A Fence and a Ladder: Subversive Acts of Everyday Urbanism at Home

This paper documents and examines the power of an informal, spontaneous, low-tech spatial gesture: a ladder built to straddle a fence between two properties. The ladder was built in order to give the children in the neighboring backyards a way to traverse the boundary easily, without the need for permission and without the risk of climbing and falling or cutting themselves. The ladder is not elegant. It was made using spare 2x4s. It’s clumsy looking. It leans. But the power of the ladder is not in how it’s designed or its materiality. The ladder extends the agency of the property owners on both sides of the fence, but especially the children, expanding their territory and opportunities for play. It connects two families and encourages sharing caregiving responsibilities. It is an example of what Margaret Crawford would call “everyday urbanism”¹ or what Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett would call the “urban vernacular:”²

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AIA.Inter.21.2

Volume Editors
Rico Quirindongo & Georgeen Theodore

ISBN
978-1-944214-39-5