Increasingly independent fields of specialization, civil engineering, and urban design find themselves practicing in isolation on the same urban issues. The result surfaces on the relative qualities of public spaces: projects that are functionally successful but spatially poor, and vice versa This is critical in the global south, where infrastructure is prioritized, and politicized, as the key driver of change but often heedless of spatial consequences. The present study explores the dynamics of integration between logics arising from technical and spatial fields, and the planning processes under which such integration is feasible. An urban design/infrastructural project in Argentina, stalled for more than two decades under regulatory policies, was selected as a case study. An overview and background of the adopted planning/design methodologies are followed by a structural/spatial analysis, focusing on type, logistics, and construction on the one hand, and on indicators of successful public spaces on the other: access, uses, comfort and image. Aspects that a priori appeared as inevitable compromises found a common, but the critically logical ground in which urban and structural thinking complemented each other. More than a functional asset, infrastructure presents an opportunity to re-think the future of the built environment as a typology that could be conceived, designed and evaluated, on the same terms as successful public spaces.

Urban Design in South Africa as a formal profession has a relatively short history. However, in practice, there have been many examples of what must be considered both good and bad Urban Design. There have also been numerous debates at universities and conferences on what Urban Design should be. However, in the constant making and re-making of urban and rural space, Urban Design has a tenuous and weak presence. This article interrogates the rather low profile of Urban Design in the country and why it is not growing or better positioned compared to other countries. This is done through a discussion of three cases that illustrate the often incidental making of great public spaces in contrast to the thoroughly planned approach. The article argues that spontaneous projects of high quality, rather than over-planned projects, where shortcomings result from this preoccupation to rationalise, often have a greater potential to strengthen the role and value of Urban Design. Such an approach would favour incremental, flexible and sensitive proposals and interventions where spontaneity and adaptation are recognised and celebrated, as well as support the notion that urban design should set a framework for many role players to respond to in shaping the city.