Proceedings of the 

International Conference on 

Changing Cities II 

Spatial, Design, Landscape & Socio‐economic Dimensions 

 

 

 

Under the aegis of 

The Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly 

The Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change 

The Greek Ministry of Tourism 

 

 

EDITOR:  

Prof. Aspa Gospodini, 

University of Thessaly 

 

 

 

Porto Heli, Peloponnese, Greece, June 22‐26, 2015 

TITLE   Proceedings of the International Conference on Changing Cities II: 

Spatial, Design, Landscape & Socio‐economic dimensions  ISBN   978‐960‐6865‐88‐6              Copyright 2015 Grafima Publ.          Grafima Publ. Str. Eksadaktylou 5 54635 Thessaloniki, Greece Tel/Fax: 2310‐248272 www.grafima.com.gr, E‐mail: grafima@grafima.com.gr 

Proceedings of the International Conference on Changing Cities II:Spatial, Design, Landscape & Socio-economic DimensionsISBN: 978-960-6865-88-6, Porto Heli, Greece , June 22-26, 2015

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Liveliness and livability of urban space. Perception of well-being and public space design

M. Clemente“Sapienza” University of Rome – (DIAP) Department of Architecture and Design

*Corresponding author: E-mail: clementematteo@yahoo.it, Tel: +39 3357610690, Fax: +390680691801

AbstractThe livability of a urban open space is extremely linked to individual factors of perception of the well-being. From the environmental issues, to the presence of vegetation; to the quality of the street furniture; to the safety of the users and the accessibility for all; to the sense of belonging due to cultural factors. The main characteristic of a vibrant public space is the reassuring presence of people all day long, thanks to the different activities and opportunities given to the citizens. A vital public space, lived by the community, appears like a vaguely happy place, the result of a well done and sustainable design. Starting from the perceptual issues, the sustainable design can give identity to urban voids, turning them into social gathering places, with the aim of improving the quality of life and the individual and collective well-being. Keywords: public space; urban design; public design; perception; well-being.

1. INTRODUCTION

The sustainable approach to the city stresses on human interests, with the aim to improve the individual well-being and the citizens quality of life. If the citizen won’t be conceived as the main subject to address the all project, the intervention would probably fail; as well as for the planning and the urban design, if these will be totally bound by social sciences, they could just turn into technical and self-referring knowledge. The landscape project allows extending the disciplinary platform in relation with the environmental psychologyand the urban sociology, moving the planning choices towards favourable solutions for building the "city" intended as "civitas".

The action on the public space could be strategic, as it will sustain the creation of vital and lively places that can be recognized as desks for sharing and socialization. The landscape design can give identity to urban voids, turning them into social gathering places, with the aim of improving the quality of life and the individual and collective well-being. The measure of quality in the open urban spaces it is, so, given by the perception of the inhabitants, as it will be soon explained in the following paragraphs.

1.1. Livability of urban open spaceThe livability of a urban open space is extremely linked to individual factors of perception of the well-being. There are different quality requirements of a public space, which can influence that perception and give a sustainable design. From the environmental issues, connected the air quality, to the renewable resources; to the vegetation; to the efficiency of the mobility systems; to the quality of the street furniture; to the maintenance and management; to the safety of the users and the accessibility for all. There are many other issues related to a sustainable design and to the quality of a public space, which are difficult to measure and quantify: the morphology of the urban space; the urban ground design; the perceptional issues related to the legibility, way-finding and psychological comfort; the semeiotic questions of the identity of places, linked to cultural factors and eventually symbolic, evocative ones.

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The livability of a public space, lastly, is connected to the possibility of doing some activities, to participate into the urban life and to raise larger opportunities. A livable public space, is a place where is possible to have access and to benefit from public services (sportive, recreational, cultural, etc.); moreover, is a place where is possible to sit down, to stand, to watch, to meet people and build social relationships. A livable public space is where everyone has chances to increase its own life quality and well-being.

1.2. Liveliness of public spaceThe public spaces, as mentioned in the works of the American sociologist Jane Jacobs (1961) [1], are life spaces where the “eyes of the street” are important for the security felt by the citizens, which will prevent them from antisocial behaviours. The city is considered from the viewpoint of the public life, of the human activities connected to the use of the public spaces and of the urban functions located on the ground floors of the buildings. The presence of these activities, of public services and and, finally, of the people themselves, attracts other people to attend the public space. Jan Gehl in Life beetween buildings [2], starts from the assumption that the physical environment effects social relationships in different ways, and suggests some criteria to organize the urban space which aim at improving these relationships. Among the factors that prove the success of a public space, according to the Danish architect, the use and participation of the collectivity are determinant, and they can be measured with the number of people who are spending time in that place. To get attractive, safe and lively public spaces, it is remarkable to pay attention to the different categories of users (residents, daily or seasonal visitors), in relation to the use and all the activities played all over the day, the week either the year.

joining the public life, who en reciate elements such as the quiet and the existence of greenery.

Figure 1. The pleasure of a place is linked with its own liveliness and the presence of people joy some recreational activities or app

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The main characteristic of a vital and vibrant public space is the reassuring presence of people all day long, thanks to the different functions and activities on the urban ground, such as the external tables bar, which help to spread the “café culture”. A lively public space gives the users different opportunities and possibilities, like staying, sitting down, looking, walking, playing, etc. Human activities are the first attraction of the public space, which offer chances to live surrounded by people, for meeting and listening them. It is the presence of people attending public space without a reasonable purpose, and that dedicate themselves to recreational activities, which characterize the image of the urban liveliness and livability. There is a sort of “entertaining force of the street” [3], that pushes people to attend a public space, for no matter what kind of activities, or even simply to enjoy the spectacle of life, of watching and being watched, to meet some other people and thus, be always prepared to the unexpected. A vital public space, lived by the community, appears like a vaguely happy place, the result of a well done and sustainable design.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

The research points at the definition of a methodological frame of reference according to the project of the public space, starting from the perception of the user. The main assumption claims that, starting from an attentive reading of the urban context, with particular reference to the perceptive evaluations of the potential users, it can be defined what are the performance features, as a base for interventions in the city.

2.1. Perception of well-being The perception makes reference to different interpretations of the urban landscape:

− Psychophysical, linked to individual physiological factors;− Visual-perceptual, which supposes evaluations related to visual stirrings;− Cognitive, that includes the re-elaborated version of the external stirrings, depending on

individual experiences;− Intellectual, affected by cultural influences and semiological interpretation.

There are many factors that can affect the perception of the well-being and that can be considered as useful indicators to signal the quality of a public space.

1) Security. The concept of security in relation to the public space can have different meanings, going from the street security of the pedestrian with the vehicular traffic, ending up to the sense of protection against the violence or anti-social behaviors, which can often occur into demoted places. The security of any pedestrians relies on the organization of the sidewalk, on the careful separation between pedestrian fluxes from vehicle accessible ones, and last but not least on the crossing intersections, where there is the danger of colliding with cars. According to many studies in the sector of Environmental psychology [4] it can be stated how the feeling of insecurity for its own safety, in relation to illegal behaviors or violent acts in open urban spaces (fear of crime), is extremely affected by the urban environment and the same architectural features of those urban spaces. The Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (also known as CPTED) [5] suggests planning criteria that could promote the security perception of the citizens. Particularly, it claims four fundamental strategies for the urban design:

− The territoriality, intended as social and belonging identity related to a place; − The natural surveillance; − The accesses control; − The use and meintenance of the space.

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2) Environmental confort The perception of well-being in the urban environment, associated with environmental factors, depends on: the air quality – upon which are based the European policies (EA); thermo-hygrometric factors linked to micro-climatic conditions. The urban comfort is also related to the existence of furniture and tools that make the urban space easily accessible and usable for everybody, better known as universal design (see point 5). The main problems perceived by the people within a urban context concern:

− Air pollution; − The noise; − The urban traffic; − The overcrowding; − The temperatures changes.

In the field of environmental psychology these external factors are classified as environmental stressors, linked to the model of life in contemporary cities.

3) Psycho-physical well-being due to the greenery presenceThe perception of the psycho-physical well-being is connected with ecological factors also, either the existence of the greenery and opened parks, which influence – according to different studies – the quality of life and the health of the inhabitants. Trees and green areas located in a city they do not only improve the quality of the urban environment, reducing environmental tensions (air quality, noise, traffic, overcrowding), but they motivate also people to do more physical activity, with gaining effects on their health. Who lives next to a public park will encounter less risks to contract obesity related diseases, due to a sedentary life.

4) Psychological comfort due to cognitive factorsThe perception of the psychological comfort within an open urban space is linked with the legibility and the shape of the space, which favor orientation and that give the sense of security to who is walking in the street, the capacity of understanding a place driving your own choices. In 1960 the Kevin Lynch book “The image of the city” [6], introduced the new season of the city, beginning with the perception of the city from its own inhabitants, studies that will lead to some deepening upon the issues related to wayfinding and orientation. Kaplan (1979) [7] observed that landscapes that are easier to interpret in relation with the surrounding environments are preferred (legibility); those where it is possible to get more informations throughout the exploration (mystery) and where it is easy to find a refuge (refuge).

5) Accessibility and universal designThe accessibility and the usability of a place assume that all the barriers have to be removes, as they generate inconvenience, risk, fatigue, stress etc., especially for the less advantaged users like disabled or ancient people, and kids. The universal design concept includes the one of comfort and security of any pedestrian, as it was mentioned in the previous paragraphs, and surpasses the traditional and reductive approach of overcoming the physical obstacle with just a ramp – in relation to the concept of a disable person on a wheelchair. A urban space that is accessible to everyone is a place where kids and ancient and people with handicaps (motoric, sensitive, cognitive) can move independently and safe; where they can find repair in case of bed whether, where they can pause, or find a fountain to drink some water, or accessible hygienic services; usable and equipped areas, paths with adequate slopes, easily readable signage etc. It is simple to state how a public space where, for example, blind people or and ancient man with cognitive deficit can move The issue is far more bigger and assumes a specific dissertation that it is not suitable with the argument. [8].

6) Quality and maintenance condition of the materialsThe quality of the material and their maintenance condition, in addition with the cleaning and the

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managing of the public space, shows the care of the Administration, and the same citizens, of that place. The negligence and the decay of the material of a public space, on the other hand, offer a negative perception, which can create a sense of insecurity and embarrassment.

7) Semiological elements, place identity The psychological well-being is also connected to cultural and identity elements of a place, to its memory or even emotional and sentimental factors. Models (preconceptions) condition the aesthetic evaluation and the individual expression of preferences for any places, and they can involve cultural and social aspects shared by the whole community. On the contrary, the globalization of the languages and competition can bring to the creation of places with astonishing qualities and homologated features, which can be the object for a visual consumption and that tend to impoverish the experience of a public life, calling off for the identity of each place.

8) Attractive public realm and opportunitiesThe pleasantness of a place is related to attractive factors, such as the vitality of a place and the presence of people joining the public life and entertaining activities, or instead, to elements like the quiet and the amenity of public parks and natural sites. Liveliness and pleasantness of the pubic space suppose the relation between different elements, as it was already stated in paragraph n. 1. The concept of attraction goes beyond the one of the sustainability and includes, as beauty, subjective judgments that cannot be suitable with the intrinsic traits of the urban space. A place, in fact, can be more or less attractive and can provoke many emotional sensations, pleasant or repulsive ones, depending on the past and the perceptual experiences of the subjects: it can be enough to think about the affective bond that link men to their place of origin. Generally, the attraction of a place is connected with the opportunities that it offers to its users, the existence of public services, the chance to enjoy some free time and to meet up with other people and establishing relationships and occasions with them.

2.2. Performing features for the quality of the public space Starting with the perception and the individual well-being, there are different authors who defined the performing features for a good urban environment. Kevin Lynch (1981) makes references about 5 performing dimensions, to buil a “good shape” of the city [9]:

− Vitality, concerning the capability of a urban settlement to guarantee the well-being of the inhabitants, also in relation with how the urban shape can support its own functions;

− Sense, concerning the capability of favoring identity and orientation, either the notion according to which space can be understood and perceived by any user;

− Fit, or the shape and the ability of a space to gather coherently the human activities;− Access, the capability of easing how to reach urban knots and places;− Control, the ability of allowing the users how to care of these places.

Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard suggested seven goals that were “essential for the future of a good urban environment” [10]:

• Liveability: A city should be a place where everyone can live in relative comfort. • Identity and control: People should feel that some part of the environment 'belongs' to them,

individually and collectively, whether they own it or not. • Access to opportunities, imagination and joy: People should find the city a place where they

can break from traditional moulds, extend their experience, and have fun. • Authenticity and meaning: People should be able to understand their (and others') city, its

basic layout, public functions and institutions, and the opportunities it offers.

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• Community and public life: Cities should encourage participation of their citizens in community and public life.

• Urban self-reliance: Increasingly cities will have to become more self-sustaining in their uses of energy and other scarce resources.

• An environment for all: Good environments should be accessible to all. Every citizen is entitled to a minimal level of environmental liveability, and of identity, control and opportunity.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The research aims to build a new meta-planning model that stands on perceptive evaluations, which are looking for orienting the strategies of intervention in the contemporary urban space, and the ways of managing of the public space.

3.1. Public space as a strategyThe cities are in competition with each other, to attract and produce investments, employment and job opportunities. The sustainable design of the open urban space is, actually, strategical. The strategic approach to the project of the city extended its basic concepts, of comfort and security, to those of the attractive spaces for both tourists and residents. Cities have to “become more beautiful” in order to attract investments, and promoting job opportunities, development and well-being. All the topics discussed in the preceding paragraphs, concerning security, comfort, perception of the well-being, vitaliliy, livability, access and sociability, contribute to make the public spaces sustainable and the urban reality “attractive”. The project of the sustainable public space can be engaged at different levels, beginning with urban policies for the development of the city and the urban project of streets, squares, gardens, ending up to the details, concerning the street furniture and the staging. Are reported below some considerations for a strategic approach.

3.2. Strategy for urban designThe papers addressing community policies, spread by the European Environmental Agency (EEA), associate the idea of sustainability the one of the quality of life. According to these thematic strategies of the EEA, a sustainable city has to contrast the pollution (of air, water, and noise); to subsidize the the cyclo-pedestrian mobility; to ease the production of energies from renewable resources; to be well equipped with parks, gardens, greenery, and furnished areas for the practice of sportive and recreational activities; to protect historical and landscape goods.

The strategy related to the urban extent, called TOD (“Transit-oriented development”), promotes the vision of a dense and compact city, with a balanced functional mixture, an efficient public trasnsportation system, cycling paths, a vibrant streetscape, a pedestrian-oriented urban form, that will discourage the employ of the car. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) [11] with the aim to deliver a higher standard of living and quality of life for citizens, sets out eight “Principles for better streets and better cities”:

− WALK | Develop neighborhoods that promote walking − CYCLE | Prioritize non-motorized transport networks − CONNECT | Create dense networks of streets and paths − TRANSIT | Locate development near high-quality public transport − MIX | Plan for mixed use − DENSIFY | Optimize density and transit capacity − COMPACT | Create regions with short commutes − SHIFT | Increase mobility by regulating parking and road use

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3.3. Strategies for streetscape and public designWithin the human scale of the public space, the shape of the places, the quality and the maintenance level of the street furniture, the presence of the greenery contribute to create amenity and pleasantness of a place, promoting the life lived within the same context. It is a difficult task to make a classification of the public spaces, also because the city of nowadays is made by hybrid, flexible places used for temporary and unexpected reasons. In general term it can be made a distinction between:

− Streets, intended as places whit linear distance; − Squares, defined according to the shape of the places, − Parks and gardens, that have graduated, very different dimensions and that suppose even

different approaches in relation to the their functions.

The project of the street has to take care of the pedestrian fluxes, as well as of the passable and cycling ones, with the intention to promote the security of the pedestrian, the comfort and the access to public services. The organization of the sidewalk, the project for pedestrian crossings and the places where it is possible to stand along, the arrangement of the street furniture, and the greenery settlement assume a complex planning, which is usually stucked into the empirical practices of the technical offices of the town hall. It is more frequent to find poles of the signage in the middle of the sidewalks, which become inaccessible; manholes randomly and disorderly organized along the walking path; ramps for disabled people that are not usable; patchwork pavings of different materials; elements of street decor that, once miseplaced, become the objects of acts of vandalism. So, many cities are furnished with clear programs that aim to discipline the project and the maintenance of the public space, according to a coordinated frame (“streetscape design guidelines”) [12]. These manuals, at the Administration’s disposal, are used to be very detailed. They start with the analysis of the street and the existing critical situation; they define the modalities of intervention on the street section – functional organization of the sidewalk (pedestrian areas, cycling paths, alignment of the masts, e.g.) – according to homogeneous criteria. Thus performing standardized features can be predicted, for bus stops, ramps connected with the street, type of flooring, roadsides and street furniture (public toilets, enlightening corps, benches, platform roofs, information totems, bycicle racks, waste bins, plant racks, street bollards, funtains, etc.).

The success of the public space relies, also, on the relationship between the horizontal walking path and the front of the houses on the ground floor: the windows shops, in their functional and figurative diversification, become attractive elements for the pedestrians, who are moving within the public space, and offer them incentives and opportuinities. It is recommended that filters or enclosures that will come between the functions of the ground floor and the pedestrian should not be placed, and that the private space opened to the public should provide secondary occasions to stand and sit. The threshold that is dividing the public space from the private one, on the ground floor, it is an extremely important limbo for the dynamics of the pedestrian fluxes and for the decency and the urban image, too.

The project of squares, parks and gardens assume specific solution in relation with the morphological features of the urban pattern, the existing functions to implement within the public space and the greenery components. For those spaces, solutions are unique and not replayed, even if the perceptive issues, at the bottom of the research, allow to define functional layouts and performing traits of the paths, of parking areas and different elements of the urban system. Beyond the urban furniture and the fixed tools in the public space, it is necessary to consider the non secondary importance of the temporary – or singular - events that take place wihin the context of open urban spaces, for which is important to adopt a flexible approach to the project that provides for temporary evolutions and changes.

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4. CONCLUSIONS

Franco Zagari promotes the idea of the “landscape project” as a “strategy of relevant political value” [13], because it can penetrate the places without forgetting about their identity, with clear intentions and democratically expressed. The action on the urban landscape is strategical to permit the processes of the construction of a city, intended as civitas (community), throughout the realization of vital, and vibrant, public spaces also recognizes as sharing and sociality platforms.

Public design requires a transverse, multidisciplinary approach that goes far beyond the professional peculiarity of the designer. The creation of a good environment and an attractive public realm claims for an overall intelligence of the places, which considers the dayto-day life of urban areas, and the potentialities of the context, the local community’s perception of the places and the expectations of the users.

The perception of the places is connected with the cultures of the people, thus it will evolve in time suggesting different interpretations. The sustainable project should rather recognize the evolution dynamics, the potential energies of the places and their identity connotations, to promote transformation based on the collective sharing of the outcomes. Within a new vision of the urban life, the project should activate virtuous dynamics useful to incentivise the everyday life that does not need particular events to incite itself; should better enter into a place with a delicate, light touch welcoming its inner tensions and contradictions; should leave space for the opening to the unexpected, according to Popper’s meaning, conferring further evolutionary chances.

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grandi città, Torino, Einaudi, 2000. 2. Jan Gehl, Life between buildings: using public space, Island Press, Washington- London, 1987

(revised ed. 2011). 3. Oosterman, Welcome to the pleasure dome: play and entertainment in the urban public space:

the example of the pavement cafè, Built environment, Vol. 18 No. 2, 1992. 4. E. Bianchini, S. Sicurella, Progettazione dello spazio urbano e comportamenti criminosi, in:

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11. ITDP (Institute for Transportation and Development Policy) was founded in 1985 by sustainable transport advocates in the U.S.

12. NACTO (National Associations of city Transportation Official), Urban Street Design Guide, Published by Island Press.

13. Zagari F., Sul paesaggio. Lettera aperta, Libria, 2013.