‍

Where is it?

Skinker Debaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis MO

What is it?

Alley as corridor condition

Who did it?

Maybe the neighborhood association/group, or limited to certain dwellings or the entire block

What purpose does it fulfil?

Providing greater opportunity for community gathering

What rules does it break (if any)?

The pavilion mockups are the interventions for where different elements to this larger "block party" scenario take place. People are existing beyond their plot lines and that boundary becomes blurred due to that relationship

Can it/should it be integrated into the formal framework?

I think there could be opportunities where at an edge condition or having movable elements informal opportunities to gather outside (especially in a socially distant manner given our circumstances) whilst not getting in the way of vehicular traffic.

How can the city accommodate informal initiatives?

Perhaps vehicular traffic in alleys is discouraged with the exception of trash/recycling pick up days. This discouragement could arrive from removing parking spaces on the back of the house.

Does it belong to any "family" of informalities?

I think this greatly ties back to Formal Structures and Informal Consequences where the pedestrian movement is the "consequence" to the formalities in place through this intervention.

Are there any examples of similar informal interventions in different contexts?

I referenced larger to mid-size block parties that occur in almost every city or town that I'm familiar with in the US, but also thought about the relationship of farmer markets, and street vendors/markets and their informalities acting as an interruption to the daily formalities in place

‍