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.