6.2.3 PUBLIC SPACE

6.2.3 PUBLIC SPACE:

By having a high density in and throughout the retirement community, there is also an increase in safety. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Jane Jacobs refers to a concept which she calls the eyes-on-the-street approach. Jacobs (1961) states that this concept of eyes on the street (which she refers to as activity taking place in city streets) keeps a constant flow of movement and security. This means that where there is a constant stream of people, there is safety. This constant flow of people who regularly act out their daily routine then creates a congenial atmosphere, which in turn increases the social character of the space and makes it more convenient for people to get to know each other. The next connection in the strategy is to connect the elderly to publicly accessible spaces.

According to Jagannath (2016), people who live in cities use public spaces such as streets and plazas daily due to the feeling of social inclusion and interaction the public spaces provide. Therefore, if one includes more public spaces throughout and around the retirement community (which is typically seen as a private typology), one could incorporate Jacobs’ eyes-on-the-street concept to increase the safety in and around the retirement community, as well as allow social interaction and connections to happen throughout the programme. This social interaction could then lead to a more socially connected retirement community that could aid in forming a community and a sense of place, which could help lower the number of lonely and socially isolated elderly and members of the public.

In ‘15 principles for designing great civic places’ (2018), artist and urban designer Peter Ciemitis says well-designed public spaces must have distinct attributes for the space to be considered successful. Ciemitis (2018) also came up with the 15 design principles he uses as tools to help organise his thoughts when conceiving, repairing, designing or activating public spaces:

FIGURE 6.5: Connections to Publicly Accessible Space.

06: CONCEPT AND DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

The 15 principles stated by Peter Ciemitis (2018) are as follows:

1) Put the square at a pedestrian crosswalk:

• The intersection of multiple pedestrian routes generates more opportunities for social interaction and engagement with the public space and encourages movement in the public space.

2) Maximise the number of entry points:

• Maximising the entry points into public space encourages intersections of the multiple pedestrian routes, encouraging social interaction.

3) Co-locate the square with a significant attraction:

• Co-locating public space to points of interest amplifies the activities within the space and improves the vibrancy and movement within the space.

4) Establish a daytime and nighttime presence:

• An active night-and daytime presence ensures a constant stream of people within the space, which coincides with Jane Jacob’s eyes-on-the-street concept, increasing safety.

5) Include places for pausing:

• Public space should encourage social connections by providing gathering places where people can pause for a break and catch up with a friend or family member. 6) Provide weather shelter:

• Public space should aim to provide as much weather covering (trees, roofs, awnings, etc.) as much as possible, enabling the space to be used no matter the weather conditions.

7) Visual enclosure:

• Enclosure helps affirm the activities taking place within the space and helps establish safety and hierarchy.

8) Reflect a sense of place and culture:

• By creating a sense of place within the space, the public will actively want to engage with the space due to the space’s authenticity and meaning.

9) Create legibility by using landmarks and references:

• Public spaces that contain unique and recognisable points of interest help anchor them in the public’s consciousness and the context of the public space, in turn helping movement and ‘way-finding’.

10) Design to the human scale:

• The height of the building should relate to the people who are using the public space. This ensures that the space is not alienating the public and making the space unpleasant.

11) Design to enable eye contact:

• Ensuring eye contact within a public place (and avoiding unnecessary level differences) also coincides with Jane Jacob’s eyes-on-the-street concept. This allows the public to maintain a line of sight across the space, allowing them to recognise social connections and navigate the space.

12) Encourage active edges and robustness:

• The social interaction within public space is determined by the activity around the space’s edges, enabling positive lingering in and around the space.

13) Create serial imagery:

• People should cultivate experiences through the storytelling of the public space and be able to act out their lives with the spaces as their life’s backdrop.

14) Paving for people:

• A unique pavement design can contribute towards the sense of place, serial imagery, and legibility while subtly guiding the public through the space.

15) Design for all:

• Public space should be designed not to exclude any age demographic, ensuring that connections and social interaction can occur, no matter the user’s

age.

FIGURE 6.6: Public Space.

Ciemitis (2018) states that these 15 principles should not be treated as tick-boxes and should be used with the context in mind due to the wide variety of public spaces to which these principles could be applied. By treating the retirement community as a new public square, these principles could be applied to the strategy to increase the retirement community’s diversity and density, in turn adding another layer of connection.

INITIAL MASSING:

By starting with a massing that surrounds the perimeter of the site (see Figure 6.7), the basis is formed for the public square. By then examining the entry points of the site, the mass allows various masses to form stereotomically from the main mass that could be used for various functions. This will allow the retirement community to have secondary functions such as restaurants, laundromats, and small grocery stores to benefit the elderly living in the retirement community and the public living near the retirement community. These buildings that surround the public square will then create a visual enclosure around the public square, allowing the eyes-on-the-street concept to be applied to increase the safety of the elderly, children, and the public.

For the next step in the design development, precedents were investigated, and the applicable principles were extracted to incorporate into the retirement community..