scholarly journals The capibaribe park project, Recife: using the river to reinvent the city

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-353
Author(s):  
Fabiano Rocha Diniz ◽  
Luiz Vieira Filho ◽  
Roberto Montezuma
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
The Past ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Coherent Image ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Recife is an amphibious city whose urban development does not value its rivers. In the past, the city’s main watercourse, the river Capibaribe, was understood to play a key role in structuring urban spaces and providing connectivity. Since then, this understanding has dwindled, and the resulting situation is a cause of great concern. Recife City has turned its back on the banks of its rivers and neglected both their capacity to smooth and shape urban space, and their potential to create a coherent image of the city. Recife is one of those cities in the world that are most vulnerable to climate change, ranking 16th in the list of world hotspots. In order to confront these challenges and rethink the role of the river that runs in the heart of Recife, researchers, architects, engineers, and sociologists from Research and Innovation for Cities — Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (INCITI-UFPE) were invited by the Recife City Hall to draw up plans for a park stretching along the river’s banks. Capibaribe Park Project attempts to answer one key question: How can we use the river to transform the city? The park project is based on a structural approach to landscape and is guided by the precepts of sustainability and regeneration of public spaces, in line with the emerging paradigm that combines a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector approach with water-sensitive design and social participation. The present article presents an overview of the main characteristics and development of this project, its theoretical and methodological underpinnings, its contribution to society, and the results achieved so far. It shows how, in addition to the planned park, the project also envisages the installation of a much more extensive system of parks, as a first stage towards the creation of park-city by the 500th anniversary of the foundation of Recife, in 2037.

scholarly journals »Reclaiming« the City: A Collective Endeavor

Dimensions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
Sergiy Ilchenko
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Urban Renaissance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Being Moved

Abstract This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free (unregulated) areas of the city used as resources for urban development and interaction of citizens.

scholarly journals Exploring Successful Small Urban Spaces’ Criteria with Emphasis on Cultural Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Parvin Partovi ◽  
Kebria Sedaghat Rostami ◽  
Amir Shakibamanesh
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The City

In the crowded cities of the present age, public spaces can provide a quiet area away from the hustle and bustle of the city that citizens can interact with by incorporating utility features and meeting human needs and Relax there. Small urban spaces are among the most important and effective urban spaces to achieve this goal. Because these spaces due to their small size and lower costs (compared to larger spaces) for construction can be created in large numbers and distributed throughout the city. In this way, citizens will be able to reach a public urban space on foot in a short time. If these spaces are well designed, they can encourage people to stay in and interact with each other. It is not difficult to identify and experience high-quality successful places, but identifying the reasons for their success is difficult and even more difficult, understanding if similar spaces in other places can be considered successful. This question is important because public space with deep social content is considered a cultural product. Public space is the product of the historical and socio-cultural forces of society. Therefore, one of the most important issues that should be considered in the study of public spaces and the reasons for their success is the cultural context. In Iranian cities that have been influenced by the values and principles of Islam,recognizing Islamic principles and their role in shaping public spaces can lead us to desirable results. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of successful small urban spaces with an emphasis on cultural issues, especially in Iranian-Islamic cities. In this regard, the effective criteria for the success of urban spaces in general and small urban spaces in particular in the two categories of Western countries and Iranian Islamic cities were examined and then, taking into account the criteria derived from cultural theorists, the conceptual model of research with 38 subcriteria is provided.

scholarly journals Explicit and implied significance of contemporary public spaces. Part 1. Spaces of attractions

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 063-082
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziubiński
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Beach Bar

This text presents considerations encouraged by thoughts and conclusions gained from research on several beach bars and their comparison with other urban public spaces, run in Wrocław from 2018 to 2019. The similarities and differences between the two types of spaces provoke a question about the meaning of what we call „public spaces” today. The question is also asked, somewhat perversely, about the validity of following best practices based on proxemic principles and focused on attracting and retaining people in urban spaces. The paper examines not so much the rules but the purpose, in other words the type of space we receive/can achieve as a result of applying these principles, since people in the urban space (private or public) are only guests, while their choice is reduced to the top-down offer. The above doubt also results from the conclusion regarding the most important feature determining attractiveness of a beach bar space, which in my opinion, is the freedom of behaviour for users. In it we can see deficiencies of the prevailing narrative about our participation in space and, above all, the possibility of choice, or what should be called the limitations of choice – the lack of possession/self-agency. Such a situation, largely conditioned by politics (and economics), reduces public space to the role of a  “space of attractions” (curiosities), whose action and participation is based on experiencing – on a direct experience. The clash of these two forces – standardization and individualization, erodes the current model of common spaces based on the historical (nineteenth century) one, whose images are transferred only in the form of empty clichés. Thus, the limitation of choices, the need to fall into line and appearances of a community lead to an escape upwards – enclaves for the chosen ones (omnitopia) and downwards – niches for the rebellious ones (heterotopia), while beach bars represent both ways of escape. Against this background, the purposefulness of expert/ top-down creation of public spaces, carried out in isolation from other essential values and laws, appears problematic.

scholarly journals Cities in Asia by and for the People

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
The People ◽  
Alternative Spaces ◽  
The City

This book examines the active role of urban citizens in constructing alternative urban spaces as tangible resistance towards capitalist production of urban spaces that continue to encroach various neighborhoods, lanes, commons, public land and other spaces of community life and livelihoods. The collection of narratives presented here brings together research from ten different Asian cities and re-theorises the city from the perspective of ordinary people facing moments of crisis, contestations, and cooperative quests to create alternative spaces to those being produced under prevailing urban processes. The chapters accent the exercise of human agency through daily practices in the production of urban space and the intention is not one of creating a romantic or utopian vision of what a city "by and for the people" ought to be. Rather, it is to place people in the centre as mediators of city-making with discontents about current conditions and desires for a better life.

scholarly journals Post-Pandemic City: Historical Context for New Urban Design

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-108
Author(s):  
Veaceslav MIR
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Past ◽  
The City

Cities have been almost completely unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. Urban history has known many epidemics and pandemics, and there are clear historical parallels between the 13th and 19th century plague pandemics and cholera epidemics and the 21th century COVID-19 pandemic, from an administrative point of view. However, the cities’ public administration did not take into account the experience of the cities of the past to be prepared for the future problems. This requires developing flexible pandemic strategies and focusing on the decentralization of urban space through an even distribution of population in the urban environment. The COVID-19 pandemic will change the city, as previous pandemics and epidemics did. Urbanism v.3.0. will emerge, combining a green vector of development and digital technologies to ensure the autonomy and sustainability of buildings, districts and cities. At the same time, the role of culture will increase, which will become an effective tool for consolidating the soft power of the city in order to attract new people as the opposition of nowadays trend for living in the countryside.

scholarly journals Empirical study of the mental representation of the image of the city (on the example of Kazan and Naberezhnye Chelny)

2021 ◽  
Vol 274 ◽  
pp. 01034
Author(s):  
Maria Latypova ◽  
Elvira Mingalimova ◽  
Angelina Rubtsova ◽  
Arthur Tazov
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
The City

The purpose of the study is to identify the formed image of the territory in the perception of its inhabitants, using empirical research data for this. The main results of the study are that a comprehensive analysis of the mental representation of the urban space was carried out, on the basis of which the key elements of the image of the territory, the boundaries of the vernacular districts of the city, their urbanonymy were identified, as well as the significant role of urban open public spaces in the formation of the image of the territory. The authors come to the conclusion about the peculiarities of building images of cities, centered on symbolically significant elements and spaces that act as anchors for forming the image of a city in the perception of residents, attaching the population to the territory and constructing local identity.

scholarly journals Appropriation and political expression in urban public spaces

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Luis Abrahão
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
Physical Spaces ◽  
The Relationship

There are many, diverse issues that determine the relationship between citizens and their public urban spaces and, consequently, the significance that these spaces acquire for society as a whole. In totalitarian regimes however, the use of streets and parks as places of protest and resistance against sequestered freedom is not permitted. However, in democratic regimes, the reflections and discourse of architects, urbanists, researchers and policy makers regarding the manner in which public urban space is (or should be) appropriated by the population, has revealed a systematic reinterpretation of these spaces. Indeed, ever since the last decades of the past century, it has become recurrent to associate these physical spaces with the space of political realization. The intention of the present article is to bring the meaning of this association into debate, above all due to the insurgencies from certain segments of our population, which have taken place over recent years, manifestly in the streets, parks and avenues of our cities.

scholarly journals SAFE CITIES: UKRAINIAN AND WORLD DIMENSIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (87) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Demicheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
City Community ◽  
The World ◽  
Perceived Security ◽  
Atmosphere Interaction ◽  
The City ◽  
Active Interaction

Security at the city level is the security aspect that is only beginning to be recognized by Ukrainian society, although in many cities around the world, creating a secure urban space is a well-established practice or a strategic goal. A safe city includes many indicators, including infrastructure security, personal and cybersecurity, the level of crime in the city, citizens' assessment of residential areas in terms of their safety, etc., so they usually distinguish between actual and imaginary security. The role of the authorities and local governments is to provide material living conditions for the city - lighting, normal roads, repair of emergency buildings, reduction of vehicles and the priority of cyclists and pedestrians. The role of the community is indifference, the desire to create a safe atmosphere, interaction with the police through information and cooperation, through prevention. The global index of safe cities is compiled and based on an assessment of various factors that determine security. In Ukraine, a safe city is understood mainly as a city illuminated and saturated with surveillance cameras, which, surely influence its creation, but a safe city isn’t created only by the police or authorities, but includes active interaction of city authorities, police, city community. Each of these actors has a field of responsibility, but the result of their cooperation is the creation of a safe and comfortable city. The country is just beginning to involve programs aimed at intensifying cooperation between the city's actors, including "Community Police", "Neighborhood Guard", "Safe City", which have proven their effectiveness in the world. Citizens themselves and their actions naturally create an atmosphere of security on the street. In addition to actual security, another perspective of a secure city is perceived security, which is the feeling of security on a subjective level. The point is that certain places in the city can cause fear: some estranged areas, residential areas, industrial areas, any dark places and so on. Nationwide surveys recorded the level of citizens’ security and identified the most dangerous and safest regional centers.

scholarly journals Historical Cartography and Sustainable Tourism Development. Reconnecting Trento and the Fersina Stream through the Retrieval of Environmental and Cultural Heritage

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Carolien Fornasari ◽  
Aurora Rapisarda
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Sustainable Tourism Development ◽  
The Past ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town

Abstract. Within the context of postmodern tourism, the importance of preserving and enhancing environmental and cultural assets of destinations is increasingly being recognised as one of the keys to sustainable long-term development of territories. The paper focuses on the complex diachronic relationship between the town of Trento, in the Trentino- Alto Adige region, and its watercourses, and, in particular, on its connection with the Fersina stream. The aim is to raise locals’ and visitors’ awareness of a largely forgotten urban water landscape, and to implement the town’s existing cultural and environmental tourist offer. This is achieved through the revival of collective memory of the fundamental role of water for the development of Trento and through the requalification of the stream and its network of canals, which once brought water to different parts of the city-centre. For such purpose, the validity of cartography and other geo-historical sources has been acknowledged; maps are particularly useful sources for retracing territorialisation processes, and rediscovering past territorialities and related landscapes. Accordingly, we have carried out a geo-historical analysis of cartographic representations of the town, shedding light on the past widespread presence of water within urban space and making some proposals for the enhancement and communication of such heritage.

scholarly journals The contemporary importance of the Old Canal area for the centre of Bydgoszcz and its influence on the city’s cultural landscape

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Iga Grześkow
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Canal Area ◽  
The City

European cities are centuries-old connections of social and cultural interrelations in which the history and heritage of generations have formed a specific model of collective life and culture. The nature, prestige and signs of urban life in these cities are best indicated by their public spaces and their structure and inclusion in the urban tissue. Being presentable areas as well as places of social intercourse and activity, public spaces form multipurpose areas which establishe the city’s cultural landscape. Simultaneously, the game for urban areas in the city and related economic interests, and market all activities promoting the city's image and interfering with the city’s structure, pose a threat to the sensible development of the most valuable parts of the urban space. Globalisation processes contribute to the unification and standardisation of any forms of life, including space. The need for maintaining the continuity of urban tissue requires that its historical traces be cultivated. In this context, the contemporary role of the Old Canal area for downtown Bydgoszcz and its influence on the development of the city’s cultural landscape are part of the current strategies for the cultureforming regeneration of urban space.

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