The Reading Warehouse

An annotated collection of over 200 terms used to name voids in cities, from the terrain vague to the buffer zone

This innovative book names the unnamable urban zones that usually remain invisible. As the landscape architect James Corner has pointed out, a void cannot be labeled because "to name it is to claim it in some way."

By compiling and enumerating existing terms, A Glossary of Urban Voids is a fascinating and compelling attempt to name the unnamable, to define that which should have no precise definition. It records terms, names and labels used to designate leftover spaces resulting from processes of urban abandonment that originate from some kind of obsolescence or loss.

These processes of abandonment open up the space, liberating it from existing ideological frameworks (financial, capital, cultural), allowing for divergent spatialities to emerge and ultimately offering opportunities to imagine alternative types of public space.