Why Public Spaces Fail

William H. Whyte said 'it is difficult to design a space that will not attract people- what is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished." This got me thinking about why public spaces fail if William H. Whyte believes it is difficult to design a space that will not attract people so what goes so wrong?

Lack of places to sit: Many public spaces have limited seating arrangements and if they do have seating they are normally placed in places that are fixed and sometimes not ideal for people. Seating should be moveable and in all different forms and places giving people plenty of choice for places to sit. Giving people a choice is what encourages them to use public space, as if you do not give them a choice it is simply like they are comfrming to what urban designers believe would be the ideal place to sit. People should not have to adapt to the space, the space should be adaptable for different requirements. This makes the space more versitile and prone to success.

Lack of gathering points: This includes features people want and need such as playgrounds or places with varying elements such as food carts, bus stops and outdoor seating. People are drawn to other people therefore is there is places for people to gather with groups of friends of a bunch of individuals gathered in one place due to a common interest creates a sense of vibrancy and will encourage more people to use the space. In Launceston, Tasmania within the Brisbane street pedestrian mall a bunch of solid cusion shape seats have been placed within the centre, these create a place for children to play as well for people to sit and watch people. The shapes are an awesome colourful addition to the space which is dominated by people.

Dysfunctional features: Often features are designed to punctuate the space rather then serving multi purposes such as visual as well as functional. Such as the cusion shapes in Brisbane street as mentioned above. These serve as a colourful visual amenity to the area as well as being highly functional for a number of purposes.

Domination of a space by vehicles: People do not like to feel threatened when in a space, therefore they will not use a space where they do feel threaten. Resulting in a number of public spaces being taken over by cars. Therefore if the space is designed for people keep cars as far away as possible. The simple exercise of making pavements wider and narrowing carriage ways in order to promote pedestrian moveability can make a huge difference. Such a redevelopment has occurred in Victoria Street, Hamilton where the Hamilton City Council has given pedestrians a more dominant stand point along the road by making the carriage ways narrower and creating pedestrian islands along the road with plenty of vegetation seperating the people from the cars. It seems to have worked with a considerable increase in pedestrian movement within this area.

                                         Photo sourced from Hamilton City Council website.

These are the main reasons why public space fails, so why dont the urban designers acknowledge this and make sure the money being spent on public space is worth while, with a public space that is vibrant and utilised by the people of the area. It is definitely one of the cases where you can learn from your mistakes so hopefully when designing public spaces, the designers look at what works and what doesnt in many successful and not so successful public space and cater the space around the fails and successes of the past.

City Heart Revitalisation

Hamilton City Council is currently undertaking a huge transformation over the cities public spaces within the centre of the city. This revitalisation is to encourage people back into the CBD as many developments in the suburbs have drawn people away from the city environment and into malls. Therefore Hamilton City Council has come up with the plan to make the central city more people friendly.

The main project is that of the redevelopment of Garden place, the open public space off Victoria Street. Garden place was once empty becoming dangerous at night as limited eyes were on the street. But the introduction of events such as 'Summer in Garden Place' which held a number of music festivals and childrens events such as free movie screenings on a temporary big screen has encouraged people to use the public space. But will this create a sense of place within the city? I personally believe the Hamilton City Council will have to do more then just hold a few events to change Hamiltonians way of thinking about public space and the city centre.

Hamilton City Council has introduced seating and grassed areas which have the potential to be utilised by people for different things such as eating lunch or simply just people watching. But what else can you do in Garden Place unless there is an event on? The question that arises from this is will people in Hamilton use it?
Hamiltonians are prone to going to shopping malls instead of spending time in public space due to the suburbanisation of Hamilton and the limited vibrant public spaces avaliable to them have instilled this sense of behaviour within them. I believe the only thing missing from Garden Place is a thriving cafe scene as this would bring people into the space and make it more versitile as right now it just has a few shops and the Hamilton Central Library. This draws limited people in. therefore maybe Hamilton City Council should encourage cafes and restaurants into the area to make it more happening.

                                        Photo sourced from Hamilton City Council website.

Hamilton City Council must make the most of this redevelopment in order to maximise the use of this public space. It is simply a matter of 'watch this space' for the revitalisation of the Hamilton city centre.

Are public spaces soley for the tourists?

Having just recently visited Melbourne and spent a wonderful weekend exploring the beautiful city, I now have a great appreciation for awesome and effective public spaces. It wasnt just one experience and encounter that left me love struck with the great use of public spaces, it was the combination of being able to experience many different spaces all within one city. This experience is new to me as living in Auckland and before that Hamilton I am yet to be won over.

Photo taken by author.

As the photos illustrates I visited a great park like gardens called the Carlton Gardens, this is a similar setting to Aucklands Albert Park but on a much grander and more mature scale. But could not be compared to the Domain as its sole purpose was for leisurly enjoyment and to surround the World Heritage site within it. Many people, some tourists like us but many residents of Melbourne were basking in the gardens lush grass and open space with trees and fountains and places for people to sit and watch the busy world go by.

Maybe my mind was on holiday time but I couldn't help but notice how the aray of public space created a sort of atmosphere to the city of Melbourne. An atmosphere I do not feel when I'm in Auckland. Is this due to the way in which people look at things when on holiday compared with work mode. This leaves me wondering, do residents of a city enjoy public space as much as tourists do?

Bill Di Paola states in his blog that without tourists New York would be without public spaces as they are the 'activists of public space' using and demanding more. So maybe residents of cities are too busy with their life to slow down and take in some people watching in a public space. But maybe tourists just help with the extra push in order for local authorities to see that public space is a neccessary piece of infrastructure in a great city due to the outside money they bring into the economy. But this brings up the issue of would tourists still come to a city if it didn't have great public spaces already established?

In the city of New York there is already lots of things for toursits to see and do so maybe there has to be a draw card for tourists before they can influence infrastructure development. I think this is where Auckland and maybe New Zealand is lacking.