How to Meet the City – Urban Spaces for Friendly Encounters (original) (raw)
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This book chapter represents a detailed description of the methodology of sociotope mapping and implements the approach towards the modernist and traditional urban blocks of Kaunas which were either created or transformed by the modernization period in the second half of the 20th century. The chapter aims to identify and ascertain the transformation in the open public spaces after the Soviet period, and it analyses the reflection of it in the contemporary world. Furthermore, the chapter tries to provide the needed information regarding the districts which could not be analysed by the content analysis method in chapter 3 due insufficiency of the data. As it has been stated by the urban sociologist Oldenburg (1997)485, people need three types of places to live a fulfilled life. These places are: private places, workplaces which are connected with the economic engagement and the third places which are amorphous arenas used for reaffirming social bonds and community identities. In that regard, public spaces can be identified as the third type of place in people's lives where they find the possibility to interact with each other in a different environment. As it has been stated by Francis et al. (2012)486, public spaces are the places in a city where people meet and gather outside their home or workspace, which is freely accessible by the members of the public. Even though there are public spaces which are closed areas such as public libraries, shopping malls, etc, most of the time, places which are considered to be public spaces tend to be open-air places such as parks, beaches, public squares, streets, urban stairs, etc. which help people to interact with each other and socialise. According to Rogers (1999), urban public space should be understood as an openair room in a neighbourhood, where people can relax and enjoy the urban experience.487 Therefore, typically public spaces contain the desire to connect with nature and
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Considering the tendency for expansion, diversification and fragmentation of the present city´s urban spaces, and considering that in the last decades public space lost much of the formal and functional attributes that it held in the past (in the historical city), the main problem that we currently face as architects and planners, seems to be how to articulate and (re) build (new) public places that materialise, in a qualified manner, the collective experience (the new ways of living, social interaction and displacement) of the "newer parts" of the city, and that simultaneously incorporate attributes that transform them into memorable and perennial spaceslandmarks of the city that is to come. This article has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in The Journal of Public Space. Please see the Editorial Policies under the 'About' section of the journal website for further information.
DiSP -The Planning Review: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures_July 2015
Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (PSUC) is a thematic group established in April 2010 under the umbrella organisation of the Association of the European Schools of Planning (AESOP) as an initiative of Sabine Knierbein (Assistant Professor, TU Vienna, Austria), Ceren Sezer (Architect and Urban planner, TU Delft, Urban 4, Netherlands) and Chiara Tornaghi (Reader, University of Leeds and Coventry University, United Kingdom). The main aim of the group is to generate an international and interdisciplinary exchange between the research and practices on public spaces and urban cultures. By doing so, it aims to support research, planning and a design agenda within and beyond the AESOP community. In this paper, we present the members, organisation, working themes, meetings and publications of the PSUC.
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In Europe, the beautiful old city, with its compact morphological structure, seems to have no relation to the suburban environment sprawling outside the perimeter of recognizable urban values. For many, the inner city still serves as the dominant centre where the whole suburban area converges, a stage for community life and cultural identity. However, the liveability of old cities has been transformed during recent decades. To preserve the historical values of buildings and public spaces, municipalities have conserved, sometimes obsessively, their physical elements, freezing their function for daily life. This has turned many old cities into open-air museums, with decreasing opportunities for public and social interactions. Pedestrianised zones attract shoppers and profits, bringing chains of luxury shops that replace everyday needs with boutiques for clothing, jewellery and gifts. Museums and palaces become cultural anchors in historic centres, resembling theme parks for tourists. This process is most visible in Italian cities such as Venice, Florence and Rome. To preserve a physically coherent environment, cities expel to the periphery any function or architectural style that doesn’t fit their model of coherence. As a result, the historical European city appears to be disconnected from the development of contemporary society, leading to a decline in the social significance of its public spaces. Meanwhile, the vast land of suburbia has become a complex and multifunctional environment. Its sprawling morphology accommodates new functions and typologies in new spaces and territories, often independent of the historic centre. During a single century, fast growing suburbs in Europe have produced forms, building types, and urban patterns completely different from historic morphologies. Exurban development produces phenomena as different as gated communities, ethno burbs, lifestyle centres, shopping malls and entertainment complexes, and restructured rural towns. Far from the centre, they are singular episodes in an “in between” zone, neither city nor country. Every development constitutes a new piece of a broader puzzle, still to be completed.
A city is an agglomeration of activities that exist because of its users and must respond towards their needs. The essence of a city lies in its ability to cater to public life and make the interactions between the users and the public spaces worthwhile. Local spaces like streets, markets etc. are the spaces used by the citizens regularly. To make the city a better place to live in, it is important to focus on the details of public spaces more than the designing of iconic structures. The Built Environment of urban areas has been experiencing constant growth as well as change over the years, but the poor ability of the built environment to adapt and sustain itself through the changes is leading to degradation of the cities. An ideal public space must be sustainable adaptable to the changing environmental, social, cultural and economic patterns. Built environment comprises of various attributes which act as performance indicators for analyzing the chosen area. This paper identifies these indicators, using the literature studies conducted and uses them to study and evaluate a typical Indian market place in the city of Ranchi-the capital city of the state of Jharkhand. This study is focused on exploring the ways in which the public spaces of an urban area can be made sustainable socio-culturally, economically and environmentally.
Green Design, Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 2013
The paper discussed the information layer of urban public spaces presenting considerations which relate their appearance with the cultural characteristics of a given community. A classification of elements pertaining to a notion of spatial order is proposed. The epistemological approach of anthropology and urban design studies is focused around the outdoor, public realm which is represented in the urban scapes by a void of street or square. The current paper yields some clues in this respect, providing theoretical background both for analyses of existing urban scapes with emphasis on their cultural aspects, and for the design process.