U r b a n r o o m s o f S a r a j e v o : Tr a n s f o r m i n g u r b a n p u b l i c s p a c e s u s i n g i n t e r i o r d e s i g n t o o l s
Accessibility
The general perception is that public spaces are open to all, regardless of their management and ownership status. The term public signifies that a space is “open to or shared by all the people”.37 Urban theorists, however, define public spaces as “all areas that are open and accessible to all members of the public in a society, in principle, though not necessarily in practice” (Neal & Orum, 2010). Both definitions imply that physical and psychological accessibility is a highly significant but contested aspect of contemporary public spaces. It is precisely what makes places public, and capable of echoing the changes in contemporary society: “In the processes of urban change, the conditions of accessibility are subject to change, hence changing the nature of public spaces” (Madanipour, 2010). Accessibility is deeply intertwined with the concept of publicness (Varna & Tiesdell, 2010) on one hand, and the issues of control, management and ownership on the other. Traditional notions of public spaces (parks, plazas, squares and streets) in which people normally gather are associated with public ownership, unlike the home or workplace, which belong to the private realm. In the contemporary context, spaces such as beaches, parks, squares and theatres are considered public if they are open to everyone. Alternatively, if a space is defined by boundaries allowing or denying the right of access, it is regarded as private (Gauss & Benn, 1983). The more permeable the boundaries of the space, the more accessible that space becomes to the public. Accessibility directly determines the scope of places considered to be public, from traditional spaces such as parks, plazas, squares and streets to new places, like privately-owned public spaces (POPs) (Miller, 2007) and transport hubs. Keeping in mind that market forces lie in the background of new hybrid typologies, the genuine publicness and openness of these spaces is subject to critical assessment. 37
Oxford Dictionary, retrieved November 2018.
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