Lines of Cleavage – Social & Urban Topographies...

The lines of cleavage crossing the human body, from 'The Tinkerer's Accomplice', by J. Scott Turner.

Human skin is criss-crossed by a meshwork of collagen fibres that indicate the strain lines borne by the epidermis. These lines, called the 'lines of cleavage', provide a map of the skin's tension. Cut across them and, as any plastic surgeon will tell you, the result will be a gaping wound that is slow to heal and will result in severe scarring due to the released strain carried by the fibre. If, by contrast, a cut is made adjacent or in between a set of lines of cleavage, only a minor, easily closed and non-scarring, wound will result.*

In a similar way the topography of a landscape has various 'lines of cleavage' running across its surface, perhaps the largest of these being the tectonic plates that define continents, but features such as canyons, rivers, cliffs, or various congenital conditions (deserts, marshlands, etc.) can also be included as elements of a more graspable scale of these topological and transitional formations. Understanding these before commencing on any form of development or urban intervention is important, as they inevitably will influence and impact any development. Fight these natural formations, and the result will, without fail, be awkward (and difficult and expensive to rectify) – build something that's compatible and harmonious with a landscape's characteristics, and the ensuing design will occupy its site with ease.

A dramatic geographical urban topography in Athens, Greece. The Parthenon can be seen on top of the hill...

But what if human interventions have already managed to 'cut across' these natural lines of cleavage? Within an already densely built urban context some man-made constructs, for better or worse, can also befit this analogy, as key highways, streets, and landmarks (buildings, parks, etc.) can also be used to demarcate a second layer of a city's lines of cleavage. So what could/ should be done with some of these unnatural interventions that have already effectively become the default condition on the ground? How could their 'scarring ways' be amended without necessarily removing them?

Above and below - Photos from Luxembourg, another example of a city that withing its borders contains dramatic topological variations...

There is, of course, also the 'hidden' topographies of a city where the various public and private spaces, patchwork of 'no-go' and 'safe' areas, social and cultural stratum, religious sects, tribes and family clans, etc. determine and inhabit their own urban landscapes. These entwined, normally intuitively taught and understood, matrices of usually hidden layers and partitions exist in every collective where the choreography of the, as the anthropologist Edward T Hall put it, 'Dance of Life' follow the guidances of the 'Silent Language'. These, mostly out of sight, socially prescribed but idiosyncratic, topographies also need to be considered in conjunction with any more grand urban engagement and intervention. Such man made, more psychological, lines of cleavage also define our cities and their tribes...

*More about 'lines of cleavage' can be found in J. Scott Turner's book The Tinkerer's Accomplice – How Design Emerges from Life Itself (2007) Harvard University Press.