Remaking the Public Space’ ERASMUS IP A27D130ACA06D722 / Lifelong Long Learning Intensive Programme

Throughout the world’s cities, public space is playing an ever more important role in the production of places. At the same time, it has become the core of contradicting demand. Commodification, commercialisation and even militarisation of public space are indicators of its declining quality as a factor of urban identity, culture and the freedom of communication. While neglect and deterioration are among the factors for this withering; the transformation into pseudo-public spaces is also effective in conjunction with privatisation and an extension of market principles to the provision of public space (see Punter, 1990; Crawford, 1995; Defilippis, 1997). On the one hand, they have come under the influence of a neo-liberal commercialisation of the cities, while on the other; they have increasingly been adopted by civil society as a space of self-definition and cultural action. The old role of public space as a set format of the state and the government’s self-representation is obsolete and new approaches for a co-production of public space are needed to turn contested public space into an element of inclusive urbanity. The relations are manifold and reciprocal: Public space is designed and made by people and at the same time, public space by its design and form influences people in their everyday and political life. Citizens contribute to the identity of the places and places are influencing the spatial reality and the social life of the cities. In this sense, we should develop a thinking of space with reference to the different levels of collectivity as defined by Morales (2008), democracy by Fraser (1993) and Parkinson (2012), social integration (and disintegration/segregation) and borders as described by Madanipour (2003) and territorial organisation (physical, territorial and cultural order) by Habraken (1998). Place-making is therefore of major importance in re-creating interrelations between buildings, time and space, institutions and people. Regarding the socio-spatial literature (Butler, 2013; Baumann, 2000; Snow, 2001 [1959]), we, today, aware that people (and communities) are making place and people (and communities) are made by space.

Regarding this new conceptualisation, ‘The RE-PUBLIC Workshop: Remaking the Public Space’ focused on these complex and diversified layers of public space within the context of the place-making logic. The Workshop, which took place in Istanbul from 18 to 29 July 2014 in Taskisla – ITU Faculty of Architecture as part of European Union Life Long Learning Erasmus Intensive Programme, was a joint undertaking between four higher education institutions including Istanbul Technical University (coordinator), Brandenburg Technical University, KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture, and Politecnico di Torino with 12 tutors and 31 participants. The participants of the workshop were 3rd or 4th year students of the undergraduate programmes and students of graduate programmes in partner institutions. The core idea was to respond to the above mentioned issues regarding Istanbul’s Taksim region including the Taksim Square, Gezi Park and Istiklal Street as a region that has been disintegrated and segregated with specific physical and cultural territorial borders (Adanalı, 2011; Üzümkesici, 2011; Erkut, 2014). The participants were invited to develop their own understanding of public space and jointly produce their own place-making strategies on possible alternatives for the process of planning, designing and implementing change in public spaces in accordance to their scope, use and meaning. Among the key questions the Workshop intends to respond to are: What role does public space play in defining the urban cultural, social and spatial identity of cities in rapidly transforming societies? How is public space transforming cities and citizens in the interplay of the public and the private in cities at a time of increasing marketisation? What is the role of the citizens in the using and making of the public space? How to research and map the various actors and influences shaping public spaces? What are the meaning and role of public space in building democracy, cultural identity and in reviving city’s image, economy and liveability? How can public space be qualified to build a bridge between the past, the present and the future? What are the driving and restraining forces in remaking public space? What are the characteristics of good quality public space? How should design, planning process and maintenance of public space respond to the changes in society and to the current financial crisis of the public sector? How can the theories and concepts of place-making be utilised to improve the relations in the triangle between urban politics and planning administration, the economic realm, and the citizens as owners?

By responding to these questions, the RE-PUBLIC Workshop tested a number of innovative research and planning methods to improve teaching in planning studies. A major impact was expected from the cross-country approach and the joint learning of students and teachers with the partly diverse background of the professions and experiences in the various countries taking part. Knowledge transfer and management played an important role and the experience of the RE-Public Workshop filtered into the teaching and learning methodologies of the universities taking part. This paper presents the outcome of this intensive workshop.

Re-Public Methodology

The methodological approach of the RE-PUBLIC is based in a cross-disciplinary collaboration of researches and planners, as it is characteristic of place-making based projects. The Workshop incorporates qualitative as well as quantitative methods and has a strong analytic and design-oriented basis grounded on various scientific foundations of socio-spatial research. Taksim region was analysed according to the agreed research strategy with a student empirical research programme and hands-on design practice, including developing pathways of implementation. The student empirical research phase of the workshop was a ‘pre-preparation’ phase with empirical research on the subject and on the spot prior to the starting date of Workshop. Local meetings were provided before the seminar in each partner university. The teaching material made available through the website. The hands-on practice part of the workshop was a 10-day joint working phase. It was structured through empirical research and analysis, lecture series, mapping-oriented field studies, discussion sessions, studio work, frequent presentation of the findings and the preparation of a power-point presentation. An intensive programme of “lectures” was provided by the tutors of the four participating higher education institutions who are highly involved with public space and place-making. The lectures were thematic and methodology oriented with the target of finding evidence and success oriented methodological innovations in teaching and research, especially with regards to a cross-cultural environment of an international collaboration. A “Re-Public Panel” was organised to help students to gain acknowledgement on recent developments in the Taksim square, Gezi events and their relation to general idea of place-making, in contrast to the lectures aiming at providing thematic and methodology-oriented discussion on place-making. The main component of the workshop was “Field studies”. This helped participants to observe, analyse and assess the meaning and role of public space as well as the current challenges in the remaking of these spaces. Design workshop was conducted in 3 stages: (i) Analysis, (ii) Evaluation / Synthesis and (iii) Place-making.

(i) There is a long tradition of analysing public spaces from various research perspectives, theoretically grounded and empirically performed. The realm is wide, from understanding the psychological impact of various spaces on the user and on looker to finding out about the pedagogic meaning of certain place patterns. Also descriptive analyses of the use of various spaces are well-known and used in teaching and designing of open spaces, as in the literature on public space as it was developed with regards to the iconic as well as the everyday places and gardens since the second half of the 20th century a broad body of knowledge has been built up (e.g. Gehl, 1987; Carr, 1992; Sachs Pfeiffer, 1995; Kayden, 2012 and many others), from which  a process of  theory-based and at the same time practice-oriented learning can be facilitated. The approaches to analysing public spaces are based upon a variety of observations. Sounds, the boundaries towards other sorts of use and between public and private, the embeddedness in the surrounding built environment, the observation of how the places are used, sigh-lines, the textures and materials, including greenery (flora and fauna), and their meaning for the usability and image, are of as much importance as the typologies of use from representation to pleasure and (often) undesired uses by homeless or other people. The genealogy and history of the places are as much of importance for the analysis as the history of decisions, management and maintenance and who takes up the responsibility of place-keeping for the present and the future. Analysis on territorial organisation: physical, territorial and cultural order (Habraken, 1998), levels of collectiveness (Morales, 2008) and social integration (and disintegration)/ segregation and borders (Madanipour, 2003) are also recommended. "Analysing the public space is a crossroad in which different stakeholders interact within the context of economic, political, social, environmental, and cultural challenges" (Madanipour, 2014).

(ii) The approaches to evaluating public spaces are social science based (evaluation theory and research) as well as founded in the analysis of concrete places and the effect they have internally and externally. Procedures of decision making and design, public participation and residents’ and civil-society’s interests and responsibilities are playing a role as does the itemised check of usability on the regional, urban and neighbourhood level (the ‘meaning of place’).

(iii) Theories and practices of place-making are the final turn from analysis and evaluation to finding out about the planning methodology that can lead to better places based upon professional planning knowledge and the participation of residents, users, economic actors and politics. Planning in this sense is not a finalised piece of work, but a process oriented form of action, which continues during the use-period of spaces and includes collaborative running and maintenance of public places.

The studio work was supported by “Discussion – Forum” and “Knowledge Cafe” sessions to evaluate up-to-date progress. The method of “knowledge café” was used to introduce a focused form of cross-disciplinary learning. A knowledge café or World Café is a type of or organisational workshop, which aims to provide an open and creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest to utilise their collective knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues involved.

The dialogue between students and staff was mediated in various ways using social software, mapping and information aggregation services; and brought to a level where the web environment supports, augments and enriches the reflective learning processes. As part of this “web-based social geographic platform” (see Park and Verbeke, 2012; 2013), participants were required to prepare blog diaries to ease the follow-up of the progress and make them judge the relevance and contribution of the subject. It helped to disseminate the results throughout the planned process with the active participation of students and instructors (See, http://www.archtheoryflanders.be/istanbul/). The results of the workshop were evaluated through the formulation of workhop jury in the last day of the workshop. The success was evaluated through the use of two assessment forms/questionnaires for students to assess teaching staff and programme.

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Istanbul Technical University, Department of Urban and Regional Planning (Coordinator): Handan Türkoğlu, Zeynep Gunay, Meric Demir, Ozge Celik; Brandenburg Technical University, Department of Landscape Planning and Urban Design: Carlo Wolfgang Becker, Christine Fuhrmann, Thomas Knorr-Siedow; KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture: Johan Verbeke, Burak Pak, Livia de Bethune; Politecnico di Torino, Department of Urban and Regional Studies & Planning: Alessandro Fubini, Emanuela Saporito as tutors. The participants, ITU: Huma Şahin, Sezen Türkoğlu, Eda Uraz, Merve Kadaifçi, Gorsev Argin, Zeynep Özdemir, Tugce Tezer; BTU: Florian Hotzkow, Daniel Phillip Krause, Sebastian-Alexander Grünwald, Alina Swana Wilkending, Daniel Skrobol, Ammar Horia, Nicole Torres Mailleux, Ozge Yuzbasli, Leonie Vanessa Hagen; KU Leuven: Alexander Davey Thompson, Alexandru Ivan Greceniuc, Anca Paninopol, Andreea Mocan, Daniela Schuchmannová, Stefana Laschevichi, Roberta Zvirblyte; PoliT: Marco Nicastro, Eleonora Bonino, Stefano Franco, Giacomo Rio, Annalisa Rossi, Marco Orsello.