11)
1)
Put the square at a pedestrian crosswalk:
6)
• The intersection of multiple pedestrian routes generates more opportunities for social interaction and engagement with the public space and 2)
Maximise the number of entry points:
the weather conditions. 7)
• 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:
06: CONCEPT AND DESIGN DEVELOPMENT 57
Establish a daytime and nighttime presence:
8)
9)
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.
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.
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.
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)
12)
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.
• 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)
Visual enclosure: • Enclosure helps affirm the activities taking place within the space and helps establish safety and hierarchy.
• Co-locating public space to points of interest amplifies the activities within the space and improves the vibrancy and movement within the space. 4)
• 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.
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
encourages movement in the public space.
Design to enable eye contact:
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.
06: CONCEPT AND DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
The 15 principles stated by Peter Ciemitis (2018) are as follows:
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