Aesop - Re-practise and re-theorise contemporary urban design

The paper examines how the public space often is not designed to be a place of social interaction and integration between the individual and the community. There shall be no attention in the draft sequence of the uses and functions that characterize the complexity and vitality of public space. For example, the closure and substitution of consolidated activities within the city’s fabric and the steady penetration of large multinational brands within it, cause the standardization of activities and brand names, losing the variety and liveliness of public space. With particular reference to the way in which public space establish a relationship with the activities that look on to it: occupying the street, with a combination of differently shaped shop windows, the ability to hold back the people passing by, the indoor lighting that shines onto the public space, the different scents, the sounds. In too many open space, recently built, functions are close together and juxtaposed but not integrated with each other. The complexity and richness that usually characterizes the quality of this space has gradually transformed. Although there is a strong demand for qualitative public space as a place of social and cultural identification and interaction. This is also confirmed by the social protests that have occurred in public spaces recognized as places of identity from different communities.