The street: Disposition and the urban interior

In all cities, the street is ascribed a formative and integral role in its planning, and it is a key component of its infrastructures. The street is an instrument that can exemplify the health and happiness of any place, and it can be understood as a barometer of urbanized conditions. In its traditional form, the street is usually manifest as an external device, a route lined with buildings or spaces. In their simplest form, streets mobilise and connect places—one to another—through the facilitation of movement between numerous points in the city. In a more complex way, they exemplify the boundaries between private and public, typify conventional as well as aberrant behaviors, and epitomize peripheries, margins, and edges. As a device that plays an integral role in the production of the city, what transformations occur to the street when it is appropriated and adapted through the processes of interiorization? This chapter explores the origins of this urban device, in order to discern its essences: its dispositions. Then, using a series of exemplars, it examines the implications of their transformation into elements of inside space.