Lisbon (Portugal)

Authors: Joana Batista, Inês Almeida, Carlos Smaniotto Costa, Marluci Menezes

Public space is here conceptualised following UN-Habitat (2015, 15) as “all places publicly owned or of public use, accessible and enjoyable by all for free and without profit motive”. Among them are streets, squares, plazas, marketplaces, parks, green spaces, greenways, community gardens, playgrounds, waterfronts, urban forests and agricultural used land. C3Places research focus only on urban public open spaces.

Public spaces have been idealised as democratic domains, places of inclusiveness where is possible to be among friends and strangers, encounter differences and engage in planned or serendipitous interactions (Innerarity, 2006). Central to a city well-being, public spaces contribute to the quality of urban life, fostering social, cultural and economic capital (UN-Habitat, 2016). A vast body of literature focus on their social function (Figure 1), as providers of the place for peoples’ interaction with other people (Carmona, Heath, Tiesdell, & Oc, 2003; Gehl, 1987; Innerarity, 2006; Jacobs, 1961; Lefebvre, 1991; Sennett, 1977) and with their environment (Smaniotto & Menezes, 2016). Public spaces act as stage for the enactment of citizenship, to practice publicness, and as such they play a key role within the complex social infrastructure (Smaniotto Costa & Menezes, 2016). Societies’ differences and similarities are put on display in public spaces, allowing distinct groups to claim their right to appropriate particular places and manifest their sense of belonging to society (Innerarity, 2006; Mitchell, 1995). Public spaces enable symbolic identification (Carmona et al., 2003), they are the places where social and cultural identities and the individuals’ role in their community are negotiated, and this may foster the context for mutual understanding and respect, enabling the development of social bonds. Yet, historically, public space was also the site where power structures manifested themselves and dominant social and moral orders were produced, imposed and perpetuated (Sennett, 1977).

Moreover, those public spaces covered by plants and with soft surfaces (Figure 2) offer further environmental benefits as they improve the urban environmental quality (such as air purification, water storage, CO2 sequestration) and provide space for leisure and recreational activities (Smaniotto Costa, Suklje Erjavec, & Mathey, 2008).

They offer also further benefits for public mental health (Muñoz, 2009) and for decreasing in contemporary health problems as obesity and sedentarism (Godbey, 2009). Jacobs (1961) and Gehl (1987) drew attention to the importance of putting people at the centre of public space, analysing how people appropriate specific places, what are their spatial practises and needs towards creating better and more inviting public spaces.

C3Places following those premisses is analysing how specific users – teenagers or elderly – appropriate urban public open spaces and how they can be better configurated to respond to different needs. In Lisbon, observations seem to indicate that urban public spaces of transit, as streets (Figure 3), are used mainly for matters of convenience and proximity to primary spaces of daily significance as the home and the school (TBA).

References

• Carmona, M., Heath, T., Tiesdell, S., & Oc, T. (2003). Public Places, Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design. Michigan: Architectural Press.
• Gehl, J. (1987). Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
• Godbey, G. (2009). Outdoor Recreation, Health, and Wellness: Understanding and Enhancing the Relationship. Recreation, May 2009, 1–42.
• Innerarity, D. (2006). O novo espaço público. Lisboa: Teorema.
• Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and life of Great American Cities. New York and Toronto: Vintage Books – Random House.
• Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Production.
• Mitchell, D. (1995). The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
• Muñoz, S.-A. (2009). Children in the Outdoors: A literature Review. Forres: Sustainable Development Research Centre.
• Sennett, R. (1977). The Fall of Public Man. London: Penguin Books.
• Smaniotto Costa, C., Menezes, M. (2016). A agregação das tecnologias de informação e comunicação ao espaço público urbano. Reflexões em torno do projeto CyberParks – COST TU 1306. urbe. Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana (Brazilian Journal of Urban Management), 8 (3): 332-344. Doi: 10.1590/2175-3369.008.003.AO04.
• Smaniotto Costa, C., Šuklje Erjavec, I., Kenna, T., de Lange, M., Ioannidis, K., Maksymiuk, G., de Waal, M. (Eds.) (2019): CyberParks – The Interface Between People, Places and Technology – New Approaches and Perspectives. Cham: Springer, Series: Information Systems and Applications LNCS 11380. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-13417-4.
• Smaniotto Costa, C., Suklje Erjavec, I., & Mathey, J. (2008). Green Spaces – a Key Resources for Urban Sustainability. The GreenKeys Approach for Developing Green Spaces. Urbani Izziv, 19(2 Mestne zelene površine / Urban green spaces), 199–211.
• UN-Habitat. (2015). Adequate Open Public Space in Cities. A Human Settlements Indicator for Monitoring the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.
• UN-Habitat. (2016). New Urban Agenda: Quito Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for All. In Habitat III Conference (p. 24). United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).

Authors: Joana Batista, Inês Almeida, Carlos Smaniotto Costa, Marluci Menezes

C3Places Lisbon reflected on teenagers use and needs on public open space. Space observations evidenced the strong role of public spaces in Alvalade but, in broad terms, revealed that teenager’s usage turned out much lower than supposed. This was confirmed also by the difficulty identifying public spaces in the neighbourhood in the living labs. In the school surroundings, teenagers’ use of public space is directly related with school activities and schedules. Students using the space, mostly are in groups, talking, hanging out or smoking. Due to a lack of sitting equipment in the area, the students use the bus stop shelter (where there is the only bench available), or sit in different places with other functions (at a bikes station, café tables, on the floor, on walls and access ramps, or on the steps of the building entrances), what can cause conflict among teenagers and with other users. However, it seems clear that the majority of students also only cross this space (figure 1).

Experts from the parish council see teenagers as a difficult group to work for/with since they mostly assume that teenagers’ behaviour in public spaces is inadequate and damaging to the space and its equipment. Nevertheless, they are aware that adolescence is a period of transition and acknowledge that there is a lack of public spaces that meet teenagers’ needs. Experts expect that the creation of flexible and multipurpose places, suiting different users, can diminish potential conflicts. Regarding the involvement of teenagers, a collaboration with schools is perceived as beneficial to engage teenagers in public discussions, from where they are currently absent from.

The teenagers engaged in co-creation, had a weak urban literacy, what made it difficult at times to reflect on their use of public space. Their favourite places also seem to be private and indoor spaces, such as shopping malls, where they hang out and meet peers. However, the labs boost discussion on public space and main conclusion seems to point to a lack of public spaces meeting teenagers’ needs, in Alvaalde neighbourhood. Teenagers’ want quality public spaces, diverse and well equipped, easily accessible (by private and public transportation) and where they can meet and hang out with friends, sit in groups and feel welcome. In the second phase of living labs two groups propose ideas for transformation of a public space in front of the school, used by students. The first group proposes a public meeting place for social gathering, with benches and tables with trees casting shadows, and changes in the street structure to increase pedestrian safety (more crossing, street narrowing). The second group proposed a new street design with less parking slots to create shared spaces and therefore increase road safety. The group suggested a green space with kiosk, trees, circular wooden benches and enhanced with a wi-fi hotspot and water dispenser.