Public spaces for people: lessons from abroad
How do we create inspiring public spaces? Do good ideas travel? It’s people (and especially public servants), that make or break a place, says Brian Goodey. Assessing the success of workable public spaces is a subjective enterprise. However, public popularity can be taken as one vote of confidence – if we like it, we’ll use it…
In this discussion, I’m looking at the places abroad that make me tick. Note, however that abroad can mean many things – and that as the world shrinks to a global village, our exposure to different kinds of public space increases and gives us new and valid ideas.
So – what is an inspiring public space?
One interpretation: A territory and backdrop which, through scale, articulation, surfacing and light offers both a repeated experience of urban space and the expectation of surprise.
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| Thames Barrier Park: an expectation of surprise | |
How about London? Anywhere that combines the backdrop and expectation of an event has potential, such as stadia before the match or game, for example Lords, Twickenham, or Wembley – but these are ‘private’ spaces.
Trafalgar Square? This is now far too managed to inspire. Piccadilly and Leicester Square? There's insufficient space to allow expression. And if we cast the web wider in the UK? Centennial Square, Birmingham is also over-managed. But Exchange Square, Manchester, still allows for expression.
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| Exchange Square: sculpture | Exchange Square: wheel | Exchange Square: screen |
Before we go any further, we had better seriously consider what is meant by inspiring public spaces.
Inspiring: Environments that both contain, and provide, views and that stimulate thought and action through their physical form or patterns of use. This gives us hints that they might, therefore, be exaggerated in size or form, or excessive in terms of decoration, sound, smell or human activity.
Public: Accessible to all who want to use it, either owned by the community or managed with free access.
Space: Implies an undeveloped setting between containing buildings.
And why might we need such spaces?
To raise the mind, to kick us out of the commonplace rut, to make a moment special in personal or professional life …
But this all assumes that we, even as urban design professionals and experts, are stimulated by a personal experience of reality, over and above the ‘politically correct’ images that we’re bombarded with. So are we? I hope so...And what can we say with regard to these ‘inspiring’ places? That despite all the artists’ impressions, photographic images and textual descriptions, the experience of actually being there is so much more….
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| Using urban public space in Paris... | the Ramblas, Barcelona... | and the Taj Mahal, India |
Granada, Pisa, Parc de la Vilette, Freeway Park in Seattle, the foot of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpar, the Taj Mahal, the Ramblas in Barcelona are all places that can surprise and delight. Scale, space and simplicity can inspire, especially in the historic context – see unpopulated World Heritage Sites as in Mexico, or the the Alps as one flies over them. But my candidate for the most striking and inspiring urban view is sitting on the urban knife edge above Belo Hoizonte.
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| Belo Horizonte, Brazil: inspiring urban views | ||
What makes an inspiring urban space is the possibility that, by joining in, you become part of an unpredictable and totally innovative event. These spac es give us the capacity to disrupt…
Does inspiration travel?
It would be false to assume that what inspires one designer or user inspires another. The trigger that is, perhaps, the mechanism by which the user is ‘inspired’ will depend on past experience and future prospects, cultural origins, and setting.
The fallacy that built-form examples from place ‘A’ can be pillaged and reconstructed in places ‘B’, ‘C’ is one we mustn’t fall into. If place design ‘inspires’ at all, it is so often because physical form combines with light, the comfortable knowledge of climate, and the subtleties of daily life in a particular cultural context.
In a recent article, Baltic academics and practitioners chose to discuss aspects of seasonality and landscape as it applied to play, harvest ceremonies and other gatherings. Not something on the agenda of the average British observer … but it is important to consider how climate and the seasons impact on our experience of place.
It is this shifting theatre of urban spaces which inspires at all levels. Venice, during the Biennale, never fails to thrill. Prague … always. Leicester Square, London, at a film opening. And, for me, anyplace, anywhere with a lively, non-plastic market – car boot or otherwise.
Market forces: serviceable, but not inspiring
When it comes to the creation of public space, the market has a major role to play. The necessary commercialization of much public space in development a raises very special issues :
It is informal, has its own rules;
It relies on product plus promoter rather than structure;
It relies on intervisibility of opportunities;
It announces origins of products;
It relies on all the senses for sale;
It has broad, but not universal, appeal.
But does the market ‘inspire’? Probably not … rather it evokes nostalgia, feelings of participation, of trading and of close contact between the participants in commerce. But should the market inspire? I think it should. Should public space represent an agreed public will, for example as in Red Square? Or should it represent the informality of community activity, as in Saltaire? Or, if it has already vanished, the (ironic) image of community life as in the French Market, Manchester.
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| Light turns a field into fun at Glastonbury and other festivals | Neon brings life: when will we see it in Oxford? | Unexpected public interventions with space work brilliantly at London's Somerset House |
What are the barriers against inspiring public spaces?
Are you with me in realisng that the palate for intervention is wide, but little has been used? Do you dream of past or distant places … but would they really fit in our contemporary British environment? Inspiring public space is not easy to deliver, but if we give the matter some thought, we should be able to do much better than is currently the case, especiallyin the UK.
- Consider first the ways in which others get things done – in the community, in government and in business
- Consider the ways in which our society can be manipulated (as it will be) to appreciate or support new types of place
- Remember (politically) that the current Government is preoccupied with crime, welfare and ‘respect’ to the detriment of any visionary concepts for the environment – urban or rural
- Ideas from abroad are slipped quietly into our institutions with little or no announcement
- So if you have had any thoughts with regard to the future of urban space as a result of this presentation it is best not to mention it to anyone else
- I cannot resist the potential joy of a really outstanding neon structure to provide a contemporary focus for the centre of Oxford...
For additional perspectives on learning form abroad, view the Learning from Abroad (pdf) prepared by the development committee for Milton Keynes.
Apply Cabe's guidelines for succeassful public space: does it hold up with your favourites?
There are five qualities that designers and planners think are desirable for achieving good and successful places. However, there are no hard rules for achieving them. In any development designers and planners need to be flexible in the way they apply these qualities to the place. For example, to generate income more office space and day time parking may be needed than local residents would like, but more trees can be planted along the street to compensate.
The five urban design qualities
01 Permeability – movement and connections
A successful place is easy to get to and move through. Places should connect to their surroundings.
A successful place:
gives people the maximum amount of choice for how to make a journey
takes into account all forms of movement (foot, cycle, public transport and car). Where possible connections should emphasise sustainable forms of transport over individual car use
makes clear connections to existing roads and facilities. This will give users more choices of route when making their journeys
is made up of perimeter blocks: the plots of land between streets. A building usually has two faces: the public face is the front of the building which usually faces the street, and is where the entrances are; the private face is usually the back of the building and faces the inside of the block. The benefit of perimeter blocks is that the building’s public face overlooks the street, making it more safe and secure. Permeability must be considered early in any planning or development process because streets are the most permanent element of any built environment. Ancient street patterns, including Roman roads, can still be identified in many historic cities such as Oxford.
02 Vitality
Places that are vibrant, active, safe, comfortable, varied, and fun are said to have vitality.
Places are more active when they have windows and doors connected to the street. Inactive edges are blank walls, badly-placed entrances, tunnels, places where you don’t feel safe, which are not overlooked.
Places feel safer with buildings overlooking them. When houses are placed above shops the streets remain busy in the evenings so they feel safe and vibrant.
03 Variety/Diversity – the spice of life
A successful place also offers a mix of activities to the widest range of possible users.
The most connected streets usually have a wider variety of uses because they are easier to get to and more people go there.
Variety is desirable because it provides a choice of activities for a wider range of people, things to do and places to go, making the place more exciting.
A variety of uses will also attract larger numbers of consumers to the area and therefore make it more economically successful.
It is important to get the right mix of uses. A successful mix is achieved when uses create a balanced community with a range of services without increasing the need for the car.
Social housing should not be distinguishable from private housing by either its design or its location.
04 Legibility
A successful and ‘legible’ development is a place that has a clear image and is easy to understand. American planner Kevin Lynch identified five features which create this kind of place.
Paths – the routes of movement such as alleys, streets and railways
Nodes – focal places such as roundabouts and market squares which connect the paths and roads
Landmarks – buildings or places that provide local character and act as reference points
Districts – areas of the city with distinct or recognisable characteristics such as the business district
Edges – linear elements not used as routes like busy roads, walls of buildings and railway lines
05 Robustness
A place’s ability to be used for many different purposes by different people, or its potential for change and adaptation for different uses.
A robust place, whether outdoors or indoors, has many possible uses.
A robust building’s function can change over time. The whole building can take on a new use, for example, an industrial warehouse can become new office space. Or a small space within a building can change use, such as a garage into a sitting room.
A robust place takes advantage of climatic conditions such as daylight, sunlight and wind, by, for example, placing solar panels on south facing buildings.
Natural vegetation such as trees and bushes are included in such developments to act as filters for pollution and sunlight during summer but to allow sunlight through in winter.
