follow a ‘copy and paste’ principle, with similar buildings, fences, pathways and architectural features repeated throughout the environment. At first, this makes the estate feel visually uniform and almost anonymous. However, this uniformity becomes interesting when you start to look for the small interventions that make each space different. Graffiti, objects, damage, litter, planting and personal adaptations begin to interrupt the repetition. I am interested in using these details to question whether a space that appears standardised and impersonal can still develop its own identity through the people who inhabit and alter it.
WHAT I COLLECTED
- Instructions and prohibitions: “keep bin locked”, “no fly tipping”, “access forbidden”, “do not use door”, “controlled parking”, clean up dog litter, COVID rules stuck to a door
- Surveillance: CCTV cameras and warning signs, Safer Neighbourhoods notices, council “aware” stickers
- Organisation: “Block 1–72” signs with block names and the council logo, door entry buttons, gates, locks, designated cycle parking
- Traces of people: graffiti, stickers, murals, flags, ripped and blacked-out signs, overflowing bins, rubbish left in places it should not be
I went in expecting to find signs. What I found was that instruction was built into the whole estate: gates, locks, numbered blocks, cameras and entry systems all work alongside the written signs. I also found evidence of those systems not working perfectly, such as bins overflowing next to “keep bin locked”. That gap between what the estate says and what happens became the thing I wanted to investigate.
How can I record where all of these things are, so I can see patterns rather than a list?
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