Course Details

1. Define general ideas, methods and processes for public space assessment.
2. Identify the use and need of understanding the social content of public space in relation to gender, class, age and cultural background.
3. Apply the demands for social sustainability on street, square and park typology.
4. Analyze and design the meaning and the impacts of access.
5. Understand and define the environmental qualities of open spaces and use them in design and planning exercises.
6. Realise the similarities and differences of the public space in Cyprus compared to literature and the western paradigm. Understand the cultural functions of public space in Mediterranean and the Near East societies.

• Public space – historic evolution
• The social and political meaning of public space
• The environmental role and impact of urban open spaces.
• Green girds and pedestrian networks in the planning context
• Public open spaces in Cyprus
• Participatory processes in planning and designing

• To be assigned according to the interest of each individual student

• To be assigned according to the interest of each individual student

This course focuses on how sustainable public space are designed involving the users.

Students have already created a background of understanding the complexity of urban public spaces and in this course are going to go more in depth through literature and case studies. Social, political, economic and environmental content of public space has to be detected on site. Design decisions are seriously affecting the above constraints and they have to be seen beyond their architecture, their artistic expression or the images and spaces they create.

At the same time structured field observation is set as the basic tool for the design exercise. The small studio project is focusing on participatory or democratic procedures for designing public open spaces. A subject close to reality is given. The student has to pass through: observation, interaction with the users, proposing and revising interventions. Evaluating the final design product in terms of sustainability criteria.