Article Author: Yosra Boudabbous

This paper undertakes a semiotic analysis of spatial flexibility in the Bhar Lazrak neighborhood, located on the periphery of Tunis. The empirical corpus comprises spatio-temporal sequences examined across three scales of observation : a primary street, a secondary street, and a tertiary alleyway. Our analysis interrogates the ways in which residents reinterpret, adapt, and transform their urban environment in response to social, economic, and political constraints. Grounded in the theoretical corpus of spatial semiotics articulated by Barthes, Eco, and Lefebvre, and engaging with the notion of resilience within the domain of vernacular urbanism, this essay argues that spatial flexibility should be understood not merely as an informal practice but as a semiotic grammar of spatial resilience. The constellation of expressive signs—recycled materials, hybridized uses, and functional reappropriations—constitutes a vernacular intelligence of space, systematically marginalized within dominant urban policy frameworks. This approach enables a reconsideration of the Bhar Lazrak neighborhood not as a marginal space, but as a meaningful territory in which spatial appropriation emerges as a form of resistance, creativity, and identity assertion.

Keywords: Spatial semiotics; spatial flexibility; vernacular urbanism; resilience; spatial appropriation; identity assertion

Article Review Status: Published

Pages: 7-16

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