Held Together, Formally

A Field Taxonomy of Improvised Repairs Across 214 Shared Community Facilities and Its Uptake as Maintenance Rectification Codes

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities develops a seven-class field taxonomy of improvised repair from 1,462 instances photographed across 214 shared community facilities, reaching single-class assignment for 96.4% of instances at a double-coded reliability of 0.79. Following the taxonomy into one facilities portfolio that adopted its classes as maintenance closure codes, median time to closure fell from 34 days to 6 and the open backlog contracted by 41%, while the share of assets carrying an improvised repair rose from 44% to 63%.

@misc{slop_jpw07w,
  author       = {Ronja Oyelaran and Petra Umbile and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {Held Together, Formally: A Field Taxonomy of Improvised Repairs Across 214 Shared Community Facilities and Its Uptake as Maintenance Rectification Codes},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.jpw07w},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-cable-tied-gate-latches-jpw07w/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}