scholarly journals Photographing Public Spaces in Hong Kong

2019 ◽  
pp. 199-212
Author(s):  
Kevin Mak

Photographing urban space has always been my interest, even before I entered architectural school and began my career as an architect. When I was still at school, I already enjoyed observing, through my camera, on how the complex yet limited public spaces in Hong Kong accommodated the diverse and spontaneous street life. Studying & practising in architecture further shaped my interest in exploring Hong Kong’s urban topics beyond the visuals. My approach in urban photography promotes spatial aesthetics that embrace diverse cultures in public space, and controversially suggests how we introspect our way & attitude living in contemporary cities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Parvin Partovi ◽  
Kebria Sedaghat Rostami ◽  
Amir Shakibamanesh

In the crowded cities of the present age, public spaces can provide a quiet area away from the hustle and bustle of the city that citizens can interact with by incorporating utility features and meeting human needs and Relax there. Small urban spaces are among the most important and effective urban spaces to achieve this goal. Because these spaces due to their small size and lower costs (compared to larger spaces) for construction can be created in large numbers and distributed throughout the city. In this way, citizens will be able to reach a public urban space on foot in a short time. If these spaces are well designed, they can encourage people to stay in and interact with each other. It is not difficult to identify and experience high-quality successful places, but identifying the reasons for their success is difficult and even more difficult, understanding if similar spaces in other places can be considered successful. This question is important because public space with deep social content is considered a cultural product. Public space is the product of the historical and socio-cultural forces of society. Therefore, one of the most important issues that should be considered in the study of public spaces and the reasons for their success is the cultural context. In Iranian cities that have been influenced by the values and principles of Islam,recognizing Islamic principles and their role in shaping public spaces can lead us to desirable results. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of successful small urban spaces with an emphasis on cultural issues, especially in Iranian-Islamic cities. In this regard, the effective criteria for the success of urban spaces in general and small urban spaces in particular in the two categories of Western countries and Iranian Islamic cities were examined and then, taking into account the criteria derived from cultural theorists, the conceptual model of research with 38 subcriteria is provided.


2013 ◽  
Vol 409-410 ◽  
pp. 883-886
Author(s):  
Bo Xuan Zhao ◽  
Cong Ling Meng

City, is consisting of a series continuous or intermittent public space images, and every image for each of our people living in the city is varied: may be as awesome as forbidden city Meridian Gate, like Piazza San Marco as a cordial and pleasant space and might also be like Manhattan district of New York, which makes people excited and enthusiastic. To see why, people have different feelings because the public urban space ultimately belongs to democratic public space, people live and have emotions in it. In such domain, people can not only be liberated, free to enjoy the pleasures of urban public space, but also enjoy urban life which is brought by the city's charm through highlighting the vitality of the city with humanism atmosphere. To a conclusion, no matter how ordinary the city is, a good image of urban space can also bring people pleasure.


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomas Grunskis ◽  
Matas Šiupšinskas

The article deals with the question of public space transformations during the last two decades in Lithuania. It is the part of broader research of the topic. Authors focus on the issue of main public spaces in Žirmūnai and Lazdynai residential districts in Vilnius, which are under the process of structural and spatial development. The article also analizes the problem of post-Soviet urban space quality and its transformations, as well as raises the question of preservation practices of urban (modernistic) heritage from the Soviet period. Authors analize and expose systems of public spaces and their hierarchy in these districts, which have been created according to modernistic principles and now are considered as highly valuable. Structural, compositional, functional and spacial developments of these spaces are analized in detail evaluating negative impact of such developments on the quality of modernistic urban space. Santrauka Straipsnyje aptariama tarybinio laikotarpio viešųjų erdvių kaita per pastarąjį dvidešimtmetį. Jame telkiamas dėmesys į Vilniaus Žirmūnų ir Lazdynų gyvenamųjų rajonų pagrindines viešąsias erdves bei jose esančius visuomeninius kompleksus. Tekste analizuojamos ir apibūdinamos tarybinio laikotarpio urbanistinės erdvės kokybinės kaitos ir urbanistinio paveldo teisinės apsaugos klausimas. Taip pat įvardijamos ir analizuojamos šių gyvenamųjų rajonų viešųjų erdvių sistemos bei jų elementų hierarchijos. Tekste detaliai analizuojama šių viešųjų erdvių kaita urbanistinės struktūros, tūrinės erdvinės kompozicijos ir funkciniu požiūriais. Keliama urbanistinės erdvės, kaip paveldo ir apsaugos objekto, problema.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jekaterina Lavrinec

Reconstructing the mutation of a ‘blind walker’ into the figure of reflexive urban activist, who proposes creative solutions to the problems of de-activated public spaces, urban art interventions are comprehended as a tool for re-inventing and revitalising urban settings while initiating intensive interaction and cooperation between citizens. The idea to arrange ‘emotionally moving situations’ so as to activate reflexive attitude of the citizens toward everyday urban settings was proposed by situationists. By disturbing usual everyday rhythms and trajectories, urban art interventions, flash mobs and urban games establish a reflexive distance from the usual, routine ‘choreography’ of the place and propose alternative scenarios of behaviour in public space. Therefore urban art interventions can be considered as a tool for creative reconceptualization of spatial structures and social order, embedded in urban space. Santrauka Remiantis M. de Certeau pasiūlyta miestelėno „aklumo” metafora, kuri nurodo į nerefleksyvų santykį su kasdiene aplinka, straipsnyje rekonstruojama šios miestelėno figūros transformacija į miesto aktyvistą („miesto kuratorių”), kuris reaguoja į miesto problemas ir ieško kūrybinių šių problemų sprendimų. Aktyvaus santykio su miesto aplinka modelis buvo plėtojamas dar situacionistų (I. Chtcheglovas, G. Debord‘as, A. Kotányi ir kt.), kurie ieškojo kasdienio miesto patyrimo suspendavimo technikų (pavyzdžiui, dreifavimas) ir siūlė reorganizuoti miesto erdves, kad jos imtų produkuoti „emocionaliai paveikias situacijas”. šios paieškos paskatino situacionistus plėtoti „unitarinio urbanizmo” koncepciją. Šiuolaikiniams miestams susiduriant su deaktyvuotų viešųjų erdvių problema, „emocionaliai paveikių situacijų” kūrimo idėja atgimsta nauju pavidalu. Meninės intervencijos į viešąsias erdves, flash-mobai ir miesto žaidimai ardo įprastus elgesio scenarijus, steigia refleksyvųatstumą su rutininiu miesto patyrimu, o taip pat skatina naujųmiesto ritualų atsiradimą bei formuoja emocinį miesto reljefą. Intervencijos į viešąsias erdves gali būti analizuojamos ir kaip refleksijos forma, ir kaip aktualių miesto problemų(viešųjų erdviųdeaktyvavimo) sprendimo būdas.


Author(s):  
Oki Rahadianto Sutopo

Using Bourdieusian approach, this article explores the reflexive strategies of young jazz musicians in order to develop their musical practices in a contemporary urban context of Yogyakarta, a city of culture and activism in Indonesia. In detail, the reflexive strategy (Sweetman 2003; Threadgold & Nilan 2009) will be explained as the manifestation of struggle in the field of cultural production (Bourdieu 1993). As an implication, young jazz musicians have to negotiate their musical practices with the reproduction of doxa and the representation of dominant agents in the jazz music field including the availability of public spaces in contemporary Yogyakarta. The resistance towards doxa will be explained based on the local narratives of the Yogyakarta jazz community as a mixture of the local and the trans-local scene (Bennett & Peterson 2004). Furthermore, the reflexive strategy will be analysed through the lens of the youth culture perspective specifically as a manifestation of a mixture between post-subculture (Bennett 1999) and subculture (Blackman 2005). In their everyday musical practices, young jazz musicians produce their musical practices fluidly and flexibly as a lifestyle distinction as well as a form of everyday life resistance. In summary, this article shows the complexity of the musical processes of young jazz musicians in contemporary urban space of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 063-082
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziubiński

This text presents considerations encouraged by thoughts and conclusions gained from research on several beach bars and their comparison with other urban public spaces, run in Wrocław from 2018 to 2019. The similarities and differences between the two types of spaces provoke a question about the meaning of what we call „public spaces” today. The question is also asked, somewhat perversely, about the validity of following best practices based on proxemic principles and focused on attracting and retaining people in urban spaces. The paper examines not so much the rules but the purpose, in other words the type of space we receive/can achieve as a result of applying these principles, since people in the urban space (private or public) are only guests, while their choice is reduced to the top-down offer. The above doubt also results from the conclusion regarding the most important feature determining attractiveness of a beach bar space, which in my opinion, is the freedom of behaviour for users. In it we can see deficiencies of the prevailing narrative about our participation in space and, above all, the possibility of choice, or what should be called the limitations of choice – the lack of possession/self-agency. Such a situation, largely conditioned by politics (and economics), reduces public space to the role of a  “space of attractions” (curiosities), whose action and participation is based on experiencing – on a direct experience. The clash of these two forces – standardization and individualization, erodes the current model of common spaces based on the historical (nineteenth century) one, whose images are transferred only in the form of empty clichés. Thus, the limitation of choices, the need to fall into line and appearances of a community lead to an escape upwards – enclaves for the chosen ones (omnitopia) and downwards – niches for the rebellious ones (heterotopia), while beach bars represent both ways of escape. Against this background, the purposefulness of expert/ top-down creation of public spaces, carried out in isolation from other essential values and laws, appears problematic.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil CREANGA ◽  
Maria DUDA

Public spaces within the city in all their form of different types - streets, boulevards, squares, plazas, market places, green areas - are the backbone of cities. Over the centuries buildings defined the shape and quality of public spaces, valorising them in various ways. The post-modern development of urban form generated a great number of “urban spaces”, where there is no longer correspondence between architectural forms and social and political messages: shopping malls and theme parks, inner public spaces, strip developments etc. Urban sprawl accompanied by loss of agricultural/rural land and its impact on the environment are serious concerns for most cities over Europe. To strike the right balance between inner city regeneration, under-use of urban land in the old abandoned sites and the ecological benefits that accompany the new private business initiatives in suburban areas, is one of the major challenges confronting cities in Europe. The paper will analyze the complex relations between architecture and public space, in an attempt to understand how traditional urban structures, public and green spaces, squares and streets, could provide orientation for quality-oriented regeneration. Case in point is Bucharest - capital city of Romania - where aggressive intervention in the urban structure during the 1980s disrupted the fabric of the city. The investigation is oriented towards fundamental questions such as: how to secure and preserve sites that serve as initial points in upgrading processes, how to balance private investment criteria and the quality interests of the urban communities.The major aim is to provide a support for decision making in restoring the fundamental role of public urban space in shaping urban form and supporting community life.


Author(s):  
Tsuyoshi Kida ◽  

This paper focuses on the influence of French language on the naming of shops and commercial products that are found in public spaces in Japan. The contemporary urban environment promotes linguistic signs, which themselves designate the names of shops or products on storefronts and packages and constitute the ‘text’ of an urban space. As Barthes (1970) observed, Japanese modern life is a remarkable source generating a multiplicity of signs. However, in the current globalization, such a process gives rise to a massive presence of foreign languages in public space, such as French in Japan. Data collected through fieldwork is analysed to show features specific to Japanese society and/or language (e.g. word coinages, affection of Japanese words, a primary form of creolization). Although these linguistic signs contain regularities and variations as a device of ‘hypocorrection,’ the paper argues that French is becoming a specific register in Japan, and that people have begun to assimilate its formal part, in enriching their lexicon with a certain epilinguistic dimension. The motivation and identity of stakeholders behind such a process will be also discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 325-335
Author(s):  
V. Petrova ◽  
V. Dvoinev

To date, the urban environment is considered as an interesting area of sociological research. Urban space represents a built environment, which includes buildings, streets, squares, parks, embankments, etc. Every day, citizens interact with this public space, build their routes, form impressions and the image of the city, they also evaluate its effectiveness in connection with opportunities for the realization of their needs of socio–cultural interaction. Public spaces are those places where holidays are held, social and economic relations are formed, verbal and non-verbal communications are created. In urban public space take place meetings of friends and acquaintances, the integration of various cultures, social groups with diverse goals, norms and attitudes. Public spaces act as a stage for the social life of individuals when they are a comfortable, accessible and safe environment. The article presents the results of a sociological study of the conformity of public spaces of the city of Vyazma in the Smolensk region with the needs of its population. The study was conducted using observation and interview methods. An analysis of the collected data helped to identify the main purpose of the urban public space as it is seen by the residents, the types of their interactions, to determine the structure, functions and effectiveness, as well as to assess the quality of the content and equipment of the urban public spaces, as well as to identify the most active groups of population and how their activities change in the daily and seasonal cycles. Based on the results obtained, recommendations were developed for improving and developing public space and urban life in general. Recommendations can become the basis for creating design solutions for a comfortable, safe and innovative environment for both small and large cities.


Author(s):  
Mikhno Nadiya

The main focus of this article is on defining the specific characteristics of public space organization in a modern Ukrainian city. The study identified the vector of change in the organization of public spaces in recent decades under the influence of changing socio-historical, ideological context and under the influence of globalization processes. It is determined that the main formats of using public spaces in the city today are pragmatic formats of use – the practice of commercialization of urban space, the practice of interaction with strangers, «domestication» of public space, «Europeanization» of public space, desacralization and marking of public space as safe and convenient.


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