alana aamodtInformation











 Index





fence as gateway

a master’s thesis




appropriations of chain link towards an urban commons 


year2025


role
designer, fabricator, researcher, writer

 photography

Zhou Gao








GOAL

RESULT

To examine chain link fencing not as a fixed boundary but as a flexible framework to reclaim public space as a site of agency, connection, and imagination.8 interventions towards reimagining the chain link fence


WHY CHAIN LINK FENCE?



To investigate chain link fence is to investigate the uses + symbolism it embodies






But what if chain link fence could be an entry point to something new?    



ANALYZING THE FENCE




affordancesThe spectrum of affordances is mapped out, traced down to its consequential value. These values, such as play, visibility, and communication, served as building blocks for  later interventions.

walking as research method: collecting fence data 





attachment methods More than many other forms of infrastructure, chain link fencing is already being adapted and repurposed by communities—evidence of an existing traction toward scaffolding something else. From these existing appropriations and accessories, we can observe and organize the attachment methods into the above categories. 



FRAMEWORKS DEVELOPED





(1)  a spectrum adapted from Bloom’s Taxonomy made to ensure that the interventions exist along a spectrum of experience





(2) binaries to frame the intended shift, from left to right, of chain link fence perception.






(3) A fill-in-the-blank style framework for idea generation






ideating with ‘a fence is a ____ for ____’






organizing ideas along framework (1)







CONCEPT TESTING PROCESS




sketch
mockup


concept feedback








moving out into the world




 







FINAL 8 INTERVENTIONS 







1/8

A FENCE IS A 

LABORATORY 

FOR

EXPERIMENTATION


      
















ASSERTION Experimentation in public without knowing ‘why’ is a starting point for collaborative, radical reimagining. 

We must practice existing in the abstract, the strange, and the messy in public.




PROVOCATION How does infusing the fence with movement and imagination change our perception of it?






MATERIALSPowdercoated steel, found objects (ball, cup), wood (lever)








2/8

A FENCE IS A 

HABITAT

FOR

COEXISTANCE






ASSERTION We have a responsibility beyond our individual human needs. 

Infrastructures and the built environment should expand opportunities for life.




PROVOCATION What would our built environment evolve into if we prioritized plants and animals alongside our own needs?




MATERIALSturned maple, upcycled vinyl


making the birdhouse for a black capped chickadee





3/8

A FENCE IS A 

LOOKOUT

FOR

PERSPECTIVE








ASSERTION We have a right to wonder and question and observe in public space. 

Our built environment should enable a variety of viewpoints and perspectives (depths of field)

We have the right to know what is happening in our neighborhoods. 



PROVOCATION What might we discover if our perspective is expanded beyond the immediate, beyond the human scale?




a Galilean style reffracting telescope consisting of a combination of convex + concave lenses, designed to magnify x10.2



MATERIALSrolled steel, acrylic, fence bolts, steel suspension system, lens



prototyping 





4/8

A FENCE IS A 

HANGOUT

FOR

GATHERING






ASSERTION We have the right to exist in public. 

The built environment should facilitate moments of pause and of gathering beyond the confines of parks.
 



PROVOCATIONWhat might we unlock in the vertical plane?





MATERIALSgalvanized steel chain link fencing, steel pipe, aluminum attachments




The structure forms a literal gateway, inviting people both inside and through. Rotating the chain link ninety degrees compromised the stiff structure of the mesh so that it hangs freely, forming a hammock and so people can sit and hangout. Both challenge the typical semiotics of chain link fencing, shifting it from stay-out, do not enter, you may not pass through towards come in, stay a while, you may move freely here.




rolling steel pipe by hand goes best with 4 friends





5/8

A FENCE IS A 

MUSEUM

FOR

REFLECTION






Images of what used to be overlaid on current landscapes. Chain link fence acts as the scaffolding for this collapsing of time, each diamond a window into the past of a specific place.





ASSERTION Connecting to the history of a place in real time grounds us. It allows us to acknowledge history in an embodied way, and paves the possibility of imagining an alternative. 




PROVOCATION How might connecting with history and future in real-time space change our perceptions of place? 






Map of the West Elmwood Neighborhood in the 1950’s compared an aerial image of the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park that replaced the mass highway expansions and urban renewal of the 60’s




Mainstreet of West Elmoowd circa 1950 overlaid over the same area present day 







MATERIALSacrylic, steel zipties, transparent image




6/8

A FENCE IS A 

TOOL

FOR

MOBILITY






ASSERTIONWe have a right to move through space in the way that moves us. 




PROVOCATION What spaces might we access if fences weren’t seen as walls?


Upcycled wood steps slide are designed to slide onto bent steel pieces levered into the fence 



















7/8

A FENCE IS AN 

ARCHIVE

FOR

CURATION






ASSERTION Communities should be able to shape and reshape the space around them to serve their needs.



PROVOCATION What might emerge if we open up the fence for community meaning making ?






MATERIALSbinder clips, repurposed keychain rings, found objects





8/8

A FENCE IS AN 

ALTAR

FOR

CONTEMPLATION








ASSERTION We have a right to move slowly in public. 

Our built environment should facilitate slowness and reflection. 

We should resist a built environment purely structured for efficiency and profit.




PROVOCATION What if our built environment was re-imbued with the sacred, the mysterious, the magical?







A Helladic city, however straitened by its enemies, remained viable so long as the shrines housing the divine images were intact.

— Tuan, Space and Place








 

A steel candle holder levers into a the fence. The separate wind blocker hangs from the fence, made from an repurposed Arizona Iced tea can.




ASSEMBLAGE

putting it all together for the RISD Graduate Show, May 2025









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