colonisation

Infrastructure appropriation: functional space transformed to community

colonisation

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""
Observation Log: Underpass Colonisation, Vračar
COS:B User Interface - Infrastructure appropriation: functional space transformed to community
"""

class UnderpassCommunitySequence:
    def __init__(self):
        self.location = "Vračar underpasses, Belgrade"
        self.timestamp = "2025-10-24T18:14+02:00"
        self.coordinates = "44.8042° N, 20.4664° E"
        self.original_function = "Pedestrian throughway (brutalist design)"
        self.current_function = "Commercial and social infrastructure"
    
    def observe(self):
        return """
The underpasses weren't designed for this.

Brutalist tunnels,
purely functional—
concrete tubes to move people
from one side of the boulevard to the other.

But nobody told the people that.

Small shops colonise the walls now.
Makeshift shelving bolted into concrete.
Vendors set up at the mouths—
flowers, newspapers, phone accessories,
whatever moves.

People don't just pass through.

They linger.
They meet.
They lean against walls, talk and smoke.
They buy coffee from the kiosk
that definitely wasn't in the original plans.

Sodium light mixes with the dusk
at the tunnel entrances,
creating zones that feel
neither inside nor outside.

The architects probably never imagined
their infrastructure would become
someone's corner shop,
someone's meeting point,
someone's daily ritual.

But people refuse to let concrete
be only concrete.

They turn utility into community.

Every single time.
        """

if __name__ == "__main__":
    observation = UnderpassCommunitySequence()
    print(observation.observe())
    print(f"\n# Logged: {observation.timestamp}")
    print(f"# Location: {observation.location}")
    print(f"# Coordinates: {observation.coordinates}")
    print(f"# Original Design: {observation.original_function}")
    print(f"# Actual Use: {observation.current_function}")