Outdoor Terraces in Barcelona and Milan: Configuration of New Spaces for Social Interaction

Abstract

This work approaches the phenomenon of the outdoor terraces of bars and restaurants, analysing the role of these privately owned collective elements whose layout has shaped the urban landscape at the pavement level for more than a century, and whose presence has become essential in the streets of many cities after a pandemic. The research highlights the interest of terraces as dynamic elements of urbanity: private domains in the public space where people eat collectively; they are apparently simple units that synthesise complex conflicts between individual behaviours and property boundary conditions. The investigation shows the increasing expansion that outdoor terraces have experienced since 2020, using the cities of Barcelona and Milan as case studies. A series of GIS maps show the image of both cities before and after the pandemic, allowing us to evaluate the amount of public space allocated to terraces, measure their increase in number and surface, establish the proportions of occupation of the street and find the patterns of concentration in the public space. Finally, the article offers some policy and planning recommendations based on the research findings.

Patterns of Public Spaces in Spanish Mediterranean Touristified Historic Centres Based on Their Activities: Case Study of Malaga

“…There is a consensus on how to measure this indicator, using the area of occupation and the public space itself as a territorial unit [4,20,23,25,28]. However, the study by O'connell et al [35] analyses the evolution of terraces in the cities of Barcelona (Spain) and Milan (Italy) before and after the COVID-19 pandemic based on the surface area of terraces and the number of terraces, respectively. In a more detailed way, several studies [4,20,28] analyse compliance with the regulations in each case study via several indicators.…”

Modeling Barcelona sidewalks: A high resolution urban scale assessment of the geometric attributes of the walkable network

“…Also noteworthy are the studies on the visual perception of public spaces in central Barcelona using visual graph analysis [ 42 ] or other works digging into the relationship between the spatial configuration of Ciutat Vella and the acoustics from music street performances [ 43 ]. Finally, the modeling of the network has also been the basis of a number of recent Barcelona-centered research, including studies on the distribution of proximity retail [ 44 ]; the location of terraces of restaurants and bars in public spaces [ 45 ], or social media in public spaces [ 46 ].…”