Reclaim the public realm: the comparative analysis of the physical form and use of neighborhood open spaces in Seattle, Kuwait City and Xi'an (original) (raw)
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTONIC, SPATIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN, 2021
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Introduction “Public space” is the subject of a growing academic literature from the full range of social science and humanities disciplines. Each discipline sees public space through a different lens, and with particular interests and concerns to the fore. Political scientists, for example, focus on democratization and on rights in public space; geographers on sense-of-place and placelessness; legal scholars on the ownership of and access in public places; sociologists on human interactions and social exclusion etc. The result is a diverse array of multi-disciplinary approaches towards understanding public space. Furthermore, the combined term "public space" with the words "space" and “the public" and its association with words like "place" and "people" has added to the uncertainty and complexity of this concept. Acknowledging its diversity and differences, the first aim of this paper is to try to shed some light into the meaning and the...
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LIVABLE PUBLIC SPACES AS A MEANS FOR LIVABLE CITIES
The main goal of cities is creating a context for people to engage with each other. As the Public realm forms a vital conduit for the exchange of ideas, friendships, skills, and even material goods. Public spaces are the basis and content for the public life of cities. Thus the livability of public spaces is crucial for boosting and promoting the social life of cities and improving its quality of life. The urban form is a primary determinant of the functionality of cities. Thus it is crucial to consider the location of public spaces in relation to the urban forms of cities. However the planning of public spaces in modern cities didn’t consider the functionality of these spaces and the ways people would perceive them. Hence public spaces ended up empty underused lots, unable to achieve their social role, in most modern cities. Moreover poorly managed or inaccessible public spaces act as barriers rather than being collective spaces. The paper aims at investigating the current situation of public spaces in Nasr city, Cairo to understand the malfunctions of modern planning of public spaces. This shall be achieved through a questionnaire among the residents, field observations of the provided public spaces and studies of the urban grid. Based on these studies the paper proposes recommendations that would help the planners to understand the malfunctions of the planned public spaces in modern neighborhoods from conveying their role as centers of social interaction among residents and so as symbols of neighborhoods and cities.
People, place, and space: Theoretical and empirical reflections in studying urban open space
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People, place, and space are the main domain of spatial research which is widely discussed in the geographic discipline. Geographers always focus on the meanings related to space and human interactions to explain people, place, and space. The concept was explained by Richard Harsthrone (1959), Fred E Lukermann (1964), David Harvey (1969), Henri Lefebvre (1974), Yi-fu Tuan (1974), Edward Relph (1976) and Doreen Massey (2005), etc. As a human geographer, Yi.fu Tuan has a great contribution to explain people-place relations and further explained by Relph, Massey, and other scholars. Grounding on the geographic research traditions, this paper presents the concept of people, place, and space reviewing the historiographical literatures and some empirical research studies on people-space relations. Theorists have argued that people and space are deep-rooted in studying place attachment creating people’s sense of place. People’s actions and behaviors create meaning through their individual ...
Examining Attributes of Urban Open Spaces in Doha, Ashraf M. Salama & Simona Azzali, 2015
2015
Salama, A. M. and Azzali, S. (2015) Examining Attributes of Urban Open Spaces in Doha. Proceedings of the ICE - Urban Design and Planning, 168(2), pp. 1-13. ISSN # 1755-0793 http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/udap.14.00011 With intensive emerging and transforming urban spaces and centres, the city of Doha is experiencing continual rapid growth. However, minor attention has been paid to important growth aspects. This paper examines functional, social and perceptual attributes of three urban open spaces in the city by developing and implementing a walking tour assessment procedure composed of checklists and a scoring system. Results reveal important outcomes including the absence of landscape features and a dearth of green spaces or appropriate outdoor furniture, the absence of adequate shaded areas and shading devices and parasols and a lack of children's facilities or a specially designated area for children among other missing elements. These represent shortcomings that impede the maximum efficient and effective utilisation of such spaces. The paper suggests that opportunities to concretise and fulfil people's needs in open spaces should be underscored by urban planners, architects and policy-makers in a multicultural rapidly growing city.
Narrative Review of Pertinent Theories on 'Public Space' in Cities
bagh-e nazar, 2023
Problem statement: The problem of space in the public domain of the city extends beyond the simplistic definition used as "opposite of private space". This issue is associated with the socio-spatial structure of urban life and has multiple dimensions formed under the influence of various social, economic, and political dynamics and the agency of city managers, designers, and citizens. Despite the growing concerns about the performance of public spaces in recent decades, there is no consensus among researchers about the different dimensions of "public space". This issue has made it difficult to develop theoretical perspectives and propose practical solutions for this interdisciplinary concept. Research Objective: This study attempts to shed light on the various dimensions of the concept of "public space" and show the contradictions and theoretical gaps in the existing theoretical literature. By combining and criticizing the views, this study aims at developing a new conceptual model and contributes to theory development and reconceptualization of public space. Research method: In line with the purpose of the research, a integrative literature review method was used to develop the theoretical foundations of public space. The data was collected by the bibliographic research method and analyzed through content analysis and meta-analysis methods. Conclusion: The conflicting definitions of public space are tied up with the concerns and interests of multiple stakeholders and influenced by human, contextual, and institutional agencies contributing to human actions. Publicness is a relative, abstract, and dynamic quality and, at the highest level of performance, is the common denominator of the specific characteristics of each space and the response of a multivariate equation, including the role of man, space, city, and time. Public space is a multidialectic system, a contested entity with a wide range of meanings and uses. It does not lend itself to a single definition because it is based on the relationships shaped between agencies, over time, and across space. Different manifestations and possibilities are available to different stakeholders, including citizens, designers, specialists, city managers, and power institutions. The substantive and functional dimensions of public space change under the influence of a series of relationships as a chain reaction and butterfly effect. A minor change in metropolitan processes, the context of public space, human actions, or even the transformation of public space in another part of the city can have far-reaching and unexpected consequences for the publicness of the space. The publicness of space should be explained as a holistic value through an adaptable model by considering the set of factors involved in each specific example and realized with larger strategies and long-term processes.