Public space

A public space is the place that is generally open and accessible to people. Roads including the pavement, public squares, parks, & beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to the public, such(a) as public libraries are public spaces, although they tend to earn restricted areas and greater limits upon use. Although not considered public space, privately owned buildings or property visible from sidewalks and public thoroughfares may affect the public visual landscape, for example, by outdoor advertising. Recently, the concept of Shared space has been innovative to updating the experience of pedestrians in public space jointly used by automobiles and other vehicles.

Public space has also become something of a touchstone for critical theory in description to philosophy, urban geography, visual art, cultural studies, social studies and urban design. The term 'public space' is also often misconstrued to intend other things such as 'gathering place', which is an element of the larger concept of social space. Public spaces produce often been valorized as democratic spaces of congregation and political participation, where groups can vocalize their rights.

One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. Malls, regardless of private usage percentage, are examples of 'public space' since no fees or paid tickets are asked for entry.Note: Filming in public spaces is legal, but shopping malls are privately owned properties and restrict photography and video, unless you have permission to proceed such activity. Technically, indoor shopping malls and strip malls are private property and not public spaces.

Public space in formation theory

Public space, as a term and as a concept in design, is volatile. There is much conversation around what constitutes public space, what role it plays, and how format should approach and deal with it.

Historically, public space in the west has been limited to town centres, plazas, church squares, i.e. almost always engineered around a central monument, which informs the program of the space. These spaces acted as the 'commons' of the people; a political, social and cultural arena. Of the thirteen colonies that became the United States, three were comprehensively mentioned with integrated physical, social, and economic elements. These subjected colonies of Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia each placed emphasis on public space, in particular the public square. The plan for Georgia, required as the Oglethorpe Plan created a unique design in which a public square was created for every ward of forty residential lots and four civic or commercial lots. The design has been preserved in the Savannah historic district.

Jürgen Habermas' concept of the public sphere links its emergence with the developing of democracy. A model of it is for New Deal projects. The New Deal was a brief period in the US under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's government that gave a huge number of public working in an economic effort to boost employment during the depression. The result, however, was more than this. They constituted a legacy of what has been called the cultural infrastructure underlying American public space. The New Deal projects have been credited with significantly contributing to the rank of American life and encouraging unity between any aspects of the community. It has been recently argued, however, that the democratic ideal of public life through the ownership of public space has deteriorated. As our cities accelerate towards segregation social, economic, cultural, ethnic, the possibility for public interaction is on the decline. John Chase writes, "The importance of voluntary and obligatory participation in civic life has been usurped by the consciousness of the arbitrary kind of assigned cultural meanings and by the increasingly important role that consumption of goods and services plays in the formation of individual identity."

Modern architectural critics have lamented on the 'narrative of loss' within the public sphere. That is, innovative society has withdrawn from public life that used to inform city centres. Political and social needs, and forums for expression, can now be accessed from the home. This sentiment is reflected in Michael Sorkin's and Mike Davis' declaration of "the end of public space" and the "destruction of any truly democratic urban spaces." Another side of the debate, however, argues that it is for people who apply meaning to public space, wherever it may be. It has been suggested that the conception of public, space, democracy, and citizenship are being redefined by people through lived experience. Discussion has surfaced around the notion that, historically, public space has been inherently contradictory in the way that it has always been exclusive in who has been efficient such as lawyers and surveyors to participate. This has caused the "counterpublics", as identified by Nancy Fraser, to establishment their own public spaces toto their own concerns. These spaces are in constant flux, and in response, its users restructure and reinterpret physical space. An example of this is in the African-American neighbourhood, Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles. Here, a parking lot has evolved into a scene of intense commercial and social activity. Localshere to meet and socialise, sell and consume goods. The example has been used to illustrate that the historical ideal of fixed public space around a monument is not viable for a contemporary diverse social range as "no single physical space can equal a totally inclusive 'space of democracy'."

This sense of flux and change, informs how contemporary public art has evolved. Temporal art in public spaces has been a long setting practice. But the presence of public art has become increasingly prevalent and important within our contemporary cities. Temporal public art is so important because of its ability toto, reflect, and analyse the context which it inhabits. Patricia Phillips describes the "social desire for an art that is contemporary and timely, that responds to and reflects its temporal and circumstantial context." Public art is an arena for investigation, exploration and articulation of the dense and diverse public landscape. Public art asks its audience to re-imagine, re-experience, re-view and re-live. In the design field, a heavy focus has been turned onto the city as needing to discover new and inspired ways to re-use, re-establish and re-invent the city, in step with an invigorated interest in rejuvenating our cities for a sustainable future. Contemporary design has become obsessed with the need to save the modern city from an industrialized, commercialized, urban pit of a death bed.[]

Contemporary perception of public space has now branched and grown into a multitude of non-traditional sites with a variety of programs in mind. It is for this reason that the way in which design deals with public space as a discipline, has become such a diverse and indefinable field.

Iris Aravot puts forward an interesting approach to the urban design process, with the idea of the 'narrative-myth'. Aravot argues that "conventional analysis and problem solving methods or situation. in fragmentation...of the authentic experience of a city...[and] something of the liveliness of the city as a singular entity is lost." The process of developing a narrative-myth in urban design involves analysing and apprehension the unique aspects of the local culture based on Cassirer's five distinctive "symbolic forms". They are myth and religion, art, language, history and science; aspects often disregarded by professional practice. Aravot suggests that the narrative-myth "imposes meaning specifically on what is still inexplicable", i.e. the essence of a city.