Landscape of agency of objects in public space: A collective expression1

In this research human relationships with objects were traced through 25 participant documentations in 7 different cities. 25 different participant documentations portray the variety of experiences emerging around objects in public space. I asked participants to report a personal account of an everyday object in public space with text and photography: a design encounter. Based on evidence from participant reflections, I convey a landscape of agency of industrial objects in public space, besides a priori agency of these objects which are their function and efficiency in the modernist design literature. The textual part of participants’ documentation was analyzed with thematic analysis informed by grounded theory. New themes were identified. These themes illustrate a landscape of the agency of objects in public space. My main argument in this research is that value in the context of industrial products takes polyphonic forms during participatory collective space making through encounters in public space.