Ian Teng Ho, Appreciating Leftoverness [×]

Leftoverness is an urban condition, a residual space with no apparent value. The urban environment comprises of many residual spaces, which over time assemble through the changes in the city fabric and built form. Leftoverness is a kind of dystopia of hidden memories and qualities. Often these spaces have an absence of invitation and lack a sense of place.
This research project explores how leftover spaces are spatial-temporal situations. Situated in the city the interventions activate the social, historical and atmospheric conditions. The research explores how revitalising awareness and appreciation can shift the use of these spaces. Intervening into multiple leftover sites with heritage background they connect as a network across the Melbourne city – a series of momentary communal spaces for different kinds of social engagement – temporarily re-emerge hidden histories and latent sites in a present form. A scaffolding system is integrated as a language which commonly implicates a visual leftover condition within the city. The adaptability of the framework enables each site intervention to be specific and operate elastically. The potential of the leftovers can be connected as a system to form a dialogue with community, to allow a new visual experience and encounter with Leftoverness.
Appreciating Leftoverness explores how people will need to adapt to the current situation and behave differently in the city whilst also considering the environmental impacts and the rules of social distancing whilst also reimagining the past uses of the site, to manifest a dualism of activation. Through material traces and ways to reveal and stimulate traces, surfaces and memories, the activation works in different ways to narrate specific histories, which also includes the technique of reframing through processes of citation, proximity and reflection.