RETHINKING PUBLIC SQUARES
ATHENS (GR) | BERLIN (GER) | COPENHAGEN (DK)
The primary aim of the project is to reconsider the design of urban squares from a socially sustainable planning perspective.
LOCATION
Athens, Berlin, Copenhagen
STATUS
Finished
TOPIC
Thesis: Public space - Urban squares
OVERVIEW
Since ancient times, public squares have played a significant role in the social and political life of towns and cities. They were designed as open spaces for public use, allowing people to meet, communicate, and demonstrate, and acted as centers for commerce and civic culture, reflecting historical transformations.
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However, nowadays, public squares are often nearly abandoned urban voids, rather than centers of social interaction and fermentation. Capitalistic development, the rapid privatization of space, increasing individualism, the continuous densification of the built environment, and the lack of co-presence, have all contributed to the diminishing use of open public spaces. As a result, urban squares are often transformed into parking lots, extensions of metro stations, food service areas, or spaces that mainly preserve a symbolic, past-mongering character. Monumental fountains and sculptures, unsustainable materials, rough surfaces, a lack of trees, poor lighting, and other problematic features create an outdated and unwelcoming experience for public space users.
This project presents the redesign of three public squares in Athens, Berlin, and Copenhagen. The redesigns are informed by extensive critical analysis, typological categorizations, and observations of historical public squares in the three aforementioned European cities. Participatory planning methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, were also incorporated into the design process to enhance the social aspects of urban planning.
The central intention of the project is to holistically reconsider the design of public squares and suggest a socially sustainable planning perspective. This approach takes into account people’s common needs, as well as different design requirements based on site-specific characteristics such as cultural identity, surrounding functions, microclimate and topography.
