- Public Spaces for a global new urban Identity    807 kb by    Ventura Bento, Nuno & Serdoura, Francisco | venturabento@civil.ist.utl.pt    Short Outline New developments have emerged all over the city of Lisbon, developments that lead to spaces that are appropriate and are appealing for collective use. Conditions and factors for the upgrading of urban space are mentioned. New ways of approaching global urban development are discussed. Abstract In the last ten years new developments have emerge all over the city of Lisbon. Those new developments have been introducing balance in Lisbon urban structure, mainly in the public space. The new public spaces built in the inner city and the new centres of Lisbon periphery, offering a multiplicity of environments that increase the city public life. The intense public life we can observe in those urban spaces induces the citizens to use and appropriate them as a community. In the late 90’s, Lisbon has start to built the “Picoas Plaza”, “Lisbon Towers Quartier” and the new sites at “Parque das Nações”. The public open spaces at those places are the body of the sites, which welcomes and accompanies whoever traverses it and to which we are never indifferent. It is on public space that the culture of making and living the city is formed. Lisbon new public spaces are planned as a structural component of the city pattern and they are built to answer the citizens’ ambition, leading to a new immerging identity of modernity. For Lisbon citizens, these public spaces have become more then appealing for collective appropriation. Perhaps these are the modern equivalent of showground. The importance of such public open spaces in the city is far greater than simply their aesthetic expression, or even the affordance of an opportunity to spend some time outdoors. For Lisbon citizens spending time in a particular public space is more than just a laser diversion, it is a necessary element to participate in the collective urban life. The collective urban life success we can experiment at “Picoas Plaza”, “Lisbon Towers Quartier” and at “Parque das Nações” new sites, are directly related to the new demands of open spaces in Lisbon, where different groups can interact with a variety of environments at a long term day time basis. This paper pretends to call attention to urban life quality problems, such as the physical and environmental demands on public space and contain of conditions for social interaction to occur. The intensive urban life in new urban areas is related whit the multi functionality of the public space. As a final topic, some conditions and factors considered to be imperative for the upgrading of the urban space of Lisbon are mentioned so that public life can achieve a new dimension in the city, leading to new ways of approaching global urban development. Keywords public space, collective urban life Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2005: Making Spaces for the Creative Economy   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper