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Public spaces are increasingly being recognized as a crucial ingredient for successful cities, and for their ability to revitalize and create economic and social development opportunities.

Actually finding ways to build and maintain healthy public space remains elusive to many municipal governments, especially in the developing world. The vast web of streets, parks, plazas, and courtyards that define public space is often lacking, poorly planned, or without adequate citizen participation in the design process.
Recognizing these challenges, the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) released earlier this month a draft of their handbook Placemaking and the Future of Cities. It’s intended to serve as a best practices guide for those wishing to improve the economic, environmental and social health of their communities through the power of successful public space.

10 fundamental principles for placemaking have been identified by PPS as the keys to vibrant, safe, and attractive public spaces:

1. Improve Streets as Public Spaces
2. Create Squares and Parks as Multi-Use Destinations

3. Build Local Economies Through Markets

4. Design Buildings to Support Places

5. Link a Public Health Agenda to a Public Space Agenda

6. Reinvent Community Planning

7. Power of 10

8. Create a Comprehensive Public Space Agenda

9. Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper: Start Small, Experiment

10. Restructure Government to Support Public Spaces

 

Read the complete article for more on developing a positive public realm through the use of local resources, citizen participation, and strategic approaches to urban development...

Via Lauren Moss, Territori

“Every day, 77,000 carbon-emitting vehicles fly past the Congress Parkway interchange, polluting the air. This project creates a gateway over the corridor that filters air and fuels a new breed of car for its residents.”

Aimed to increase public awareness and improve public health, the CO2ngress Gateway Towers absorb the CO2 emissions from passing cars, which is fed to algae grown in the building. The algae then helps with the processing of biofuels which supply the building residents’ eco-friendly cars.

The two towers split and converge at the top to create an iconic gateway to the city. A bridge joins the two towers and contains a public restaurant with views of neighboring buildings. Pedestrian connections are landscaped at the base, giving a human scale to a car-centric urban identity.

Additionally, the double-skin facade helps reduce traffic noise and offers enclosed balconies. Natural cross-ventilation of the units is enabled through the building’s atrium. The terraces are enclosed by bio-reactor tubes which grow the algae responsible for biofuel processing...

Via Lauren Moss, Territori