scholarly journals The over-familiar landscape that escapes to the absent-minded gaze

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Mareggi
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Good Design ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
To Come ◽  
Relevant Component

<p>Public spaces constitute a relevant part of the landscape of the ordinary city. According to the European Landscape Convention, studies and designs of public spaces, in particular of open spaces, should appropriately focus on the different users who inhabit it and recognise themselves in these spaces. In this sense, close to the traditional studies on morphological characteristics, urban materials and equipment, it is useful to explore the performances of public spaces in innovative ways. This article proposes to come back to emphasise and highlight daily life, still today forgotten as a relevant component of a good design and planning of public spaces. It underlines the importance of the gaze on the everyday and ordinary for urbanism, through some introductory experiences of designed urban spaces and some concepts, such as ‘practices’ and ‘way of uses’. Moreover, it offers a review of different lines of studies on public life and other research interested in daily urban practices. Among these, the article focuses on rhythm and chronographic analysis, which describe practices of use, urban populations and their rhythms of presence within places. In conclusion are presented some opportunities that an adoption of the proposed approaches to everyday could bring to a better management, maintenance and planning of public spaces.<strong></strong></p>

scholarly journals Public Space as a Venue for Peacebuilding in Lebanon? The Role of Civic Movements in Reclaiming Public Space in Beirut and Tripoli

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Aseel Naamani ◽  
Ruth Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Building Relationships ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War

The issue of public spaces is increasingly at the core of civic movements and discourse of reform in Lebanon, coming to the fore most recently in the mass protests of October 2019. Yet, these most recent movements build on years of activism and contestation, seeking to reclaim rights to access and engage with public spaces in the face of encroachments, mainly by the private sector. Urban spaces, including the country’s two biggest cities – Beirut and Tripoli – have been largely privatised and the preserve of an elite few, and post-war development has been marred with criticism of corruption and exclusivity. This article explores the history of public spaces in Beirut and Tripoli and the successive civic movements, which have sought to realise rights to public space. The article argues that reclaiming public space is central to reform and re-building relationships across divides after years of conflict. First, the article describes the evolution of Lebanon’s two main urban centres. Second, it moves to discuss the role of the consociational system in the partition and regulation of public space. Then it describes the various civic movements related to public space and examines the opportunities created by the October 2019 movement. Penultimately it interrogates the limits imposed by COVID-19 and recent crises. Lastly, it explores how placemaking and public space can contribute to peacebuilding and concludes that public spaces are essential to citizen relationships and inclusive participation in public life and affairs.

Diversity in Conviviality: Beirut's Temporary Public Spaces

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-71
Author(s):  
Christine Mady
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Grass Root ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Rent Theory ◽  
Over Time

Amidst the debates on the death or resurgence of public spaces emerges a significant question: how could public spaces that function at different urban scales and cater for diverse collective needs be provided? This article explores the roles and potentials of temporary public spaces in meeting diverse challenges related to the supply and use of urban open spaces. Positioning temporary public spaces within the literature on non-conventional public spaces is conducted with the purpose of identifying those spaces' characteristics. The proposed definition of temporary public spaces is based on their dynamic status of use-rights. Moreover, a conceptual framework based on urban land economics and bid rent theory is used to explain how such spaces transform under the exchange of temporary use-rights to activate vacant urban lots for public activities. This conceptual framework is applied in the case of a grass root approach to the supply of temporary public spaces. The context is Beirut, a city that has lost its public spaces due to wars and is trying to reintroduce them through different supply mechanisms. The examples illustrate how homogeneous urban spaces are identified over time and converted into heterogeneous and lively temporary public spaces. These contribute towards conviviality in a highly fragmented and multi-cultural society and animate everyday urban life.

scholarly journals Public Space and COVID-19: Contraction, Expansion, and Adaptation

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Vikas Mehta
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Third Places ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Parking Lots ◽  
The Everyday

COVID-19 has hit cities hard. With the closure of places of work and learning, third places, places of leisure and consumption, and more, the pandemic has diminished our territories and contracted public space and public life. But a keen observation reveals a more nuanced picture. In many neighborhoods, an interesting phenomenon of reclaiming much neighborhood space for public use is evident. The repurposing of residential streets, sidewalks, parking lots, and other modest public spaces in neighborhoods shows an expansion of public space and sociability. This expansion is also that of agency. The elimination of events and programming and the cordoning off of standardized equipment has left public space in an unembellished state of bareness. Space is available for citizens to make public. This pandemic has revealed our desire for publicness of the everyday, our ingenuity to use spaces for public life, and what is possible in our cities and in our public spaces.

scholarly journals Racism in multicultural neighbourhoods in Chile: Housing precarity and coexistence in a migratory context

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Macarena Bonhomme
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Racial Formations ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Chile is one of the countries with major destination flows from Latin America. In such a context, new distinctions and racial formations have emerged, establishing different forms of social exclusion and racism that are performed in the everyday interaction and socio-cultural practices that take place in residential neighbourhoods. This research is based on one of the most multicultural boroughs in Santiago, Recoleta, historically located in a territory called ‘La Chimba.’ The aim is to examine the intercultural coexistence in increasingly multicultural neighbourhoods in the context of South-South migration, in order to discuss the emerging social conflict, understanding how housing policies and limited access to decent housing by migrants reproduce everyday racism. Drawing on a larger research project that consisted in a 17-month ethnography, 70 in-depth interviews and two focus groups with migrants and Chileans between 2015 and 2018, this article shows and discusses how public spaces are racialised through social practices and interactions, and how the making of ‘race’ in urban spaces have an impact on the way in which migrants inhabit and navigate urban spaces and negotiate their ‘right to the city’ in the everyday.

Giardini Govi is our spot! When parkour meets Genoa

Modern Italy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-294
Author(s):  
Sebastiano Benasso
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Specific Point ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Public Area ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Town

This article focuses on the experience of a group of traceurs (people practising parkour) in the urban context of Genoa. It describes a public area of the town – the ‘spot' most frequently used for training – from the specific point of view of the traceurs. Genoa is made up of different and relatively autonomous public spaces with specific and cultural characters, but parkour originates from the attempt to disrupt and reconfigure the city's institutional framework. Genoese traceurs share some of their orientation with other parkour groups in Europe and North America: they are attempting to define new ways of moving and new meanings for urban spaces and to expand the standard definition of a citizen. However, in the urban environment of Genoa, traceurs have to face diverse forms of opposition to their attempts to define their own pathways through the everyday flow of people, and in the disciplinary gaze of other citizens.

scholarly journals Investigating Users Changing Needs in Relation to Non-designed or Unplanned Public Spaces in Cairo

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-66
Author(s):  
Joseph Milad Namar ◽  
Mohamed A. Salheen ◽  
Ayat Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Construction Process ◽  
Continuous Change ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
City District ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Formal Design

In recent studies, public spaces are defined as living organisms that are subjected to continuous change. These changes affect the different uses of the urban space, its composition and design aspects, in order to cope with the users’ changing needs. Rather than that, users intervene in the space formation either formally, by including the community and stakeholders in the design process fully or partially; or informally, by small or big actions done by the space users in order for the space to satisfy their current needs. Several spaces in Cairo are dealt with as leftovers of the buildings design and construction process. These spaces have passed through several changes that affected and was affected by the Cairines (Cairo citizens) and their culture of dealing with public spaces to accommodate their changing needs. The deficiency in public spaces in Cairo urban spaces is reviewed. And the inability of the formal designed/planned spaces to respond to the spaces’ users with their changing needs is investigated throughout the research. In order to focus on a public space in Nasr city district in Cairo, sequential mapping to the area over different ages is carried on, examining the changes -formally and informally- in the space to cope with area users. That is accompanied by surveys and questionnaires that aim to determine the needs of the users in the space and whether they are met or not. The questionnaire also aims to measure the level of intervention and satisfaction of the users in this space, to explain how its users intervene in adapting to the existing formal design, and to find out how these interventions shape and affect directly and indirectly the dynamism of the space as a formal planned public space. The paper aims to review and find out theories and practices that provide solutions for dealing with non-designed open spaces development in terms of users changing needs and contributions. The results from the study show some development considerations that need to be respected in Cairo public spaces with more concern for people’s usage and interaction with the space.

The Culture Zone in Katowice and its qualities as a public space

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-41
Author(s):  
Paweł Pistelok
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Upper Silesia ◽  
Industrial Heritage ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Right Of Access

Abstract A city’s public spaces ought to meet a number of requirements to serve their main purpose, that is to foster public life. They need, for instance, to answer people’s needs, fulfil certain social functions, and let people use their basic rights, among them the most important right of access. In Katowice, one of the most prominent examples of the regeneration of public spaces is now the Culture Zone. The aim of this paper is to discuss the development of social functions in the area mentioned, a fine example of the post-industrial heritage of Upper Silesia. Applying some of the qualities of public space identified in the theories adopted, the paper discusses how the Culture Zone [in Polish: Strefa Kultury] fulfils the above-mentioned demands and requirements. Is it accessible? Does it meet the need for comfort? Does it function as a leisure space? By referring to analyses and opinions presented in the literature and comparing them with the results of the author’s own empirical research, this article discusses the importance, opportunities, and shortcomings of the Culture Zone as a public space.

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.

scholarly journals Climate Adaptive Design Index for the Built Environment (CADI-BE): An Assessment System of the Adaptive Capacity to Urban Temperatures Increase

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (15) ◽  
pp. 4630
Author(s):  
Eduardo Bassolino ◽  
Maria Cerreta
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Adaptive Design ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Urban Heat

In a scenario in which the climate changes subject urban centres and large cities to high levels of environmental vulnerability and criticality underway, it is evident the need to define operational and straightforward decision-making tools capable of prefiguring and verifying the effectiveness of urban transformation climate-adaptive regeneration processes. The Climate Adaptive Design Index for the Built Environment (CADI-BE) tool has been developed to assess the adaptive capacity and level of performance of open urban spaces to the stresses due to the increase in global average temperatures. The repercussions of these phenomena cause the occurrence of heatwaves and the urban heat island effect (UHI), bringing out the inability of cities to cope with changes in the climate, making urban open spaces unlivable and no longer the ideal habitat for everyday life and social interactions.

In a “Half-dark, Half-light Zone”: Mobility, Precarity, and Moral Ambiguity in Vietnam's Urban Waste Economy

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh T.N. Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Network ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Urban Waste ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Ambiguity ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
State Agents

AbstractThis article discusses the everyday practices of a mobile network of migrant waste traders originating from northern Vietnam, locating them in an expanding urban waste economy spanning across major urban centres. Based on ethnographic research, I explore how the expansion of the network is foregrounded by the traders’ dealing with the precarious nature of waste trading, which is rooted in the social ambiguity of waste and migrants working with waste in the urban order. Characterised by waste traders as a “half-dark, half-light zone”, the waste economy is unevenly regulated, made up of highly personalised ties, and relatively hidden from the public. It is therefore rife with opportunities for accumulating wealth, but also full of dangers for the waste traders, whose occupation of marginal urban spaces makes them easy targets of both rent-seeking state agents and rogue actors. While demonstrating resilience, their practices suggest tactics of engaging with power that involve a great deal of moral ambiguity, which I argue is central to the increasing precaritisation of labour and the economy in Vietnam today.

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