Author(s)

M. Sepe

Abstract

The study illustrated in the paper was carried out in the framework of the ISMed-CNR research titled Analysis and design of the contemporary territory: identity, health and urban liveability for resilient and sustainable places, the INU Community Public Space, both coordinated by the author, and Urban Maestro. New Governance Strategies for Urban Design Horizon 2020 research project. The ISMed-CNR research aims at identifying methodologies, databases and guidelines to support policy makers, professionals and scholars in the realization of healthy and liveable public spaces. The Community Public Space has the objective to collect best practices of public space in Italy, starting from the Charter of Public Space adopted during the second Biennial of Public Space held in Rome in 2013. The Urban Maestro Project – coordinated by the UCL and in partnership with UN-Habitat – ‘looks at the ways European cities are being designed and financed, focusing on innovative ways of generating and implementing urban spatial quality’. Among the objectives, the project has the comparison of the experiences in Europe to international practices. Accordingly, the author, as a member of the Advisory and Support Group, shared the Italian good practices in the public space field. Starting from these premises, the main results of this study will be illustrated. The Charter of Public Space is a sort of guidelines for liveable and sustainable public spaces. In order to comprehend the relationships between theory and practice and verify the validity of the Charter after 10 years of its creation, about 30 Italian case studies were collected. Of these, emblematic case studies with particular attention to the sustainability meant in its three-fold meaning will complete the paper.

Keywords

best practices, public spaces, sustainability, urban liveability, urban design, urban regeneration.