The Sveta Nedelya Square Competition in Sofia, Bulgaria unveiled that the proposal presented by Studio Fuksas was selected as the winning project. 6 other international teams reached the final stage of the contest, including One Works, Maofficina, Cracknell, Studio Wilmotte, Paola Vigano, and AI Architects LLD, CLAB Architettura, Yuri Sheredega, Dina Dridze, Evgeniy Shirinyan.
The City of Sydney has chosen Adjaye Associates and contemporary Aboriginal artist Daniel Boyd to design a new public square, plaza building, and public artwork. The project attempts to uncover the lost history of the site, reconcile cultures and define identities.
OMA revealed the KUBE, an installation located in front of the main entrance of K11 MUSEA, on Hong Kong’s waterfront. The multi-functional installation creates an urban landmark, amidst the dense skyline of the city, through very simple yet engaging geometry.
The 3rd International Placemaking Week, presented by Project for Public Spaces (PPS) took place on October 1-4, 2019 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The inspiring and engaging week designed after the previous editions in Amsterdam in 2017 and Vancouver in 2016, is a global gathering of placemakers from different sectors to discuss thoughts and share strategies in order to push forward the concept of placemaking in the host city and on an international level.
PPS, the nonprofit organization behind the Placemaking Week, helps people create and sustain public spaces that build strong communities. In 1999, they elaborated “How to turn a place around”, a book that defined the placemaking movement, creating a guideline of 11 principles to follow in order to create vibrant community spaces.
Read on to discover the 11 rules with relevant existing examples to illustrate every principle.
In order to create vibrant public spaces, people need to have a constant presence in these locations, whether they are on their own or in groups. In fact, they need to linger in these places and establish social interactions. To do so, one major element has to be incorporated in the urban setting: the bench.
This seating feature, simple or high tech, insures firstly the comfort of the passersby and animates the area consequently, through the addition of the missing human aspect. Sometimes, this is all it takes to revive a space that became a dull passage. The most basic urban design component can take many forms and can be created from different materials, always generating a statement and serving its purpose.
The 3rd International Placemaking Week is an intimate, four-day-long global gathering of public space practitioners, researchers, and advocates that combines hands-on learning, public space activations, and innovative social events. Sign up before the regular registration rate ends on August 30!
Normally the efforts of the construction industry are aimed to design permanent and durable spaces. However, on some occasions creating temporary spaces can be of great help, not only when providing fast assembly infrastructure after the effects of a natural disaster, but also when activating residual or abandoned spaces in our cities. To exemplify the potential of these interventions, we present thirteen successful temporary public spaces.
The largest park project in the United States is underway at Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The city purchased the Dorothea Dix campus from the State of North Carolina in 2015 with the intent of creating a great destination park in the heart of the community. This year, Raleigh City Council adopted the Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan, and now an implementation plan is underway for Phase 1. Designed to span decades, the creation of the 300 acre park will include the site of North Carolina’s first mental hospital.
If a painting can trigger its viewers' emotions with just one observation, imagine the impact of a building-sized mural on an entire city.
Baltimore-based artists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn found a way to enhance people’s lives through art by adding visual playfulness to public spaces. Since 2012, they have been working on sculptures and large-scale murals, curving around building corners and spilling them onto the ground. The artistic duo explored themes of movement and symmetry by experimenting with bold color combinations, patterns in nature, and woven textiles.
Take a look at some of the lively murals created by Jessie and Katey that transform public spaces into colorful experiences.
A historic site in the heart of Basel will soon be revived as Kaserne Cultural Center, the city’s new urban hub by Focketyn Del Rio Studio.
The 45 million CHF (44.7 million USD) transformation project is the first publicly-funded large facility in the Kleinbasel district, and will unite and unlock two previously disconnected and enclosed spaces on the Rhine River. The 9,000 sqm project by the Swiss firm is currently under construction and is expected to be complete in 2021.
When we talk about public space, we often imagine a park with happy, relaxed people on a sunny day. In actuality, this is a very restricted approach. A young woman does not cross a deserted street at dawn in the same way as a white man wearing a suit or as an immigrant who may not be welcomed by local citizens. Have you ever felt discriminated while visiting a public space?
In this edition of Editors’ Talk, editors from Los Angeles, São Paulo, Argentina, and Uruguay share their views on defining public spaces for everyone
Urban design is a branch of design intimately related to urban planning and landscape architecture; it focuses broadly on interpreting the form and public space with physical-aesthetic-functional criteria. Different experts in the field such as Jane Jacobs, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi, Jaime Lerner, Jan Gehl, Kevin Lynch have devoted themselves to studying the needs of urban societies within the common spaces to give adequate responses to different contexts. These questions are renewed with new generations and the public space is transformed according to technological advances but what always remains is the sense of belonging of these sites that are only successful when users adopt them as own.
Many of us have already lived, are living, or will live in a shared student house - a good mix of cheap housing and intense socializing with friends and school mates. For a reasonable price, it is possible to have a single private room and share common spaces. In fact, not only university students are living this way nowadays. The concept of co-living is becoming more and more an attractive and effective solution.
Last week, we asked our social media followers, "What does public architecture mean to you?" These thoughts are intrinsic to the architectural debate and come into play in various types of projects, especially in those related to the planning of common-use spaces in cities.
Studies show that public investment in integrated and safe cycling networks promotes urban transformation, providing more humanity, health and quality of life in urban spaces. While cities in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries have already incorporated bicycles into daily life, with a significant portion of the population using the means of transport for daily commutes, much of the world is still seeking a model to reduce congestion and increase its use. According to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), investing in non-motorized transport allows congestion reduction, improves air quality, physical and mental health of residents, and local trade and brand visibility, once that cyclists tend to pay more attention to local commerce and take up less space than cars.
But along the cycle lanes and cycle paths it is essential to provide suitable places so that bicycles can be parked at the end of the trails. While bike stands are enclosed spaces, usually with some kind of surveillance and additional infrastructure, paracycles are the structures that allow to securely support and lock the bike. They can integrate in the urban furniture of a city, next to benches, plates, lamps and informative totems.
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The key to successfully designing or recovering public spaces is to achieve a series of ingredients that enhance their use as meeting places. Regardless of their scale, some important tips are designing for people's needs, the human scale, a mix of uses, multifunctionality and flexibility, comfort and safety, and integration to the urban fabric.
To give you some ideas on how to design urban furniture, bus stops, lookouts, bridges, playgrounds, squares, sports spaces, small parks and urban parks, check out these 100 notable public spaces.
When we think of energy from renewable sources, the first that probably come to mind are solar and wind. And decentralizing power generation is something that has inspired engineers and inventors from all over the world.
So what about turning the mechanical energy generated when people walk into electrical energy? It can be done thanks to technology developed by Laurence Kemball-Cook,founder of Pavegen. Using platforms inserted within sidewalks Pavegen converts steps into electric power (while also generating data and even rewards). But before you go out there feeling like Michael Jackson in Billie Jean, you should understand how this system works.
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