Formalising the Informal? Investigating the Potential of Repurposed Public Space as Intangible Cultural Heritage

<p dir="ltr">This thesis examines how informal, embodied adaptations of public space shape urban culture, focusing on Melbourne’s Flinders Precinct. Through everyday acts of spatial appropriation – such as gathering, resting, or socialising on steps, ledges, bollards, and edges – people continuously negotiate, contest, and redefine urban spaces, contributing to the city’s public culture. These socio-spatial negotiations, ranging from mundane to intentional, influence how public spaces function and are imagined. Through this process, individuals assert spatial rights and reassign cultural meaning to the public realm. However, these adaptive practices do not occur in isolation; they emerge in response to the built environment and its governance, which manifests through both physical form and spatial controls such as policy, regulation, and securitisation. This interplay reveals the generative tensions between formal governance and the lived realities of urban public life.</p><p dir="ltr">This research critically explores how these adaptive spatial negotiations shape the Flinders Precinct, while also examining how municipal governance frameworks value and manage this form of public culture. It considers the role of heritage as an actor in these processes – an institutional framework often critiqued for its rigid delineation between tangible and intangible culture. In doing so, this thesis contributes to the conceptual expansion of heritage discourse, arguing for an approach that moves beyond preservationist frameworks to engage with the embodied, everyday practices of public space as a form of lived, urban culture. Findings reveal a governance paradox: while informal spatial practices contribute to the urban imaginary and socio-spatial justice, their ephemeral nature often leaves them vulnerable to competing policy agendas. However, any effort to formally recognise these practices needs to be cautious not to undermine their adaptive, fluid and even, ordinary nature.</p><p dir="ltr">This study employs a cultural mapping methodology, integrating qualitative, mixed-methods research – including ethnographic participant observation, interviews, and policy analysis – to ‘map’ the public culture of the Flinders Precinct. This approach captures the lived experience of informal spatial adaptation and examines how these practices intersect with heritage management frameworks. Melbourne provides a rich and dynamic urban landscape in which to explore these questions, as a city globally recognised for its cultural vibrancy yet constrained by governance frameworks that struggle to account for embodied spatial practices. The Flinders Precinct in particular, serves as a key site of study due to its civic and cultural significance: it contains Flinders Street Station, where the station steps function as a grandstand overlooking the city’s busiest intersection; Federation Square, Melbourne’s main public square, which operates under a contested public-private management model; and Hosier Lane, a prominent street-art destination embedded within the city’s tourism identity. These three locations within the precinct serve as my case study sites, along with the interstitial spaces between them that make up the precinct.</p><p dir="ltr">This research makes three key contributions. Theoretically, it advances the integration of spatial and affective perspectives into heritage discourse, arguing for an expanded framework that embraces embodied cultural practices as central to urban identity. Empirically, it provides an in-depth case study of Melbourne’s Flinders Precinct, documenting the interplay between public space adaptation and heritage governance. Methodologically, it introduces a cultural mapping approach that highlights the limitations of conventional heritage inventories in capturing embodied urban cultural practices.</p>