Staging city events in public spaces: an urban design perspective

Smith, Andrew; Vodicka, Goran; Colombo, Alba; Lindström, Kristina; McGillivray, David; Quinn, Bernadette

doi:10.1108/ijefm-10-2020-0063

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Street activations can bring rise to informal economies, such as street performers and informal vendors. (Smith et al, 2021). Inam (2019) discussed the large volume of vacant parking lots in the NIA of Thorncliffe Park.…”

Section: Equitable Public Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Grassroots Activation of Public Space: A Toronto Neighbourhood Improvement Area Context

Dhalla

2024

Preprint

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Through grassroots, public space activation, the City of Toronto can improve equity within its 31 Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs). Toronto City Council created NIAs under the 2020 Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy (The TSNS), identified as neighbourhoods that scored lowest when assessed using the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART). These NIAs often have more grassroots organizations than non-NIA designated neighbourhoods. Promoting citizenled activations of public spaces in Neighborhood Improvement Areas holds the potential to strengthen the Urban HEART domains. Therefore, the onus is on the City of Toronto to create, foster, and maintain relationships with grassroots organizations from NIAs to activate public spaces. This paper will aim to provide recommendations for the City of Toronto to improve the quality of grassroots public space activations in its NIAs.

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Section: Equitable Public Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Grassroots Activation of Public Space: A Toronto Neighbourhood Improvement Area Context

Dhalla

2024

Preprint

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“…Events open up opportunities for new interpretations of public spaces [9]. Related spatial organization reveals how a festival can facilitate social interaction at a local scale [10].…”

Section: Festival and Urban Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and Augmented Dynamics of a Cultural Event

Shih¹,

Chen²

2022

Applied Sciences

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The Taiwan Lantern Festival (TLF) is a specific cultural tradition that has evolved over many years. It is a large-scale festival as determined by the large number of installations and visitors—that is, 20 million visitors in a period of two weeks. The aim of this study is to combine the TLF-related physical dynamics of land use and lantern installations with the augmented dynamics of lantern installations at reallocated sites. We compared five cities in Taiwan with regard to land alterations between 2016 and 2020. The TLF land assessment identified 34 cross-referred types of land use between aerial imagery and GIS surveys in a small area of 2 km × 2 km, in total. The change in land use by year varied between 2% and 499%, up to three times. The complexity of physical dynamics was re-experienced by a more sustainable dynamic of augmented reality (AR) using a scan-to-AR approach to reactivate the installations and fabrics at redeployed sites. The installations of the 2016 TLF were applied. We found that the land use, 3D scan, and AR reshaped the spatio-temporal festivalscape by both types of dynamics. The simulation demonstrated that the fabric retrieved by heterogeneous technologies had equal importance in assessing the host city and in enabling a reactivation for more diversified scales and characters, even with a smartphone AR.

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“…So, it is essential to consider how the crowd and temporary structures interact and how static and dynamic aspects interact. (Smith et al, 2021) Many different stakeholder groups can be recognised for any event in a city.…”

Section: Event Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zhou et al (2017) investigate attempts by medium-sized Chinese cities to use events to attract people and create markets. Smith et al (2021) write about staging city events in urban public spaces. This article is the only study found on events from an urban design perspective.…”

Section: Events Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The review of the current literature showed planned events are some of the most vital activities in urban public spaces, but they have been poorly studied from the urban design perspective. A recently published article titled 'Staging City Events in Public Spaces: An Urban Design Perspective' by AndreSmith (2021), a key author in the field of events and urban studies, describes the importance and novelty of the topic.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Planned Events in Urban Public Spaces

Behmanesh¹

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Urban public space plays a key role in the urban fabric. The nature of public open space in each city depends on a number of factors such as the city’s history, geography, political issues and so on. Planned events in these spaces change the regular use of the urban space and have the potential make the city more dynamic and responsive, and to enhance cultural and economic value. Given this important role, the intervention of events in urban space deserves careful consideration in an urban design sense - something that is often neglected or given low priority in current event design processes. This study aims both to shed light on the importance of looking at planned events from the urban design perspective, and to offer a means to achieve better design of such temporary events. The key aspect has been to develop a tool that non-design professionals could use to improve the design quality and planning for temporary events in public spaces. This research consists of four components. The first study constructed an analysis of the body of knowledge on design-based criteria, whilst the second and the third studies explored the process of designing planned events. The second study analysed the content of event planning guides and protocols, and the third study involved interviewing experts who are involved in the process of planned event design. The fourth study applied design-based criteria to a case study and investigated effective and useful contemporary ways of representation through the development of a VR interactive tool. Finally, the effectiveness of the tool that was developed was examined using a user-testing and accompanying semistructured interview method. The results suggest a focussed set of design-based criteria that could be used to design and evaluate events from the urban design perspective. The review of event planning guides and protocols reveals that most urban design criteria are neglected or poorly considered in the planned temporary event design process. In addition, event designers and event organisers were interviewed, and the outcomes also showed that the consideration of urban design criteria is limited in the process of event design. Consequently, a VR-enabled assessment tool has been developed to aid in the design and evaluation of event layouts, allowing semiautomated evaluation against design-based criteria using customised virtual reality environment. Event designers agreed that the tool could be helpful in the event design process. Key participants were enthusiastic about taking the development assessment tool through to application in practice. Ultimately, this PhD research is focussed on the needs of nonexperts in urban design who create and manage temporary events in urban spaces. It enables the consideration and practical application of a set of design-based criteria in the event design process. The outcome indicates that using a VR-enhanced process that employs design-based criteria in the event design process can improve the design and delivery of planned events in urban spaces. Further refinement of the tool is possible to broaden and deepen the capabilities of the tool in other cases, but the research outcomes underscore the value and the potential of applying design-based criteria to the spatial design of public events.

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Staging city events in public spaces: an urban design perspective

Cited by 15 publications

References 50 publications

Grassroots Activation of Public Space: A Toronto Neighbourhood Improvement Area Context

Grassroots Activation of Public Space: A Toronto Neighbourhood Improvement Area Context

Physical and Augmented Dynamics of a Cultural Event

Planned Events in Urban Public Spaces

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