Quentin Stevens

• Professor at RMIT University

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parklets have been deployed onto kerbside carparking spaces throughout Melbourne, Australia, by street-fronting hospitality businesses, to provide socially-distanced outdoor dining spaces. These temporary parklets provide useful indicators of the varying capacities of urban streets to support street life and comme...

A parklet is a small, relocatable public space installed onto kerb-side car-parking spaces. This article examines the evolving design, programming, approval process and reception of a ‘playful parklet’, available for free public use, which was transformed and relocated between four urban contexts in Melbourne. It demonstrated a creative, collaborat...

Pop-up parks have emerged alongside other forms of temporary urbanism as low-cost, informal, community-engaged interventions that address pressing community needs. This article examines four pop-up parks in Australian cities (Melbourne, Sydney and Perth) that reappropriated street space for pedestrians and eventually became permanent. The article c...

This chapter explores the potential of Privately-Owned Public Spaces (POPSs) to fill gaps in delivering accessible public spaces and discusses their role in the reactivation of cities in post-pandemic times. It examines the spatial features and potential of POPSs for contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Based on field obs...

This paper examines the urban character of Chinatown districts around the world, as a key example of an urban ethnic enclave, focusing on four large Chinatowns in San Francisco, Yokohama, Melbourne and Sydney. It advances knowledge about the spatial elements that define urban districts, a concept pioneered by Kevin Lynch. Existing literature on Chi...

The design of urban public space is inherently problematic because the range of its possible uses and meanings is broad and unpredictable. This paper engages this problematic through the lens of Gibson’s theory of ‘affordances’—the ways the material world affords for human desires. We first explore some conceptual and methodological problems of the...

This article seeks to address long-standing questions in academia, practice, and policymaking regarding the role public spaces might have in promoting cross-cultural encounters and experiences of social cohesion in socially and culturally diverse urban contexts, and what theories and methods researchers and practitioners might use to objectively ev...

This paper examines two high-profile commemorative spaces in Namibia’s national capital, Windhoek, designed and constructed by North Korean state-owned enterprise Mansudae Overseas Projects. These commemorative projects illustrate the complex and evolving intersections between public art, architecture and urban form in this post-colonial context. T...

This paper examines a range of grassroots protest memorials erected over the past 60 years within public spaces in the capital cities of three ‘Asian Tigers’: Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. These cities grew quickly as their polities rapidly democratized in the 1980s after long periods of foreign and local authoritarian rule. The paper explores...

The original Cerdà plan (Pla Cerdà) of 1855 for the extension of Barcelona is famous for its grid array of large blocks and wide streets to promote circulation. Each block was originally intended to have an area of open space in the center to provide for the needs of residents. Already by the 1920s, however, the center of the blocks had been filled...

This paper has traced the historic spatial development of Windhoek through five distinct socio-political epochs. These different periods’ spatial, aesthetic, and representational effects on the city’s urban landscape are presented in original maps, allowing a spatial-to-scale comparison and analysis of the city’s development. Rather than the discre...

This paper examines the history within Australia of the ‘parklet’, a small architecturally-framed open space installed temporarily on an on-street car-parking space. The paper traces parklets’ varied and evolving forms, materials, production processes and functions. It examines how parklets have adapted to rapidly-changing social needs and prioriti...

Authentic public memorials did not appear in the Chinese public space until the late 19th century. As a result of Western influence, many war memorials were built during the Republic of China era (1912-1949). Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government has invested much in developing public spaces. Also, the go...

This paper presents a comparative study of Chinatowns using a mixed methodology adapted from space syntax analysis and urban morphological mapping. It examines Chinatown's spatial configuration, degree of integration to its surrounding context, and morphological characters. As the widespread and distinctive examples of an urban ethnic enclave, Chin...

Privately-Owned Public Space (POPS) is a relatively new type of policy-made public space. While these spaces have become common in contemporary cities and become major venues for the social life of citizens, there are criticisms of their level of publicness and the exclusion of certain ‘undesirable’ people and activities. Despite numerous studies o...

Purpose-This paper presents a mixed methodology to map and analyse the spatial connectivity of the everyday pathways that link the doorway of an individual's homework locations to the local main commercial street. These pathways include public streets, semi-private lanes, alleys and stairs. Design/methodology/approach-Pathways within different mor...

“Temporary” and “tactical” (T/T) urbanism is argued to herald a more agile future for urban design and planning, enhancing urban intensity, community engagement, innovation, resilience and local identity. Drawing on interviews with expert practitioners, this paper explores the distinctive character of Australian “T/T” urbanism approaches. It examin...

The last two decades have witnessed a growing commitment to European public space projects seeking to promote social cohesion. These projects are built on the premise that social cohesion is under threat from the increasing cultural and economic differences in contemporary cities, and that it should be promoted through public spaces. This paper exa...

Outdoor dining on former parking spaces – generally known as parklets – has proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reduced demand for parking coincided with increased demand for outdoor space – but when the pandemic subsides, cities must decide what comes next. Is this a temporary change before we return to the car-dependent city, or can it hel...

What defines certain transformations of urban spaces as ‘temporary’ or ‘tactical’, and what gives them fresh validity and value? This chapter draws upon Assemblage Thinking and Actor-Network Theory to focus on the role of temporariness in shaping urban development. It explores time in relation to the production and use of the urban environment. It...

This paper explores the spatial complexities of Hanoi’s urban form, with a focus on the evolution of the pathways linking the front door of individual households engaged in home-based income-generating activities, and the local main streets and marketplaces that provide opportunities for commerce. The pathway is an overlooked spatial element in exi...

The present-day urban landscape of Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, displays a discernible periodisation of public architecture coincident with successive occupations’ displays of political power. To date, little research has been devoted to understanding the spatial effects of these ideologies which geographically embedded institutionalised discrimina...

Informal urban development processes in Hanoi, particularly since the economic reforms of Doi Moi, have overlaid what were originally formally-planned urban districts, and created a chaotic mix of urban morphologies and building typologies. This spatial milieu strongly influences the opportunities for small-scale, home-based income generating activ...

Taiwan’s thousands of statues of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek have encountered varying fates since Taiwan’s democratisation in 1987. Citizens have iconoclastically pulled down or beheaded numerous Chiang statues. Many have been removed from public view to the rural grounds outside his temporary mausoleum. Those that remain standing are regularly...

The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have reminded us of the vital role public space plays in supporting our physical and mental well-being. Lockdowns and "social distancing" have limited our participation in public life and public space. We need to act swiftly to retrofit our public spaces so they are both safe and support social activity. Our goal...

This paper examines public planning processes for a very specific element of the urban environment: memorials that are placed within the public realm. It explores how the decision-making processes for these installations shape and approve their themes, forms, and placements, through interviews with the key protagonists of a series of public memoria...

In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of public memorials – sculptures and structures in public spaces that convey information and social attitudes about past persons, events and ideas. This renaissance has been most marked in national capital cities. To better understand this recent revival of in...

A free downloadable PDF of this chapter is available at this URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429951053.

To a typical family in Hanoi, their house is not solely their home, but a valuable basis for their livelihood: a home-based business. This paper investigates the spatial impact of the city’s dominant built form characterized by organic urban morphology and building typology on home-based economic activities. Space Syntax is adopted to examine the p...

Social cohesion is often perceived as being under threat from the increasing cultural and economic differences in contemporary cities and the increasing intensity of urban life. Public space, in its role as the main stage for social interactions between strangers, clearly plays a role in facilitating or limiting opportunities for social cohesion. B...

Analysis of the emergent theoretical, empirical, and planning policy studies of 'temporary uses' of derelict urban spaces in European cities illustrates three distinct realms where the concept of 'creativity' is defined and applied to urban management and redevelopment approaches: in terms of creative production, consumption of creativity, and crea...

This paper examines the evolving subjects, forms, symbolism, and spatial constellation of the diverse memorials erected in Seoul since 1953. It explores how these memorials have expressed shifts in national identity towards democracy since the end of dictatorship in 1987. It illustrates how commemorative intentions in this massive, rapidly-changing...

Public spaces are key venues for social interactions between strangers. Social cohesion among these strangers is increasingly seen as under threat from the cultural and economic differences within our cities and the intensity of urban life. But what exactly is social cohesion, how is it experienced in the public realm, and what role can the design...

In recent decades, counter-monuments have emerged as a new, critical mode of commemorative practice. Even as such practice defines itself by its opposition to traditional monumentality, it has helped to reinvigorate public and professional interest in commemorative activities and landscapes and has developed its own, new conventions. Terminology an...

With the importance of open spaces to urban quality of life being increasingly recognized, knowledge about which spatial characteristics influence open space use, how, and why is of growing interest to open space researchers, designers and managers. Through an observational survey of Southbank Promenade in Melbourne, Australia, the research examine...

Waterfront regeneration projects worldwide have transformed cities’ edges into new public spaces. Although water should be the centerpiece of these transformations, users are often situated as passive observers of water; urban design of public spaces only affords distant views of water and limited possibilities for active bodily engagement and play...

Urban waterfront redevelopments are often about image-making for economic and political gain. This article analyses three major recent waterfront projects within the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area: Kuala Lumpur City Centre, the River of Life, and Lake Putrajaya. All have been important in projecting an image of a modern, developed, postcolonial Mal...

In Memorials as Spaces of Engagement Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck explore how changes in memorial design and use have helped forge closer, richer relationships between commemorative sites and their visitors. The authors combine first hand analysis of key cases with material drawn from existing scholarship. Examples from the US, Canada, Austr...

The so-called ‘creative industries’ are increasingly being presented as an important tool of urban regeneration and economic development. Many cities worldwide are seeking to make themselves more creative, by developing strategies, building facilities or defining particular quarters. However, it is only very recently that researchers have pursued m...

Three London jurisdictions ‒ Westminster, the Royal Parks and the City ‒ employ different policies, decision-making processes and criteria to shape the siting, design and subjects of new memorial proposals, in relation to different stakeholder interests, existing memorials and ongoing urban development. Across these jurisdictions, some new memorial...

This paper examines an intensive 9-month project of knowledge exchange between an academic researcher and the urban design practice Rick Mather Architects, focused around their long-term masterplan for London’s South Bank Centre. This kind of project is still quite new within the design disciplines, but has significant potential benefits for both r...

Memorials installed within public pavements are a recent, distinctive genre in terms of their forms, subjects, audiences and custodianship. Through international examples, this paper examines their varied materials and designs, and their differing placement in relation to the pavement surface, the location of the events commemorated and the wider c...

This book links two fields of interest which are too seldom considered together: the production and critique of art in public space and social behaviour in the public realm. Whilst most writing about public art has focused on the aesthetic, cultural and political intentions and processes that shape its production, this edited collection examines a...

This article examines three New World democratic capital cities – Washington, Ottawa and Canberra – where the growing number of public memorials has spurred the development of official plans and policies to regulate the siting and design of future memorial proposals. The historical evolution of these strategies is examined in relation to the design...

This chapter focuses on exploring how people use urban open spaces, and the design features, policies, and regimes of control that govern their use, as a means to understand how public space might best be designed and managed. In doing so the chapter outlines concepts and methods useful for analysing people's behaviour and examines environmentbehav...

Governments and civic groups erect public memorials in national capitals to record and legitimize selected events and people, so as to define collective history. Budapest provides a rich case study of how changing political regimes and their opponents also alter, re-interpret and remove memorials in their attempts to control national narratives and...

This article investigates the ways in which cultural economy is formed through negotiation and interaction between local actors in the case of culture-led regeneration in Gwangju, South Korea. It looks at the dynamics between the bureaucrats' pursuit of economic growth in the city and the efforts of civil society to maintain a strong political spir...

Much has been written about Canberra and other modern, democratic capitals, in terms of how their urban designs communicate national identity and values. But relatively little research has focused specifically on the layout of their various commemorative works or the formal tools and processes used to manage these, except for the case of Washington...

In this study, we look at the cultural politics surrounding the narratives of cultural festivals in Gwangju, South Korea and Glasgow, Scotland. These two cities illustrate both a general obsession to become world-class, and intervening efforts toward achieving world ranking. Through archives and in-depth interviews with key actors from the Gwangju...

When Robert Musil noted in 1927 that monuments become invisible, he was highlighting that the many statues set high on pedestals in public spaces became unnoticed and their purpose forgotten; they weren’t physically invisible or illegible. Since Musil’s time, the subject matter, design and location of public memorials has diversified greatly. The p...

In recent decades, counter-monuments have emerged as a new, critical mode of commemorative practice. Even as such practice defines itself by its opposition to traditional monumentality, it has helped to reinvigorate public and professional interest in commemorative activities and landscapes and has developed its own, new conventions. Terminology an...

Contemporary spectacles are often criticized for tightly scripting public life, proscribing spaces and their meanings, and instrumentalizing the public realm for political, cultural or economic gain. Participant observation of visitor behavior at festivals in Glasgow, Scotland, and Gwangju, South Korea and analysis of the festivals' spatial organiz...

City beaches are produced by spreading sand, deckchairs and umbrellas onto industrial brownfields, parking lots, rights-of-way or other under-utilized open spaces. Where major reinvestment projects are lacking, these informal developments offer great amenity. This approach to placemaking is post-Fordist. It is highly flexible, even mobile. It invol...

This presentation draws on a wider research project investigating the rapid spread and great social and economic success of artificial ‘city beaches’ as an interim use of empty urban sites throughout Germany. The city beach’s unique range of materials, built elements and event programming, its physical and locational flexibility, and its extremely...

Public memorials often have “spectacular” forms: visitors' feelings are affected primarily through relatively passive, distant reception of visual depictions and symbols. At London's Lady Diana Memorial fountain and Berlin's Holocaust Memorial, the visual message is intentionally reduced to almost nothing. Instead, these designs present visitors' b...

This examination of recent UK 'liveability' discourse identifies five distinct policy areas which this discourse seeks to embrace. It critiques liveability's strong emphasis on visual order, its problematic sense of the public interest, and its limited aspirations for the planning of the public realm. It analyses the philosophy of governance underp...

Research on contemporary urban waterfronts rarely looks below the surface to question the importance, role and condition of water in these settings, or the physical experiences these landscapes enable. Academics are often guilty of the same distant, spectacularised viewpoint for which they criticise waterfronts’ designers and clients. This paper ex...

Book description: This international and illustrated work challenges current writings focussing on the problems of urban public space to present a more nuanced and dialectical conception of urban life. Detailed and extensive international urban case studies show how urban open spaces are used for play, which is defined and discussed using Caillois...