scholarly journals Public Wi-Fi

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Alex Lambert ◽  
Scott McQuire ◽  
Nikos Papastergiardis
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Social Good ◽  
City Councils ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Scale Networks

Public Wi-Fi services are rolling out across Australia, with city councils and telcos building large-scale networks in urban areas. Questions as to the value of public Wi-Fi have never been more significant in the Australian context. In this article we explore how free Wi-Fi services offered by cultural institutions and municipalities influence public spaces, and ask how such services can engender practices which promote the social good. Drawing on ethnographic research into six Wi-Fi equipped spaces in Victoria, we find a variety of issues which influence whether a service will be popular and hence have a significant influence on public space. Services which are popular enable a range of uses, and this can add to the appeal and atmosphere of a space. However, Wi-Fi has yet to truly facilitate the kind of social interactions and rich civic placemaking we associate with the social good.

scholarly journals A Quality Assessment Directory for Evaluating Multi-functional Public Spaces

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-151
Author(s):  
M. Salim Ferwati ◽  
Ali Keyvanfar ◽  
Arezou Shafaghat ◽  
Omar Ferwati
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Space Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Life Impact ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Public spaces facilitate opportunities for social interaction and promote social life. The social-spatial complexity of public spaces can be explored through the relationship between built forms and users’ daily social activities. The contemporary needs of users have retrofitted or replaced the controversial public spaces such as streets, depriving the prime function of sustaining and facilitating social life. Thus, any factors influencing users’ social/public life impact the quality of public spaces. Also, contextualization and definition of public spaces necessitate an evaluation of their quality. The lack of a quality assessment directory (QAD) for evaluating multi-functional public spaces motivated us to address it. To achieve the aim, this research has conducted a systematic literature review applying the content analysis to explore the principles and indicators influencing and enhancing social interactions in multi-functional public space design and then performed a normalization analysis to measure the weight of each indicator. The QAD constitutes five criteria (C1 – Inclusiveness, C2 – Desirable activities, C3 – Comfort, C4 – Safety, C5 – Pleasurability), and forty-two (42) embedded sub-criteria. The research found that Inclusiveness (Wn C1 = 4.38) and Pleasurability (Wn C2 = 3.88) have received the highest weights. Also, the research found that the sub-criteria ‘Physical/visual connection or openness to adjacent spaces’ (Wn Sc.4.1 = 1.00), ‘Users of diverse ages’ and ‘Community gathering third places’ (Wn = 0.750) have received the highest weights. Using such a QAD, urban professionals can quantify the effectiveness and efficiency of public spaces’ environmental and physical qualities in promoting social interactions and sociability.

scholarly journals Ecological Structures with Hyperbolic Geometries in Public Spaces

2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aura DUMITRASCU ◽  
Razvan NICA ◽  
Calin CORDUBAN
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Hyperbolic Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Primary Focus

Nowadays, in central urban areas, the social activities are generally materialized into passive interactions. Although the built environment has no direct influence on the quality, the content and the intensity of social interactions, the architects and planners can at least influence the potential for physical, visual and auditory contact among people - the so-called active interactions - usually, one of the most important characteristics of public spaces. The built framework of public urban spaces can provide a wide range of opportunities for the development of human relationships, so that the architectural design and the social processes are supporting one another. The perspective of sustainability for the design of public spaces refers to three major aspects (eco-system, economy and society) and can be achieved with various temporary or permanent structures that separate and organize public spaces, giving them different social connotations (landscape design components, ecological structures with optimal geometries, etc.). Therefore, the use of hyperbolic geometries (for which the curvature is negative and the space created is open ) seems appropriate because of the structural optimization that leads to a minimum material consumption. The hyperbolic structures can also help improve the overall image of public spaces, generating atypical areas with a significant impact (both visual and auditory) on the receiving public. The present paper illustrates several types of hyperbolic geometries optimized for different ecological structures (wood, bamboo, textiles, etc.) located in public spaces (public squares, parks, gardens). Our primary focus will be on the analysis of the main principles of sustainable development, their degree of compliance and on the active interactions between people - created by the implementation of such structures in public green areas.

scholarly journals Social Interaction in Public Spaces and Well-Being among Elderly Women: Towards Age-Friendly Urban Environments

2022 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 746
Author(s):  
Yingyi Zhang ◽  
Ge Chen ◽  
Yue He ◽  
Xinyue Jiang ◽  
Caiying Xue
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Elderly Women ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
The Social

The world’s population is aging and becoming more urbanized. Public space in urban areas is vital for improving the health of the elderly by stimulating social interaction. Many urban design projects are advertised as age-friendly but ignore the real needs of the elderly, especially elderly women, for social interaction in urban public spaces. Insufficient attention is paid to the physical and psychological characteristics of elderly women when shaping public space. This analysis addresses the question: What are the qualities of urban spaces which facilitate health-improving social interaction for elderly women? Methods include a case study in Beijing, field investigation, mapping, and qualitative and quantitative analysis. The survey was carried out in April 2021, and concerned 240 women aged 55–75 years. Results indicate that the social interactions of older women relate to both their physical and psychological situations. Public spaces can positively impact the psychological well-being and social participation of elderly women. Conclusions include insights regarding the relationship between social interaction and well-being among elderly women, as well as proposing a series of principles for shaping public spaces for an age-friendly urban environment.

scholarly journals Planning the Urban Waterfront Transformation, from Infrastructures to Public Space Design in a Sea-Level Rise Scenario: The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Case

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Francesca Dal Cin ◽  
Fransje Hooimeijer ◽  
Maria Matos Silva
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Space Design ◽  
Urban Waterfront ◽  
Mies Van Der Rohe ◽  
The Impact

Future sea-level rises on the urban waterfront of coastal and riverbanks cities will not be uniform. The impact of floods is exacerbated by population density in nearshore urban areas, and combined with land conversion and urbanization, the vulnerability of coastal towns and public spaces in particular is significantly increased. The empirical analysis of a selected number of waterfront projects, namely the winners of the Mies Van Der Rohe Prize, highlighted the different morphological characteristics of public spaces, in relation to the approximation to the water body: near the shoreline, in and on water. The critical reading of selected architectures related to water is open to multiple insights, allowing to shift the design attention from the building to the public space on the waterfronts. The survey makes it possible to delineate contemporary features and lay the framework for urban development in coastal or riverside areas.

Reconceptualizing the Public Spaces of New Urban Areas in Hanoi: The End or the New of Public-Making?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh-Tung Tran ◽  
◽  
Tien-Hau Phan ◽  
Ngoc-Huyen Chu ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Doi Moi ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Neighborhood Level

Public spaces are designed and managed in many different ways. In Hanoi, after the Doi moi policy in 1986, the transfer of the public spaces creation at the neighborhood-level to the private sector has prospered na-ture of public and added a large amount of public space for the city, directly impacting on citizen's daily life, creating a new trend, new concept of public spaces. This article looks forward to understanding the public spaces-making and operating in KDTMs (Khu Do Thi Moi - new urban areas) in Hanoi to answer the question of whether ‘socialization’/privatization of these public spaces will put an end to the urban public or the new means of public-making trend. Based on the comparison and literature review of studies in the world on public spaces privatization with domestic studies to see the differences in the Vietnamese context leading to differences in definitions and roles and the concept of public spaces in KDTMs of Hanoi. Through adducing and analyzing practical cases, the article also mentions the trends, the issues, the ways and the technologies of public-making and public-spaces-making in KDTMs of Hanoi. Win/loss and the relationship of the three most important influential actors in this process (municipality, KDTM owners, inhabitants/citizens) is also considered to reconceptualize the public spaces of KDTMs in Hanoi.

scholarly journals Distance and Social Ties in the « Burqa Affair »: Spatial Arrangements and Regimes of Visibility

K@iros ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila ARÊAS
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Semiotic Process

This study develops a semiotics analysis of the « burqa affair » on French national press and observes how this public debate interrogates the problematic of the distance (physical, social and symbolical) between the secular and religious subjects in view of the question of social ties (recognition and appreciation). The analysis of the prohibitionist discourse in such debate brings into light the importance of the face in the republican conception of social ties and the primacy of the figure of transparency inside republican regime of visibility. This republican translation of the social cohesion configures a spatial problematic since it generates a semiotic process that redefines the concept of “public space” and consecrate it in the terms of 2010 law. The reconfiguration of distance that results from the mediatisation of the “burqa affair” carries, in return, some significant effects over the practical and symbolical modalities of social ties, notably the relation between oneself and the others, and raises important questionings about the meaning of contemporary public spaces and places.

scholarly journals Word of Mouth, Viral Marketing and Open Data: A Large-Scale Simulation for Predicting Opinion Diffusion on Ethical Food Consumption

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agostino G. Bruzzone ◽  
Matteo Agresta ◽  
Jen Hsien Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Viral Marketing ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Results ◽  
Individual Opinion ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Choices

AbstractThis paper presents the first results of a large-scale-Agent-Based Simulation devoted to simulate individual behaviour inside a medium sized city (600,000 inhabitants). Humans are simulated as Intelligent Individual entities characterized by several attributes created from the Open Data available by means of a multi-layer approach. The work presented is divided into two main parts: the first part aims to describe the multi-layer approach adopted with the inclusion of the social network layer devoted to capture how social networks can be correlated with human activities and how an “Individual Opinion” can changes based on social interactions. The second part is devoted to present a preliminary case study for simulating the propagation dynamics of the individual opinion in the form of an ethical value function. The basic idea is to capture the changes in the individual opinion based on the social interactions predicted by the simulation. Finally, a food choice model for predicting individual choices based on the individual opinion function is presented; the model is based on three parameters: accessibility of ethical shops, price difference with standard products, and ethical value propagation.

Free Public Wi-Fi and E-Planning

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Lambert ◽  
Scott McQuire ◽  
Nikos Papastergiadis
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public

Networked media are increasingly pervading public spaces and influencing the way we behave in public. Australian municipalities and cultural institutions have begun deploying free Wi-Fi services hoping they will attract more visitors to public places, aid in curated events, galvanize communities and enhance local economies. In this article we present multi-method research aimed at understanding whether such services can enhance public space and culture, and hence contribute to the public good. We identify multiple forms of positive use which certain kinds of ‘user-centric' services enable. However, many public institutions face problems to do with funding, network models and choice of place which prevent the actualization of these positive outcomes. We consider how e-planning can be mobilized to help such institutions develop virtuous networked public spaces.

Extracting Inuit: The of the North Controversy and the White Possessive

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-48
Author(s):  
Bruno Cornellier
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
The North ◽  
Indigenous Lands ◽  
Artistic Freedom ◽  
Colonial Settlement

This article critically explores the heated controversy surrounding screenings of Québécois filmmaker Dominic Gagnon's found-footage documentary of the North 2015, into which he inserted “found” clips of northern Inuit life he had extracted from YouTube as aesthetic capital for southern cinephile jouissance. In conversation with Aileen Moreton-Robinson's theorization of the white possessive, I propose that the vocabulary employed by many of the settler cultural institutions and critics defending the film—e.g., the democratic imperative to protect artistic freedom and allow reasoned dialogue about “difficult” texts to flourish in public spaces—is inextricable from the type of entitlements sustaining settler colonial claims to indigenous lands, and to indigeneity itself, as part of a free and boundless Lockean common. I argue that such default recourse to the democratic imperative of restorative dialogue actually fails to do what it pretends it is meant to do: via mutual understanding and recognition, to solve or resolve the systemic colonial inequalities that Inuit opponents of the film wish to make visible. This common recourse to the “bestowing” of a deliberative public space in the name of a necessary intercultural dialogue reflects the very structure of feeling of liberal colonial settlement and thus reveals a certain cinephilia's subjective and material investment in the white possessive.

scholarly journals Features of urban public spaces in the context of globalization

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 232-246
Author(s):  
K. L. Khomyakova
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Public Space ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

The article deals with characteristics of urban public spaces, their role in the global transformation of the social relations system is determined. The ambiguity of assessing the impact of globalization on modern cities is due to the theoretical and methodological problems of modern sociological urbanism. There is no single approach among scientists to defining the concept of urban public space, which determines the relevance of the study of its interpretation and definition of essential properties. Public spaces are considered as a connecting element between the system and social levels of urban research, which correspond to the levels of integration identified by the modern sociologist E. Giddens. The article analyzes classical and modern approaches to the study of public space, there is reveals the course of evolution of sociological thought in relation to the formation of differentiation of types of spaces within cities. Based on the analysis of the works of modern sociologists and urbanists, such key features of public spaces as openness, socio-political neutrality, and symbolism were identified. Global processes and contradictions lead to an aggravation of the problem of the presence of the category of “Others” within public urban spaces, which are representatives of various segments of the population, with a variety of claims and interests. One of the consequences of the intensive development of digital technologies is a possible situation of “competition for the citizen” between traditional public spaces and online services. Assumptions are made about future transformations of social relations within public spaces as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

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