City Project and Public Space

City Project and Public Space

City Project and Public Space

City and territory design may offer new, original relations between urban
societies and physical space, creating new forms of public space that will respond
to a different kind of urban order than in the past. The sections of this book tackle,
from the different viewpoints of the authors, the tensions currently experienced by
cities and the prospects design offers to favour greater quality of our landscapes.
“City Project: Public Space Design”, the fi rst part of the book, inquires into the
sense of contemporary public space, highlighting issues that concern urban landscape
transformations induced by globalisation processes and the need for “reconstruction”
of the city.
The
second part, “Territorial
Project: Public Space Experiences”,
highlights
some re fl
ections
and experiences,
with design tending towards
the quest
for
a new
urban order and recognising the space of communication and negotiation

of
the city in the territorial dimension. “City Policies: Public Sphere”, the third part,
discusses
the possibilities of reactivating
civitas.
The
experiences
illustrated by the
authors
show
how
landscapes with high environmental
quality increase the probability
of future care by the inhabitants of the city and the territory,
both through
direct policies and through self-regulatory forms of residents’ behaviour.
This chapter highlights in particular that city design can generate new public
sphere spaces on the territory that will nurture social cohesion. An environmental
orientation and social rooting of transformation action will make it possible to
imagine multiple expressions of the public sphere, as the place of possible experiences
of collective
interaction and as an opportunity to share common goods involving
the city and the territory.

Silvia Sarreli (Ed)