Loophole — life in unplanned spaces

Abstract

This work looks at loophole spaces—urban industrial buildings which, over time, become permeable to uses which reinterpret, reconfigure and redefine them. Loophole spaces are places on the periphery of regulation, in worn condition that allows for mess-making and experimentation, yet sturdy enough to invite sustained occupation and the organic culture this engenders. Existing amidst encroaching gentrification and new building development, loopholes allow breathing space. Space for difference. Space for connection unmediated by any pre-existing ‘purpose’ assigned to a place.

With a focus on two early 20th century warehouses—7 Randle Street and Hibernian House—in the cityfringe Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, I use a creative practice-informed approach to map the particular intermingling of people and place that activates a loophole space and to materialise the effects of their mutual influence.

I explore the unique potential of loophole spaces as quotidian living and learning environments which facilitate immersive, ongoing collaborative interactions, and their ability to highlight connections between people and place and so kindle new relationships of caring companionship.

Partly a record of beloved disappearing places, and partly a roadmap for ways of living and learning which resist institutional strategies to ‘design’ what these should look like, this work champions the value of loophole spaces and the world-enhancing wildness which springs from them.