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The Design of the Public Realm: Emerging Theories and Practices book cover

1st Edition

The Design of the Public Realm Emerging Theories and Practices

Edited By Patricia Aelbrecht, Ceren Sezer Copyright 2027
208 Pages
by Routledge

This book explores how public spaces—such as streets, squares, parks, and shared urban environments—are designed and experienced, and why they remain a vital but often overlooked part of urban design. Although the idea of the public realm has been central to cities for decades, there is still no clear or widely shared understanding of what it means or how it should be shaped in practice. Many of... Read more

Introduction: The design of the public realm: emerging theories and practices

Patricia Aelbrecht and Ceren Sezer

 

1. Human congestion in new designed public spaces: researching its social interactional potential

Patricia Simoes Aelbrecht

 

2. Participatory design practice, event (s) and the activation of public space

David McGillivray, Severin Guillard, Graham Ross and Peter McCaughey

 

3. Mapping the Spatiality of Informal Street Vending

Nastaran Peimani and Hesam Kamalipour

 

4. Understanding the capacities of urban street spaces by mapping Melbourne’s parklets

Quentin Stevens, Merrick Morley and Kim Dovey

 

5. COVID-19’s impact on local planning and urban design practice: focusing on tactical urbanism and the public realm with respect to low income communities

Joongsub Kim

 

6. Unparalleled prospect: COVID-19 and the expansion of public space

Vikas Mehta

 

7. Soundscape and public realm – a quasi-experimental comparison between Individual Vocabulary Profiling and Public Space Index assessments during COVID-19 lockdown

Josep Llorca-Bofí and Ceren Sezer

 

8. Gendered mobility in Greater Cairo Region: a spatial analysis of safety perceptions and behavioural differences in Giza mass transit nodes

Reem Cherif and Dalia Wahdan

 

9. Construction of place: social and institutional drivers of informal settlements’ public realm in Caracas

Gabriela Quintana Vigiola

 

Afterword

Matthew Carmona

Biography

Patricia Aelbrecht is Associate Professor in Urban Design, Planning and Intercultural Studies and Co-Founding Director of the Public Space Observatory Research Centre at Cardiff University. Her research explores the relationship between public space, social practices, and urban transformation, with particular expertise in social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, and the contested regeneration of contemporary cities.

Ceren Sezer is an Urban Designer and Planner, and Research Group Leader of the Community Collaboration Laboratory for Just Transitions (CCLab) at RWTH Aachen University. Her current work focuses on spatial strategies for just energy transitions, with a particular emphasis on public space, community-centred approaches, participatory design, and the integration of digital and analogue tools to support inclusive and place-based transformation processes.

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