The over-familiar landscape that escapes to the absent-minded gaze

Abstract

Public spaces constitute a relevant part of the landscape of the ordinary city. According to the European Landscape Convention, studies and designs of public spaces, in particular of open spaces, should appropriately focus on the different users who inhabit it and recognise themselves in these spaces. In this sense, close to the traditional studies on morphological characteristics, urban materials and equipment, it is useful to explore the performances of public spaces in innovative ways. This article proposes to come back to emphasise and highlight daily life, still today forgotten as a relevant component of a good design and planning of public spaces. It underlines the importance of the gaze on the everyday and ordinary for urbanism, through some introductory experiences of designed urban spaces and some concepts, such as 'practices' and 'way of uses'. Moreover, it offers a review of different lines of studies on public life and other research interested in daily urban practices. Among these, the article focuses on rhythm and chronographic analysis, which describe practices of use, urban populations and their rhythms of presence within places. In conclusion are presented some opportunities that an adoption of the proposed approaches to everyday could bring to a better management, maintenance and planning of public spaces.

Reading underused urban spaces: Aberdeen views

“…In terms of graphical description, according to Mareggi (2017), representing the rhythm of urban space considering the activities and the intensity of frequentations would be more an interpretive approach against the more objectives. This seems however appropriate for this research because the interpretation of urban rhythmicity may suggest the potential of future design actions (ibid.).…”

“…This seems however appropriate for this research because the interpretation of urban rhythmicity may suggest the potential of future design actions (ibid.). Mareggi (2017) describes seven different types of temporality and variety of the urban environment, which can be represented in static or dynamic maps. Two of these seemed to be more appropriate for the context of Aberdeen.…”