Public Realm

subtitle: The effect of street performing (busking) policies on the quality and experience of public space

Abstract:
The use of art and music has become a common way of revitalising and regenerating public spaces. Our study investigates the approaches adopted in cities around the world for the management of informal creative practices in the public realm. This study is part of a bigger research project that examines the effect that busking (street performing) has on the quality and experience of public space, and its effect on the daily life of citizens and buskers alike.
Notions like “placemaking”, “triangulation in public space”  and “tactical urbanism”, refer to a more community-driven, creative and inclusive way of approaching matters of public space. Although these approaches are under great discussion in academia, local authorities tend to be hesitant towards their application when it comes to busking.
Worldwide, local authorities prefer to restrict busking in a variety of elaborate ways. This leads to licencing systems and regulations that contradict any attempt to revitalize public space through creative practices.
However, there are a handful of major cities that are beginning to allow more creative practices in this sphere. By focusing more on the perception and experience of the urban environment and less on its design and image, the authorities of these cities allow and sometimes even assist in the development of busking practices and events.
We are studying the busking scenes in 50 cities around the world, collecting information on their regulations, and evaluating how encouraging they are towards buskers. Furthermore, we are interviewing policy-makers and buskers from 15 cities with interesting policy schemes. Thus, we will be able to compare and contrast the aspects of each policy when it comes to its realisation as regards the potential impact of busking as a tool for placemaking.
With this study we seek to highlight the role that street performers play for a space to be transformed into a place for citizens’ wellbeing, by enhancing human interaction, creativity, pleasure, sense of safety and freedom of expression in the public realm.
Keywords: busking, street performance, placemaking, public space quality, experience

Gangtok is the capital of Sikkim, the least popular state of India, situated in the lesser Himalayas. Gangtok was once a hamlet and a trading centre on the silk route. In 1975, as Sikkim became part of the Indian Union, Gangtok was made the capital. Gangtok today is a tourism hotspot at an altitude of 5500ft above sea level. Its economy is based on tourism.The city has seen a huge influx in number of tourists in the last few years. This lead to increase in number of vehicles in the city core, congesting in the transportation network. M.G. Marg was one of the heavily congested area of the city being amajor commercial center. The major problem was off street parking which was primary reason of congestion. To solve the issue and enhance uninterrupted traffic flow, the government took initiative of introducing multilevel parking car parking in the designated spaces and pedestrianisation the central core. M.G.Marg being a major commercial street evolved as a great public space on pedestrianisation. It lead to a successful public realm. The paper intends to present the impact of pedestrian walking activity recognition on solving the issue of congestion in the main city core. Recognition of pedestrian activities not only helped decongest the transportation network but also boost business and enhance public participation. Toady M.G Marg is a tourist friendly commercial space which presents itself as a successful and happening public realm.

Even we have not been able to recognize its whole transformative effects within ten to fifteen years, relatively a short period of time for human civilization; communication systems (internet, wireless application protocols, teleconference systems etc.) and simulation technologies have radically shifted the conventional understanding of space concept. In the societies that succeeded to integrate technology into everyday life, sociospatial practices in relational terms are currently defining new platforms to reproduce themselves: next generation of public sphere, which is virtual one. While such a transformation has a potential to construct new socialities and political formations, which could not have a chance to be experimented in 'real' space it also has a challenge to trigger a kind of fragmentation in urban space, with its highly increasing dominance. The current condition about the issue, calls for spatial planners, designers and policy makers to develop a holistic theoretical framework on both inner characteristics of virtual space and its relationship with the real space in urban context. What we need here is not a purely technologically deterministic discourse, but a socio-critical point of view. In this sense, the main aim of the paper is to discuss the syntactic structure of virtual environments that tend to construct new collective meanings and publicness; and the relevancy of public space in emerging context. While doing this, the problem statement ends with the questions of how planners and designers can benefit the means of virtual space within a participatory planning process and for the design of high-performance real urban space.

Günümüz kentlerinde kamusal mekânların kalitesini arttırmak ve yaşanabilir kentler yaratmak için sürdürülen çalışmalar her geçen gün önem kazanmakta ve birçok tartışmayı beraberinde getirmektedir. Gündelik kent yaşamının sahnesi konumunda olan kentsel kamusal mekânların dönüşümü ve sosyalleşmenin şekil değiştirmesi bu tartışmaların ilgi odağıdır. Bu çalışmada yapılan,  gündelik kent yaşamının sosyalleşme mekânlarından biri olarak her geçen gün popülerlik kazanan kaldırım kafelerinin sosyalleşmeye etkisi, iletişim, eğlence-dinlence, mekân kalitesi gibi kavramlar özerinden okumaya çalışmaktır. Elde edilen bulgular ışığında Beyoğlu’ndaki işgaliye ruhsatlarının iptali ya da kamuoyunda bilinen adıyla “Masa-Sandalye Operasyonları”nın bölgedeki sosyalleşme faaliyetlerine etkisinin incelemesi amaçlamaktadır.
Çalışmaya altlık oluşturulabilmesi için kamusal alan, kamusal mekân gibi kavramlar incelenmiş, kentsel açık alan etkinliklerinin mekân kalitesi ilişkisi sosyalleşmeye etkisi üzerinden değerlendirilmiştir. Yeme-içme, dinlenme-eğlenme gibi serbest zaman etkinliklerinin tarihi, sosyalleşme ve kent mekânındaki değişimlere yansıması bakımından incelenmiş, dünya ve Türkiye şehirlerindeki örnekler ile sunulmuştur. Ardından Türkiye ve dünyadan birer örnek ile kaldırım kafelerine yönelik kanuni düzenlemeler ve tasarım kriterleri aktarılmıştır.
Vaka analizi bölümünde, Beyoğlu’ndaki uygulamanın başlangıcından günümüze basın taraması ile süreç kronolojik olarak özetlenmiş, konunun muhataplarıyla görüşmeler yapılan görüşmeler sonucu edinilen bilgiler ışığında sürecin etkileri irdelenmiştir.

Where are we at home outside home? movement is our meaning. Moving is what we do once in the public realm. Every time less do people stop in the streets and stay, wonder, sit, sing, etc.
What characterizes spaces specialized in movement? Are they meeting their demands?

Traditional cities emerged and grew according to the residents’ needs, thus they were a reflection of the community’s culture and traditions; where the urban grid, open spaces network as well as the buildings imitated the unique identities of their cities; their climate, local materials, social system and traditions, in addition to the political regime. Hence, traditional cities accommodated their people’s needs and their human scale. However, cities have witnessed numerous changes and challenges that have jeopardized their survival. So the need for new cities has become undeniable. The Athens charter of 1933 was released as a guide for the planning of modern cities face the challenges of the modern era. Thus, cities around the world have attempted to accommodate these globally set guidelines, overlooking the human scale and neglecting the social and cultural distinctiveness of each city.
Nasr city in Cairo was planned as a suburb in the late 1960s to tackle the housing shortage in Egypt, especially Cairo. The Nasr city’s master plan was influenced by the global shifts that were prevailing at this time and aimed at accommodating modern planning concepts. It can be said that Nasr city is a typical suburb of the modern era. Nasr city is abundant in open public spaces compared to other districts of Cairo. However, these spaces are empty of people most of the time, which detracts from the character and experience of the neighbourhoods of Nasr City. In fact, this is now the case for many cities throughout the globe. Hence several initiatives and practices have begun, aiming to enhance the experience of the public realm of neighbourhoods as a catalyst for revitalizing communities and improving their liveability. This is done through fostering social interaction among residents and boosting their sense of place and pride, since it is argued that urban spaces which reflect their cities and their inhabitants are vital to liveability. Recently many cities like Washington DC, London, and Melbourne have adopted these concepts and are successfully implementing them, achieving the expected results in terms of enhancing the character of the neighbourhoods and reconnecting the residents to their neighbourhoods.
This paper aims to explore how residents of Nasr city envision ‘their’ public spaces, understanding the reasons that hinder their usage as well as knowing their recommendations for enhancing public spaces in their neighbourhoods as a means of encouraging regular usage. In addition, an assessment will be made of Nasr city’s public spaces, as an attempt to bridge the gap between the offered built environments and people’s needs in modern neighbourhoods. This shall be achieved through a questionnaire among Nasr city residents, observations of people’s reactions towards offered public spaces, and urban surveys of the provided public spaces. Based on these studies the paper proposes recommendations incorporating people’s needs for vivid public realm in order to help the planners to understand the malfunctions of the modern cities’ planning that has hindered the planned public spaces in modern neighbourhoods from conveying their role as centres of social interaction among residents and thus as symbols of neighbourhoods and cities.

This volume is concerned to return politics to its roots by defining an urban public sphere in contradistinction to the centralised, abstracted form of politics practised within the nation state. The book makes the case for expanding 'the political' as a public life at the expense of centralised abstract state politics through making available extensive public spaces for the exercise of local citizen power at the level of the neighbourhood, town, and city confederation. The key principle here is federation so as to achieve a genuine universalism through the inter-linking of ascending purposes. The perspective is developed against the narrowness of localism. Self-sufficiency or autarchy is a key principle but not in the sense of communities that remain independent of each other. Universalism through interconnection and mutuality as opposed to parochialism is crucial. Indeed, self-sufficiency in a parochial separates communities from each other and cannot fail to re-create the anarchical war of all communities against all over scarce resources that is precisely the political problem to be resolved. From this perspective, the globalisation of economic relations is valued in creating the supra-national material ties that make communal interdependence ensuring universalism possible.

Cities are increasingly grappling with major challenges and threats, like aging populations, climate change and poor environmental health. In the face of these issues, our client, 8 80 Cities, aims to empower communities to create healthy, green, and equitable neighbourhoods that prioritize active transportation and access to vibrant public spaces through collaborative planning. 8 80 Cities, a non-profit organization concerned with creating age-friendly cities. Their guiding philosophy is that city-building decisions that are good for 8 year olds and 80 year olds will be great for all people.

The studio group was tasked with creating a diagnostic toolkit that enables  local city building groups to evaluate how healthy, green and equitable their neighbourhood is, using an 8 80 lens. The objective is to develop a toolkit that will enable local actors to collaboratively identify and diagnose local barriers to meaningful civic engagement, well-loved public realm and parks, and safe and accessible active transportation; and, through this process, build community capacity for transformational change.

Excerpt from the introduction — This study seeks to understand how plazas function in San Francisco. What is life like in plazas? Who uses them? How much are they used, and when? How do people spend time in plazas? Are there significant differences in usage or users across plazas? How do they compare in context and design? I conducted a thorough public life survey of six plazas in San Francisco, exploring how and by whom they are used. This report outlines the main findings from the survey with supporting analysis, organized under the lens of four parameters I believe are most fundamental in great public spaces:

• Well-used and lively
• Draw users of the local community
• Support various uses, especially social opportunities
• Perceived positively by their users

The report ends with policy and design recommendations for the City of San Francisco and other public space creators/designers to consider for improving these spaces or for future spaces.

Eryılmaz, Çağrı. 2016. "The Spatial Analysis of Gezi Movement in Turkey" in Joãc Teixeira Lopes , Ray Hutchison (ed.) Public Spaces: Times of Crisis and Change (Research in Urban Sociology, Volume 15). Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.191 - 219. Doi:10.1108/S1047-004220160000015009

During Gezi Protests of June 2013, hundred thousands of people from different and even opposite groups were together on the streets of Turkey against government for a month. The abruptness, severity, diversity and creativity of Gezi Movement make it unique among urban movements in Turkey. Protesters not only challenged the police violence and authoritarian policies but also defended public spaces of their city. My analysis of Gezi Movement is based on the comparison of Lefebvre, Harvey, and Bookchin who all integrated the critique of capitalism and revolutionary vision into urban movements. However, they are different in terms of what revolution, city, class, citizen, and urban social movements are. Gezi Movement is discussed through the similarities and differences of three approaches.

Gezi Movement is a good example of New Social Movements which lacks an organization, hierarchy and a leader. As an urban movement it provided a glimpse of heterotopia of Lefebvre where many different groups and identities challenge the abstract space of neoliberal capitalism. The protesters, as the producers and the consumers of urban commons claimed Gezi Park and Taksim Square as Harvey stated. The transformation of protests into neighborhood forums despite losing power and participation shows the civic potential of urban movement that may develop direct democracy of citizens as a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. The spatial analysis of Gezi Movement provided insight to the revolutionary potential of urban movements in neoliberal age.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/S1047-004220160000015009

The amount of public space per person is decreasing due to urban population growth. On the other hand, changes in lifestyle increases the demand for public spaces. In the age of economic uncertainty the existence of ample public space is imperative. The importance of locality is the basic feature in order to address successful public spaces. The paper aims to examine the availability of unused public spaces in the form of urban courtyards, and leftover open spaces that are likely to be used as pocket parks or parklets in order to propose their regeneration.

The “Give Us Space!” networking session at the WUF9 was held and organized by the University of Auckland in relationship with other partner universities and organizations.This Event fostered a discussion on public space as a common good, by means of sharing and critically evaluating emerging problems in the public realm in different geographical contexts with regards to spatial conception, representation, and everyday life experiences. Focusing on socio-spatial relationality it rethought and raised awareness of its importance to contribute to a successful implementation of the New Urban Agenda, promoting well-being in cities and creating safe, inclusive, accessible, public spaces for all. Specifically, it addressed a crucial kind of public realm: the semi-private space. This space, which often presents the highest levels of relational urban life, is characterized by complex mechanisms of production and control that, while strongly enhancing safety and comfort, pose severe limits to the exercise of the ‘right to the city.’ The audience was asked to contribute to the issue of privatisation of public space by providing insights and reflections in small groups. A collective question was posited: what is the most relevant emerging critical problem in private use of public space and what are the ways of addressing these issues? Each group had to summarize relevant outcomes from their discussions which were then shared at the end of the session.

Salama, A. M. and Wiedmann, F. (2016). Plurality of Hubs and Emerging Place Typologies in Gulf Cities. Proceedings of BRISMES Annual Conference 2016. the University of Wales Trinity St David, Lampeter Campus, on 13 –15 July.
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Abstract:
Rulers of Gulf countries have developed a strong interest in establishing and promoting new visions of their capital and major cities over the past few decades. In particular, the new vision to establish hubs in various economic sectors including trade, transit and tourism as well as culture and education have instigated a variety of mega projects and subsequently a diversity of place typologies. This paper explores newly emerging places and their networks rooted in distinctive hub visions, which have resulted in globalised urban spaces as nodal points within international networks.

Based on thorough ethnographic descriptions, this article analyses retirees' collective activities in Beijing public parks where co-presence and interactions between formerly unacquainted individuals have evolved into achieved relations of familiarity and friendship. Focusing on how people define, enact, and manage the relationships with those they 'have
fun' with, I show that the forms of mutual knowing developed through joint participation often blur the boundaries between the private, parochial and public realms on the one hand,
and between community and anonymity on the other hand. While the urban experience in the Chinese context has been viewed as constituted through both 'face' (i.e. communitarian) and 'faceless' (i.e. anonymous) interactions, I argue that these are but two conceptual poles which cannot exhaust the complex nature of social relationships that arise from urban encounters. Activity-orientated friendships in Beijing parks involve wide-ranging forms of mutual knowing, which shape a pleasurable urban experience as much as they are infused with the 'ethics of indifference' peculiar to city living. As retirees initiate and sustain pleasurable interactions, these forms of sociality do not entail tight reciprocal commitments. Instead of
viewing the situations in which friendships are produced as an instantiation of the 'broader contexts' in which they are embedded, I suggest that these everyday spatial practices and
convivial interactions should be considered for their intrinsic analytical value rather than as a response to external processes.

The Modernist era brought forward innovations in how societies were shaped according to form and structure. Peaking in architectural inventions, Modernism in art brought about discussions on colour, style and subject matter towards the notion of reflecting sensorial space in two dimensions, using reductive geometric forms. Seminal materials such as concrete, steel and glass were introduced to the built environment, which led to its transformation into a series of reflecting surfaces and constellation of displays. Although the debate on the end of Modernism is still ongoing, the end of the two world wars and the reconfiguration of societal realms, especially in Europe and North America, marked the

Image is a part of variable in forming place identity. There are three attributes in measuring image domain in urban public park during nighttime which are conditions of physical setting; lighting and colour; and signage/ symbol. The aim of this research paper is to investigate the reliability of urban public park image in relation to nighttime place  identity in Shah Alam. The data is collected through pilot questionnaire survey and the data were analysed using reliability scales known as internal consistency and correlation analysis. The results show the significant items used for image in determining the nighttime place identity of urban public park.

This paper consists of two sections: The first explores the idea of how the modern city can respond to problems and challenges facing humanity today. The second section explores aspects of citizen participation in the creation of sustainable urban communities, focusing on “The Right to the City” and some current radical municipalism projects. Section 1 examines the city at 3 scales; global, national and local by examining recent worldwide urban developments and theory, reviewing Brazil’s urban development and within the wider Metropolitan area of Curitiba (NUC). As recently as 2014 Curitiba was called “The Greenest city on Earth” by The Ecologist magazine, space is given to explore what truth lies in this claim. Finally, The paper argues that for humanity to survive on this planet, a break must be made with the current economic system of global capitalism, it explores what that would mean for the urban realm, in terms of form, process and citizen behaviour.

Globalization can undermine as well as enable public discourse at the national, international, and supranational levels. A challenge for political theory is to imagine how a global public realm might be constituted. Because the public realm has flourished in states whose citizens are related under the rule of law, one might ask whether this model of civil association can be extended to a broader and potentially universal context. Given the contingent obstacles to a global state, realizing civil association globally implies a universal confederation of rule‐of‐law states. If the public realm means free deliberation on the laws of a civil association, the ‘global public realm’ would include deliberation at all three levels.

Chapter 2 from The City of Reason vol 1 Cities and Citizenship
by Dr Peter Critchley

The bad odour into which politics has fallen in the contemporary world indicates the extent to which it is no longer conceived as integral to the realisation of the human personality and is instead identified with remote institutions of power and representatives. For most people, politics refers to techniques for the management and manipulation of the masses. Whereas in the original sense politics concerned the ethical end of the realisation and exercise of the power belonging to all by all as an attribute of their essential humanity, politics now designates techniques for the instrumental end of exercising power over human beings. Politics has become a means of mass management and manipulation. In its original conception, politics was integral to human self-realisation and associated with the health and well-being of humanity through the actualisation and exercise of essential power. In the contemporary world, politics is no longer ethical but instrumental, denoting the acquisition and retention of institutional and instrumental power – the power of some over others – and inherently corruptive of both its practitioner and people over whom it is exercised. That politics is considered to possess an inherent tendency to corruption indicates the extent to which it has been perverted to mean the precise opposite of its original meaning. Far from being corrupt and corrupting, politics in the classical conception denoted the means and ends of human health and well-being through the creative unfolding of immanent human power.

The question arises as to where, when and precisely how politics came to be removed from the body politic, defined as an autonomous sphere and finally came to be appropriated and monopolised by the institution of the state. With the classical Greeks, politics and public life are still grounded in human association at the level of the polis. It is well known that democracy was born in the Greek agora, that the term is Greek, meaning the rule of the people. There is no word for the state in Attic Greek. What is significant is the lack of curiosity with regard to the origins of the term on the part of those who so readily proclaim the ideal. For such a universally trumpeted value, democracy is a remarkably little known and hugely misunderstood political ideal. The apogee of Athenian democracy came some time towards the end of the fifth century B.C. Athens at this stage had still to see any institution that even resembled a state conceived in the modern terms of a professionalised institutional apparatus exercised for purposes social control. Indeed, Athenian democracy is the complete antithesis of a bureaucratised system of governance organised strictly for social control, explaining why no modern political leader dares to investigate closely the actual meaning of the democratic ideal.

Resumo: O presente texto recupera da literatura de desenho urbano conceitos de imagem da cidade, sentido, adequação e construção do lugar para discutir a relação entre sociedade e espaços públicos dentro do ambiente amazônico. Objetiva-se aqui, partindo da definição de qualidade urbana e da escala do indivíduo, ilustrar as consequências do padrão de expansão urbana observado na cidade de Canaã dos Carajás, escolhida como área de pesquisa, sobre a apreensão dos seus espaços públicos. Concluiu-se, após entrevistas realizadas com moradores da cidade, que o paradigma vigente tende a assumir a cidade como suporte para a exploração mineral em detrimento de outras funções necessárias ao bem-estar da população. A cidade teve crescimento extraordinário na presente década, com rápida expansão da mancha urbana e grande escassez de espaços públicos. Existem diferentes percepções da cidade entre pioneiros e novos migrantes, e a imposição de padrões homogeneizantes, que destroem elementos da paisagem e desconstroem a dimensão pública da cidade, a ponto de colocar em risco sua sobrevivência para além dos ciclos de mineração. Palavras-chave: espaços públicos; construção do lugar; cidades amazônicas; qualidade urbana. Abstract: This paper brings from urban design literature concepts like image of the city, sense, fit and perception of the place to discuss the relationship between society and public spaces within the Amazon environment. This work aims, through the definition of urban quality and from the individual scale, illustrate the consequences of urban sprawl pattern observed in the town of Canaã dos Carajás, chosen as area of study, on the apprehension of its public spaces. As a conclusion, after interviews with residents of the city, we found out that the current paradigm tends to take the city as support for mineral exploration at the expense of other functions necessary to the welfare of the population. The city has had tremendous growth in this decade, with rapid expansion of the urban area and a dearth of public spaces. There are different perceptions of the city between pioneers and new migrants, and the imposition of homogenizing patterns that destroy landscape elements and deconstruct the public dimension of the city, to the point of endangering their survival beyond the mining cycles

The Study [2003] took as its fundamental aim to support the Western Australian Department of Justice’s wish to operate a ‘user-friendly’ CBD Courts facility in Perth.
In this Report, this will be expressed in terms of people’s behaviour and how it might be helped or hindered by the facility in operation.
Additionally, in order to facilitate information exchange, the immediate concentration was on the sequence of typical situations faced in the public realm by users of the facility, their features and ramifications. Each of these was considered from the perspectives provided by a set of psychological parameters for individual and group behaviour as identified in the architectural psychology and related literature.
However, the aim of this Study was to focus on behaviour in the typical situations for which design decisions must and should be made for all those using the public realm. It did not focus on staff, except at counters, nor on judges and their associates and orderlies, except in the courtrooms.

The sociability of very young children reveals a neglected dimension of relations in public, it highlights issues of ordinary urban contact that often go unnoticed : an inclination towards friendliness, a concern for others and the surrounding world, which, while admittedly limited and sometimes disputed, nevertheless contribute to an ordinary sense of belonging to a moral and political community.

Nelle sue diverse manifestazioni all'interno delle nostre società di massa contemporanee, a partire da circa un secolo e mezzo, l'ambito del pubblico ha subito una serie di trasformazioni fondamentali, che corrispondono alle metamorfosi dei mass media che costituiscono la fonte principale di comunicazione pubblica. Questo articolo ha per oggetto la trasformazione dei modi di organizzazione dello spazio pubblico e mette in rilievo il modo con cui i mass media lo configurano. Secondo il suo principale argomento, il ruolo dei mass media nella rappresentazione dell'attualità immediata, delle "breaking news", non si limita alla selezione, ricostruzione e comunicazione degli eventi: essi conferiscono a questi un supplemento, per mezzo di un processo di incorporazione simbolica che è loro propria, una visibilità pubblica e li intrecciano nella più vasta trama dell'esperienza e della memoria di gruppo. Questo articolo analizza il ruolo che tale processo riveste per l'identificazione della nuova configurazione dello spazio pubblico tipico dell'epoca contemporanea, mettendo in rilievo i particolari pericoli con cui esso si confronta. Over the past century and a half the public realm in our contemporary mass societies has undergone a series of fundamental changes that correspond to metamorphoses in the mass media that constitute the primary source of public communication. This article focuses on the transformation in the modes of organization of the public realm in highlighting the ways in which the mass media configure it. According to its principal argument, the role of the mass media in the immediate representation of current events-of "breaking news"-is not limited to the selection, reconstruction and communication of events: by means of a specific processes of symbolic incorporation, it also confers upon them public visibility and interweaves them in the broader framework of group experience and memory. This article analyzes the significance of these processes for the identification of the new configuration of the public realm of the current epoch, while at the same time placing in relief the unprecedented dangers that the public realm faces.

An increasing number of modern painted banners produced during the 20 th and 21 st centuries make up a large proportion of the banner collection at the People's History Museum (PHM), Manchester, UK. How these paints behave on flexing textiles after being exposed to all manner of conditions and phenomena remains unknown. This poster introduces the challenges of conserving acrylic emulsion painted banners at the PHM, using The Union of Communication Workers' (UCW) banner to illustrate some of the challenges. Modern banners, like the UCW banner, are often made with synthetic, tightly woven textile grounds. Many modern banner makers have a tendency not to use size, primer or grounding layers before the painting process. Consequently, the acrylic paint sits on the surface with little penetration into the synthetic textile ground, creating issues for treatment. Although acrylic emulsion paints demonstrate a high level of stability, dirt can easily adhere to them and their delicate surfaces can be altered when using aqueous solutions. Another dilemma is the unknown long-term effects of cleaning and consolidation treatments. Potentially useful new cleaning systems developed by Tate, London, the Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles and the University of Delaware are currently being investigated by the author.

The collective harm inflicted by the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday 13 November 2015 results in part from the fact that the perpetrators of these attacks took the specific qualities of urban public spaces and turned them against the city: hospitality, anonymity and the presumption of trust in others. All these characteristics form the foundations of civil exchanges in democratic public spaces.

This article delineates the process of developing the project "Urbanimals" - an interactive installation designed and realised in Bristol, UK, in 2015. As the case study research, it draws attention to the difficulties in designing interactive structures in urban spaces - from an architects' idea to a construction stage. There are four areas that are being investigated: (1) Modelling interactions, (2) Negotiating locations and logistics, (3) Developing hardware and (4) Performing the on-site observations. The project draws from the idea of Smart City (SC) as the concept of the urban environment with a certain level of responsiveness through implementing a technology-driven matter that expands city offer perceivable, but gentle and not hindering way. It highlights the possible applications of projection technology and the utilisation of the 3D modelling software which provides complex tools for creating animations, movements and interactions with future users. The article gives clues how to design more engaging interactions and how to deal with implementing them in public realm.

Image is a part of variable in forming place identity. There are three attributes in measuring image domain in urban public park during nighttime which are conditions of physical setting; lighting and colour; and signage/ symbol. The aim of this research paper is to investigate the reliability of urban public park image in relation to nighttime place identity in Shah Alam. The data is collected through pilot questionnaire survey and the data were analysed using reliability scales known as internal consistency and correlation analysis. The results show the significant items used for image in determining the nighttime place identity of urban public park.

Through illustrated case studies and conceptual re-framings, this volume showcases ongoing transformations in public space, and its relationship to the public realm more broadly in the world's most populous urban megaregion-the Greater Bay Area of southeastern Chinaprojected to reach eighty million inhabitants by the year 2025. This book assembles diverse approaches to interrogating the forms of public space and the public realm that are emerging in the context of this region's rapid urban development in the last forty years, bringing together authors from urbanism, architecture, planning, sociology, anthropology and politics to examine innovative ways of framing and conceptualizing public space in/of the Greater Bay Area. The blend of authors' first-hand practical experiences has created a unique cross-disciplinary book that employs public space to frame issues of planning, political control, social inclusion, participation, learning/education and appropriation in the production of everyday urbanism. In the context of the Greater Bay Area, such spaces and practices also present opportunities for reconfiguring design-driven urban practice beyond traditional interventions manifested by the design of physical objects and public amenities to the design of new social protocols, processes, infrastructures and capabilities. This is a captivating new dimension of urbanism and critical urban practice and will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in urbanization in China.

This strategy for improving central Portsmouth aims to inform the city's civic values, growth, identity and public realm. The city centre is currently fragmented and dissipated. This strategy proposes a central heart which also accomodates future growth. Implementation is proposed through multifaceted public and private collaboration through partnership engaging The City of Portsmouth, the University, MOD, private interests and residents.

Traditional cities emerged and grew according to the residents’ needs; thus they were a reflection of the community’s culture and traditions. But lately cities have witnessed numerous changes and challenges. Nasr City in Cairo was planned as a suburb in the late sixties to tackle the housing shortage in Cairo. Nasr city’s master plan aimed at accommodating modern planning concepts where it featured an abundance of open public spaces when compared to other districts of Cairo. However, these spaces are empty of people most of the time, which detracts from the character and the experiential qualities of the area. This paper aims to explore the way in which the residents of Nasr city envision ‘their’ public spaces, comprehending the reasons why their usage of such spaces is currently hindered and discovering their recommendations for enhancing public spaces in their neighbourhoods in a way that would encourage them to visit them regularly. In addition, this paper assesses Nasr city’s pu...

The aim of this article is to reflect on and share the findings of the Networking Event ‘Give us Space: Augmented public space geographies in the changing public/private relationships.’ The Event addressed emerging spatial issues in the production of the public realm of contemporary cities. This topic has been at the centre of the discourse on urbanism in both humanities and social sciences for decades, reflecting the increasing interest in spatial problems that have contributed to the crisis of public life in the socioeconomic, cultural and political spheres. The recent pervasion of spatial privatisation and public sphere mediatisation processes require a refoundation of this discourse. The discussions addressed some of the key areas of concern raised by the New Urban Agenda (NUA) related to open space, focusing on socio-spatial problems in the pervading production of semi-public spaces in contexts of rapid urbanization. Using a comparative urbanism perspective that highlighted the...

In early 2001, Professor Peter Smirniotopoulos, a faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University Real Estate Program, felt compelled to research and write about “The Meaning of Place” as an academic countermeasure to an emerging trend toward “Placemaking” he viewed as overly formulaic; a paint-by-numbers approach to creating new communities, town centers and quasi-public venues that relied more on nostalgia and derivative replication than on research, substance or analysis. The result of that quest resulted in the publication of Professor Smirniotopoulos’ Spring 2001 essay for Urban Land magazine ﴾Vol. 60, No. 3, March 2001﴿, “The Meaning of Place,” which received the Urban Land Institute’s inaugural Apgar Urban Land Award (then simply named “the Apgar Award”) in 2002. This course is an extension of that essay, building on Professor Smirniotopoulos's research, writings, and professional work since its publication.

"Place to Place is a book that brings together nine artists' experiences of creating artistic work for a specific site.

"Art is not what these artists are primarly making, to say that would be to islolate their practice and thinking - rather they are creating a dialogue about place, which through art, they open up, develop and share"

Thats what the artist Lisa Torell writes in the introduction to the anthology "Place to Place", for which she is editor. "(Niklas Östholm, Konstfrämjandet Stockholm)

With the artists: Eva Arnqvist, Henrik Andersson, Kajsa Dahlberg, Annika Eriksson, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Hans Rosenström, Martin Tebus and Magnus Thierfelder.



Translation: Åsa-Linnea Strand
Design: Research and Development, researchanddevelopment.se Print management: Wonderful Books, Rik van Leeuwen
The book has been made possible by support from Folkrörelsernas Konstfrämjande and Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing (UiT).

From 1917 to 1994 Agustín Montoro Lluch and his son Agustín Montoro Bañón operated a professional photography studio in Sagunto. Mainly dedicated to portrait photography, they also took many outside located pictures on which the present essay focuses. Despite their family links, both photographers revealed two strongly opposed conceptions of the photographic gaze toward the public realm. The father succeeded in capturing the dynamics of the modernization process of the first decades of the 20th century through his graphic reports about massive public events and industrial facilities.  Often under his initiative, the son took some more subjective and melancholic photographs on the daily life of a bleak and ruined city after the Spanish Civil War.

Desde 1917 a 1994, Agustín Montoro Lluch y su hijo Agustín Montoro Bañón regentaron un estudio de fotografía profesional en Sagunto. Principalmente dedicados al retrato fotográfico, también tomaron muchas imágenes de exterior en las que se centra el presente ensayo. A pesar de sus vínculos familiares, ambos fotógrafos revelaron dos concepciones fuertemente opuestas de la mirada fotográfica hacia el ámbito público. El padre logró capturar la dinámica del proceso de modernización de las primeras décadas del siglo XX a través de sus reportajes gráficos sobre eventos públicos de masas e instalaciones industriales. A menudo, bajo su iniciativa, el hijo tomó algunas fotografías más subjetivas y melancólicas sobre la vida cotidiana de una ciudad sombría y en ruinas después de la Guerra Civil española.

Through illustrated case studies and conceptual re-framings, this volume showcases ongoing transformations in public space, and its relationship to the public realm more broadly in the world's most populous urban megaregion-the Greater Bay Area of southeastern Chinaprojected to reach eighty million inhabitants by the year 2025. This book assembles diverse approaches to interrogating the forms of public space and the public realm that are emerging in the context of this region's rapid urban development in the last forty years, bringing together authors from urbanism, architecture, planning, sociology, anthropology and politics to examine innovative ways of framing and conceptualizing public space in/of the Greater Bay Area. The blend of authors' first-hand practical experiences has created a unique cross-disciplinary book that employs public space to frame issues of planning, political control, social inclusion, participation, learning/education and appropriation in the production of everyday urbanism. In the context of the Greater Bay Area, such spaces and practices also present opportunities for reconfiguring design-driven urban practice beyond traditional interventions manifested by the design of physical objects and public amenities to the design of new social protocols, processes, infrastructures and capabilities. This is a captivating new dimension of urbanism and critical urban practice and will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in urbanization in China.

Over the last three decades, private ownership and management of the public realm has been growing which is gradually changing the nature of towns and cities. The reason of this changing urban landscape is the post-industrial change, as the world economies is shifting from industrial-based economies to knowledge-based economies, carried out by globalized financial service industries. With the decentralization process, resulting from post-industrial change, industries have been moving to the periphery of the city, leaving blank spaces for private sector to offer variety of opportunities for new development with the consequences that recently become visible as the huge regeneration of former industrial areas start to come to life. This latest wave of urban change has created tremendous opportunity for cities, transforming warehouses, docks and riverfronts into thriving centers of the new economy. But the problem is that the nature of public space is changing as the large regeneration schemes are carried out in accordance with the new policies.

The aim of this article is to reflect on and share the findings of the Networking Event ‘Give us Space: Augmented public space geographies in the changing public/private relationships.’ The Event addressed emerging spatial issues in the production of the public realm of contemporary cities. This topic has been at the centre of the discourse on urbanism in both humanities and social sciences for decades, reflecting the increasing interest in spatial problems that have contributed to the crisis of public life in the socioeconomic, cultural and political spheres. The recent pervasion of spatial privatisation and public sphere mediatisation processes require a refoundation of this discourse. The discussions addressed some of the key areas of concern raised by the New Urban Agenda (NUA) related to open space, focusing on socio-spatial problems in the pervading production of semi-public spaces in contexts of rapid urbanization. Using a comparative urbanism perspective that highlighted the...

The “Give Us Space!” networking session at the WUF9 was held and organized by the University of Auckland in relationship with other partner universities and organizations.This Event fostered a discussion on public space as a common good, by means of sharing and critically evaluating emerging problems in the public realm in different geographical contexts with regards to spatial conception, representation, and everyday life experiences. Focusing on socio-spatial relationality it rethought and raised awareness of its importance to contribute to a successful implementation of the New Urban Agenda, promoting well-being in cities and creating safe, inclusive, accessible, public spaces for all. Specifically, it addressed a crucial kind of public realm: the semi-private space. This space, which often presents the highest levels of relational urban life, is characterized by complex mechanisms of production and control that, while strongly enhancing safety and comfort, pose severe limits to ...