In Europe, the image of the beautiful old city, with its compact morphological structure, dense with public spaces and social interactions, seems to have no relationship with the vast land of suburbia, sprawling outside the ancient perimeter of recognizable historic urban values. Since 1900, new economic demands and social needs have produced a radically different form of urbanization at the urban edge. Planners, urban designers and architects working in Italy understand how to preserve and enhance historic districts and even, using New Urbanist techniques, how to extend that morphology. However, faced with the periphery, they are helpless: its apparent chaos appears to be the inverse of the coherent form of the historic centres. This polarization hides the fact that these two disparate conditions are mutually constitutive. The city and suburb are actually interdependent. Thus, any intervention on one will affect the other. Based on this, we will argue for a new approach to urban design. This means acknowledging and accepting the city as the whole that it really is. Doing this work will require a new set of concepts and tools for understanding and intervening in both the urban and the human context. This is particularly important in discussing and investigating existing phenomenon of aggregation in urban space. Conventional approaches to “public space” research focus exclusively on generalized concepts of space, design, and urban form. Instead we propose to begin with the concept of “publics”. This will allow people themselves to identify places whose significance have been produced by the community and its social life. These exist in both urban and suburban settings. This research is informed by American concepts of “everyday space”, ordinary places described as the “connective tissue that binds daily lives together”, although often in ways that are difficult to perceive. Looking at “lived space” in multiple contexts across city and suburbs in Italy and the US with an open mind, we will demonstrate how these spaces can generate a renewed urbanity. Urbanity is not a result of a well-designed space, it is shaped by urban uses and daily existence.
Luisa Bravo, Margaret Crawford (2014). Publics and their spaces: renewing urbanity in city and suburb. IOS Press, editor [10.3233/978-1-61499-365-0-789].
Publics and their spaces: renewing urbanity in city and suburb
BRAVO, LUISA;
2014
Abstract
In Europe, the image of the beautiful old city, with its compact morphological structure, dense with public spaces and social interactions, seems to have no relationship with the vast land of suburbia, sprawling outside the ancient perimeter of recognizable historic urban values. Since 1900, new economic demands and social needs have produced a radically different form of urbanization at the urban edge. Planners, urban designers and architects working in Italy understand how to preserve and enhance historic districts and even, using New Urbanist techniques, how to extend that morphology. However, faced with the periphery, they are helpless: its apparent chaos appears to be the inverse of the coherent form of the historic centres. This polarization hides the fact that these two disparate conditions are mutually constitutive. The city and suburb are actually interdependent. Thus, any intervention on one will affect the other. Based on this, we will argue for a new approach to urban design. This means acknowledging and accepting the city as the whole that it really is. Doing this work will require a new set of concepts and tools for understanding and intervening in both the urban and the human context. This is particularly important in discussing and investigating existing phenomenon of aggregation in urban space. Conventional approaches to “public space” research focus exclusively on generalized concepts of space, design, and urban form. Instead we propose to begin with the concept of “publics”. This will allow people themselves to identify places whose significance have been produced by the community and its social life. These exist in both urban and suburban settings. This research is informed by American concepts of “everyday space”, ordinary places described as the “connective tissue that binds daily lives together”, although often in ways that are difficult to perceive. Looking at “lived space” in multiple contexts across city and suburbs in Italy and the US with an open mind, we will demonstrate how these spaces can generate a renewed urbanity. Urbanity is not a result of a well-designed space, it is shaped by urban uses and daily existence.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
