Building city with public space

The Journal of Public Space

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.

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.

On the W@terfront, 2013

In this paper we are approaching the idea of public space as the phenomenon which involves life in cities. We understand public space as a multifaceted and multidimensional network, whose analysis goes through the identification of various issues: the identification of the boundaries between public space and public sphere; the built dimension of public space; the theoretical approach to the contemporary phenomenon; the social dimension; and finally the city management perspective. All these aspects express a critical view and value the interdisciplinary and multiscale approach, fundamental to understand and intervene in the public space of the contemporary city.

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.

Bagh-e Nazar, 2023

Problem statement: Regardless of the consensus about the necessity of efficient public spaces to improve various dimensions of life in the city, there is no agreement in terms of the criteria for the formation of efficient public spaces as an ever-evolving concept. It seems that some of the listed criteria, according to philosophical partialism, are not in line with the evolution of this concept from an urban space based on the opposition of mass and emptiness to an ideal space for the realization of democracy, the flourishing of social life, and a processual and relational existence. This issue clarifies the need to revise the normative definitions of "good form of public space" by adopting a holistic perspective that includes the human-meaning dimensions of the space and the effect of other agencies such as the characteristics of the context and power institutions. Research objectives: The purpose of the current research is to evaluate the existing theories about "efficient public space" and its relationship with the process of the semantic and functional evolution of space in the public domain of the city. While providing a general picture of the development process of the interdisciplinary concept of "public space", this study attempts to present the knowledge gap in the previous theoretical literature, and provide a more appropriate approach, to the possibility of progress and development of theory in this field. Research method: This study used an integrative approach to combine and critique the previous views and lay the groundwork for the re-conceptualization of "space in the public sphere of the city." The data was collected using the library method based on the conceptual structure of the review and analyzed using the methods of critical analysis and conceptual classification. Conclusion: Normative-prescriptive definitions of efficient public space are not in sync with the evolution process of the content-descriptive definition of public space. As a result of the incorrect epistemological orientation to the concept of space, partial criteria only consider one of the physical and semantic aspects of space or the algebraic sum of the two and do not provide a comprehensive picture of the multi-dialectical and disputed concept of space in the public domain of the city. In such a way that, despite the new forms of interwoven communication between man and the city under the concepts of "public space" and "public urban process", we witness a kind of historical regression to the concepts of "urban space" or a selected representation and image of the concepts of "public space" and "public space." The definition of the good form of the public space, according to the continuously evolving and multi-factorial nature of the space, should go beyond the instructions about shaping the space and rely on a holistic approach and formulating a set of flexible and paradigmatic holistic, multi-dimensional, multi-scale, and multi-dimensional equations and dynamic processes. It includes the formation of public space.