Thanks to the media, the concept of “improving public spaces” is often associated with deputy reports on the grand opening of a children's sandbox in a city park. This has nothing to do with the powerful trend in urbanism - a new urban environment with a developed system of landscaped areas.
Basic concepts
Open public spaces have become the most scarce resource in the world megacities. This is well understood by progressive city authorities, investing considerable resources in the improvement of such places. And in the end they get a serious gain in the effective use of each square meter and the development of cities in the "right" direction. Let's deal with this "correctness", and at the same time with the main concepts of the topic.
Public space is a part of the urban environment that is accessible to everyone at any time.
The urban environment is a capacious concept, so its wording on the Web is cumbersome and diverse. Let us dwell on a short version: the urban environment is what fills the city and affects the life of citizens. Public spaces form the context of the urban environment.
By the logic of the above definitions, almost everything in the city belongs to public spaces: parks with sandboxes, streets with trams, squares with hot cakes, museums with turnstiles. All right. But, since we are talking about the latest trends in urbanism, we will add the word “new” to the concept of “public space”.
How did it all start?
It all started in 1961 with the release of the famous book “The Death and Life of Big American Cities” by Jane Jacobs. It was this book that laid the foundation for the formation of completely new views on the development of modern cities. The revolution began in the minds and on drawing tablets.
For example, the thesis “the main thing in the city is a pedestrian, not a car” pushed the development of pedestrian zones in cities around the world. The book has become a textbook of new urbanism with its principles and new priorities. Here are some of them:
- Modern urban development breaks and destroys the existing human communities.
- New sleeping areas in the form of standard buildings are evil with serious social consequences.
- Any projects of the city authorities should be based on careful observation of the daily life of citizens, and not on their own abstract ideas.
- It is better to build residential, office and public buildings mixed up so that the streets are active around the clock.
- It is necessary to preserve buildings of different eras.
New urbanism has brought new ideas into world architecture: the value of any city is determined by how much its residents like it. The city is similar to an organism with complex communication connections, this is a space for new social engineering.
Why is all this necessary?
The authorities of the best cities in the world have long and much invested in the development of public spaces. These investments have quite pragmatic calculations of future dividends. The aesthetics of comfortable and non-standard new public spaces becomes a magnet for active and creative people to move to the city. The overall quality of the metropolis is increasing, the status of citizens is growing, and the value of land and real estate is becoming more expensive.
The competent organization of the public space of the new generation has the highest social significance. It stimulates the creative activity of people who begin to feel part of a single organism in a big city.
Human self-identification is another major factor in the new urban environment. And the aesthetics of the landscape affect the understanding of the main principles of ecology and human relations with nature.
Social and Budget Significance
In addition to self-identification and new ways of interpersonal communication, new public spaces bear the following social dividends:
- urban areas begin to be built up in a balanced manner;
- life expectancy of citizens increases (and this is not a joke);
- the general level of physical culture and a healthy lifestyle rises;
- the socialization of people in all its possible manifestations is growing;
- environmental safety is increasing.
Public spaces of a new type can be regarded as economic capital with the most positive impact on the city budget:
- increase in the cost of renting urban real estate, including commercial;
- the emergence of new companies in the services and trade sectors;
- growing influx of tourists.
Classification
There are different ways to classify spaces. The most common is to divide objects by affiliation:
- public;
- private
- mixed character.
Open spaces are divided into two categories from an architectural point of view:
- urban category of spaces in the form of squares and streets;
- the green category of spaces, including parks, squares and boulevards.
A special category of public spaces is embankments, which combine the functions of a beach, boardwalk and park.
The principles of the formation of public spaces
There are several of them:
- “First of all, people”: public area projects should not contain any commercial components.
- Human health is an important part of economic well-being and growth.
- There must be special sports spaces for motor activity of citizens.
- In public spaces, you need to design the maximum number of diverse programs with the ability to periodically change them.
- Equal access for all citizens, including the poor and senior citizens, should be universal and without any discussion.
- New projects should reflect cultural diversity.
- The public spaces of the new generation should emphasize the uniqueness of the territory and the city.
New life of the old warehouse
The list of principles goes on. The main thing is to understand well the goal of improving a new space. A great example of this is the famous Philharmonic project on the Elbe in Hamburg. The city authorities formulated the goal of landscaping the abandoned territory of the river port as follows: to breathe new life into the undeservedly forgotten area of ​​the city. The implementation of the project cost a lot of money and a long time, but now the unique philharmonic building, built on top of the old river warehouse, attracts many guests from all over the world.
New Russian Urbanism and Gentrification
In the first photo to the article is a new park in Krasnodar, which is being built according to the canons of modern urbanism with a system of public spaces. This park will be completely ready for the spring of 2019, but now it can compete on equal terms with the famous Moscow “Zaryadye” - the subject of pride of the capital's urban planners.
But before these grandiose world-class public facilities, Russian urbanism went through the historical stages of its development. It all started with the formation of public spaces in the old industrial zones: in 2004, the famous Strelka appeared on the Red October.
Three years later, the Winzavod cultural center opened with numerous exhibitions and galleries. Winery became the first positive experience in Russia of an interesting phenomenon in a new urban environment - the process of gentrification. Gentrification is the revitalization and reconstruction of neglected areas due to the influx of residents with higher incomes, as a result of which there is a change in the inhabitants of the district to wealthy and status.
The concept of urban environment and new public spaces is starting to gain momentum in Russian cities. And this is great news, because the principles and technologies of modern urbanism are aimed primarily at improving the quality of life of residents.