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Public space is not just about design.

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I could have not summed up the content of this episode of Cities Reimagined better than today's guest Luisa Bravo just did in this audio snippet.

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Welcome to the Cities Reimagined podcast, the show where we discuss all kinds of aspects related to alternative urban futures and challenging conventional paradigms.

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I'm your host Johannes Riedler.

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In this episode of the Cities Reimagined podcast, we have a look at what it takes to reimagine urban public spaces.

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What makes cities urban you might find asking yourself from time to time?

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Is it the buildings, the density of the buildings, the people living in them, the traffic?

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Or does urban describe a culture of doing and living in and within an urban area?

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Is it the old definition of Gesellschaft in opposite of Gemeinschaft in Simmel's words?

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Or is it the understanding of the French Cité in opposite of the Ville as sociologist superstar Richard Sennett likes to put it?

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Whatever you find appropriate of a definition, it most likely have something to do with urban public spaces.

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Those spaces of informal interactions of seeing others and the other, places of informality, playgrounds, parks, but also parking lots, streets and paved areas.

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There is also no way of not addressing issues around urban public spaces when discussing reimagining cities.

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Urban public spaces are key to transform cities for better and to respond to the current societal challenges while ensuring equitable urbanism.

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One of the most motivated people working on urban public spaces I've met over the years is Luisa Bravo.

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Luisa is based in Bologna, Italy and among many other things is the founder and president of Cityspace Architecture.

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She is also the person behind the Museo Spazio Pubblico, a museum for public space.

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She is the editor-in-chief for the Journal of Public Space, which she publishes together with UNHabitat.

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And not least, she runs the Public Space Academy, which is an educational program on, of course, public space.

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In her work, Luisa links the very global level by working with UN agencies such as UNHabitat with very local actions and activism,

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turning neglected spaces in the city of Bologna into accessible green spaces and parking lots into parklets.

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There are so many reasons to invite Luisa to this show and to have her in the first episode of the Cities Reimagine podcast.

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So here's my chat with Luisa, which we recorded in August of 2023.

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Hi, Luisa. Welcome to the Cities Reimagine podcast.

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It is really nice to have you on the show.

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With all your projects going on in parallel on a scale from one to ten, how busy are you at the moment?

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Hi, Johannes. Thank you for inviting me and for having me in your podcast project, which I like very much.

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Yes, busy as usual and doing many different projects on public space, as you know.

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Yeah, you're an architect based in Bologna, Italy, where you also live.

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And you set up the Museum of Spazio Publico. Sorry for my Italian pronunciation.

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The Museum of Public Space or for public space in the city.

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And you also do a lot of very local activities and actions in Bologna,

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while you also work with UNHabitat on the Journal of Public Space and have a global outreach as well, which I find very fascinating.

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So in April 2023, you invited me for a residency in the Museum of Public Space, which I have to say I enjoyed a lot.

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And I had a really good time working with you and your team in Bologna.

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And it was a very fascinating experience to get to know your work better, but also the city of Bologna,

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especially these aspects related to public space, which you would not necessarily learn about if you're just visiting for a weekend in the city.

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So that was a very fascinating time for me.

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And I got to know you as someone who is driven very much by idealism and a personal motivation to do things differently.

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And your work doesn't stop at the borders of the city, as I already said.

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The opposite is the case. You work very globally, also with UNHabitat.

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How did you become so passionate about public space?

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Well, good question.

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Well, I actually think that this is coming from my DNA of being an Italian person.

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I was living in my hometown, which is a small city south from Bologna.

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I actually moved to Bologna to study at the university more than 30 years ago.

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But I was used to live in my hometown, Ascoli Piceno, which I suggest you to visit, which has a beautiful square, one of the most beautiful Italian squares,

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which is intended to be as a salotto in Italian.

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So it's a place where you can actually have a good time to meet other people and to relax, to chat, to drink, to watch others, because this is what's happening also in public space.

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We meet others and we watch others.

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And this square was actually one of the case studies of Jan Gel when he came for the first visit back in the 60s and 70s.

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So a friend of mine once told me, now I know why you are so passionate about public space, because you were used to live in such a beautiful environment with such a beautiful square.

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And actually, if I think about my time when I was very young, I was actually so much influenced by this way of using public space.

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I was living in the suburb of the city, but to meet my friends and to actually have some public engagements, I was used to take the bus and go to the city center because everything is happening in the city center.

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And so I remember spending a lot of time, many hours in this square. And even without having a proper meeting with friends, we knew that going to the square was the opportunity to meet.

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So I was used to go, let's say, six o'clock and then stay there for a while, standing, leaning next to the arcades and wait for some friends to come and then join for a walk, because we were used to walk up and down in this square.

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And I have very beautiful memories of when I was studying at the school and spending the afternoon, not every afternoon, but especially in the weekend, you know, in the square.

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So growing up, you actually did a case study, Jan Gehl might have done in the 1960s, right?

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Yes. Well, and Gale, if you see life between buildings, he actually mentioned that this square, Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno, as one of the most interesting case studies in terms of human behavior and human appropriation of space.

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I would like to go a little bit in the direction of your work in Bologna, to go from, let's say, this, from the educational aspect of your work with the Journal of Public Space, your habitat to what you do in the communities and in the neighborhood of Bologna.

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During my stay in Bologna, I had the chance to experience and learn about the dynamics around public spaces in Bologna a lot. So, Italian cities, you also mentioned that already are often celebrated for the public space, mainly in the Old Town.

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But the inner city of Bologna combines this historic charm and the vibrant energy because of its narrow winding streets. I believe that the layout of the streets goes back to the 10th century even, or it's very old.

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And these are lined with terracotta huge buildings. It's really beautiful. And the Parseios lining many streets are very iconic for the city as well, with the medieval towers punctuating the skyline.

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And there's, you know, there's, I could go on like this. This is a very, very nice streetscape and a beautiful city.

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And Bologna is also known for its rich cuisine, right? So, for good reason, the city is also called the Fat City. But when you walk the Old Town, you know why.

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There are so many restaurants everywhere and there's so many, there's an abundance of outdoor seating of these restaurants in public space and in fact, you oftentimes are troubled as a pedestrian to find your way around tables and chairs.

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It's really a city where, yeah, foodification, as we discussed when I came visiting, is real.

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At the same time, once you leave the inner city of Bologna, the situation to public spaces and life in public space changes completely.

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So the car is king, the green pockets and smaller open spaces in the neighborhoods are oftentimes neglected and underused. And to me, it seems that public space and public urban spaces are overly celebrated in many cases, economically exploited, temporarily privatized.

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But at the same time, there is a need for this, yeah, to activate the public space in the real neighborhoods. And I think you work a lot on that. Can you tell us a little bit about your work in that regard?

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Yes. Well, you described very well the atmosphere in Bologna, especially in the city center, which is really attractive. It's a compact city, human scale, you can actually walk almost everywhere and then you have the porticoes.

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And Bologna has been known for very progressive thinking since the 60s.

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And especially in terms of urban policies, how to reimagine the city, how to plan for, you know, a long term impact.

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And so, now some local scholars have this impression that we are a bit detached from our heritage of very left wing, let's say, progressive thinking, and we are more into

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like a commercial endeavors in terms of marketing and attraction of international visitors.

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And this is also affecting public space. As you said, many chairs occupying public space, a lot of cafes and restaurants using public space for private

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profit. And so all these dynamics are actually changing the way people live, perceive and understand public space.

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And I have this feeling that, you know, this is not happening only in Bologna, but in other European cities. If you go to Amsterdam, for example, you see that, you know, the city center is mostly for tourists and for international visitors,

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rather than local residents. We know this from Venice, for example, which is more like an open air museum with the chain shops associated with tourists from China that are investing a lot of money in shopping in Italian

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and in France, you know, and so we fear that cities like Bologna, for example, that always invested in culture can actually turn an urban strategy into these commercial marketing activity.

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And this fast use of public space makes it not planned for local user and long term evolution, you know, of what public space can be in the city center.

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And I think that what it is more interesting nowadays in Italy, in Bologna, but also in Europe is to actually regenerate public space in suburban districts.

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And the scale that we should consider is the neighborhood scale.

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And so that's why I started this new project, the Museo Spazio Pubblico, the public space museum in the suburban district of the Saragossa neighborhood in Bologna.

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I would say everybody in Bologna should, or with an urban interest who comes to Bologna, should visit this place.

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Thank you. Thank you, Johannes.

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So this museum is a very atypical museum, because we do not have a permanent collection, and we are a very small place actually.

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The museum is a renovation of a small neighborhood supermarket. So it was a place for food, and now it is a place for culture.

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And we want to use the museum to establish a public space culture. So with the museum, we try to translate that global mission into a local mission.

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And so to develop certain awareness of what public space is and why it is important.

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Some of the most asked the questions that I receive, and you won't believe this, but people are always asking me, what is public space?

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So when I am at some UN events, or when I'm here, you know, in Bologna, people are always asking me, what is public space?

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And I understand that this is a very important question. Don't take for granted what the people think about public space, because this is an exercise that I think I did also with you when you came.

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But I want to do with those that are listening to this podcast. If I ask you, think about a public space in your city. What is the first image that comes to your mind?

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What do you visualize in your mind when you think about public space? So the effort that we are doing in Bologna at the Public Space Museum is to actually show that the public space is also in the suburb.

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You don't have to go to the main square in Bologna or to the historic district to experience public space. Public space is also here in our neighborhood.

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But it is not fully disclosed. So you need to develop this ability to see public space and to develop a strategy to make these embedded potential that is in our neighborhoods a reality by transforming what it is mostly neglected, underused.

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And I would say also abused into a space for the community.

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And you did that in Bologna just right in front of the Public Space Museum, right? With a parklet. At the moment you're developing a park across the street or a little green space across the street.

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It's not that little actually. It's about probably, I don't know, 200, 300 square meters, something like that. But can you share some experience on the parklet? Because I absolutely love to hear the stories, how people were first confused about what this strange thing is and why they cannot park their car there anymore.

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Yes. Well, we actually designed and implemented the first ever parklet in the city of Bologna.

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So a parklet is a public space, which is actually replacing a number of parking spots along the street. And, you know, we know the story about parklets coming from Rebar in San Francisco.

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So they occupied two parking spots for just a few hours during the day and they experienced a lot of engagements of people using the space, sitting on a bench, they put also a small tree.

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And so they actually reflected on how much public space is already available in the city, but we are not using it for what it is, a public space.

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So, in a city like Bologna, where there are many cars in the city center, and especially in the suburbs, actually, there is a lot of public space, which is used for cars, parked cars.

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And during the pandemic, because of the physical distancing, many people in suburban districts were experiencing a lot of challenges because

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there was not enough space for physical distancing, because the majority of space was occupied by cars parked along the streets.

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So it was suggested to implement a parklet to actually expand the space of the sidewalk to give a local residents a possibility to be outside, but safe and healthy.

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And this came as a complete surprise for the neighborhood, because one day they saw this parklet fully implemented because it took us half a day to actually implement the parklet.

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We occupied the three parking spots in a street that has, you know, many other cars parked, and so it's very congested in terms of, not in terms of traffic, but in terms of cars parked, because it's

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residential area, medium density, so a lot of apartments and a lot of cars.

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And so at the beginning, people reacted very bad, I would say, because they really didn't want to have something that were reducing opportunities for them to park, because they valued the parking more than having a public space.

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But also because they didn't realize that the parklet was a public space for them.

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And so I remember at the beginning some people came to me and they asked me, can we enter this space? Can we see it in this space?

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Everything was open, right, and it was an extension of the sidewalk so there were no signs, nothing, I mean, everything was fully accessible, but people still didn't know how to appropriate the space.

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And who was supposed to use the space.

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But we know that when we design public space we always need to keep in mind that public space must be for all.

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And so this was the attempt and the ambition of the parklet to actually show that with a small intervention in three parking spots, because it was about 30 square meters, we were giving an opportunity.

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And at the, I believe at the end of this experience, people got more used to it, right, and adopted the public space or the parklet as well and started using it.

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So from the first very harsh, I would say, confrontations that I had with local residents, at the end, because the parklet was conceived as a temporary intervention, so it lasted 10 months.

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So at the very end, we organized a farewell party to invite people to enjoy the parklet in the last hours of his life.

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And, you know, when people understood that the parklet was going to be dismantled, they felt that this was a good opportunity for them to actually see a change also in their neighborhood, someone, you know, taking care of them as local residents and providing opportunities.

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And I observed throughout this 10 months behavior of local residents.

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And I saw that people started to take care of the parklet, and we had the plants and bushes and some green furniture in the parklet to create a nice and attractive environment.

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And especially during summer nights, my neighbor next to the museum was used to actually water plants.

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And there was a couple spending time in the summer nights, when it was late in the night with the fresh breeze, you know, of the summer, they were used to see in this romantic setting of the parklet.

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And so I actually saw all this kind of behavior, which belonged to our ordinary way to live, you know, public space.

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So the parklet was not supposed to be an extraordinary design project, but it was only an attempt to support local residents in developing their own ordinary routines and things around the neighborhood, while moving from a shop to another,

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providing a space to sit, or providing some shadow through the plants and bushes and trees.

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So the aim was to make it part of the everyday life of people living in the neighborhoods, right?

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Exactly. Yes. So that's why they felt very disappointed when they knew that the parklet was going to be dismantled.

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And so some encouraged me to go to the municipality and ask for an extension or to fight for the parklet.

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It was very nice to see that the people in the end started to care, you know, for something that they could not understand from the very beginning.

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So fast forward to today, after the parklet or after the project you initiated with the parklet, you also started taking care of a green space in the same neighborhoods.

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Can you tell us a little bit about your experience there, what the ambition is and how this project developed over the last month? Because I think it's very recent.

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Yes. When we dismantled the parklet, I remember on the last night, a guy from the neighborhood came to me and he told me, I just wanted to say thank you, because you did this.

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And I was really touched, you know, by this very direct approach from a person that I didn't know from the neighborhood.

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And so he told me, I could not understand what this was supposed to be. And I was very critical at the very beginning, but now after 10 months, I understand why this is important.

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And so, I mean, this was exactly, you know, the purpose of the parklet to actually give others opportunities to understand by their own how these small improvements can actually produce a change in the way people approach public space.

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And when he knew that the parklet was supposed to be dismantled just the day after the party, he asked me, are you going to do something else in the neighborhood?

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And actually, yes, because at that time, we already had this idea to take care of a green area just in front of the museum, just a few steps away from the museum. Again, this was a leftover space.

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Very dirty, abandoned, very poor quality. And so the idea was to create like a small park.

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There are many other parks in the neighborhood, the big parks, but I think we need to invest in public space by providing some very close opportunities. Now we talk a lot about the 15 minute city and hyper proximity.

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So these small park is actually creating an opportunity very close to where people live, you know, you just go down from the place where you live, and you're on the street and you cross the street and the park is there.

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So we started again the process with the municipality.

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We signed an agreement with the municipality, because Bologna has these very innovative regulation on urban commons.

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And this happened in October 2022. And then in November we started the renovation of the garden. And so if you come now to visit us in Bologna, you will see the garden, which is fully regenerated.

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So from a leftover space to a community garden. Again, we had a lot of criticism at the beginning, you know, people complaining because they didn't want to have something disturbing next to the place where they live because they had all these ideas that we were using the

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noise and, you know, creating problems in a very quiet neighborhood. So they completely misunderstood the mission. But now that the garden is fully implemented, I receive a lot of

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good comments and people are coming to actually say, I like this garden, it's beautiful. Who is doing this? Are you doing this? And then they tell me stories. I remember this garden years ago, there was this and that.

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They showed me pictures of what the garden was used to be like 10 years ago. And so they ask, ah, you did this, the municipality did that. So they want to know. And something very important.

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So this is the lesson that I learned from the parklet and now from the garden is that actually you have to be on the spot. So you have to be there. And so you lead by example.

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Because now, for example, in the garden, I'm cleaning and I'm putting water, you know, and every time I go there, I check, I put the signs and people see me. So I'm also performing, you know, in the garden as the one who is taking care.

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And so encouraging also others to take care of the garden. And recently, a lady just came and told me, what do you need? What can we do to help? Let's have a meeting. Let's organize something.

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I can ask to other people in the building where I live. I can send an email there. We can collect signatures or we can print flyers to let other people know. So this kind of behavior is encouraging action to others.

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I absolutely love these two projects, the parklet and the park and the stories you just told us, because it really allows people to reimagine their immediate surrounding where at the beginning, they have a difficulty to see the potential of a space or to reimagine and to have their daily routines maybe shaken up a little bit by new practices being introduced to the public space.

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I really find that extremely inspiring and it's right on spot for the podcast. So thank you so much for sharing that.

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And Luisa, with all the work you do in Bologna, how does that link globally? What is your connection and how did it establish that you do not only work in your city and in Italy really, but go beyond that?

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Yes, I started 10 years ago by establishing a nonprofit organization, City Space Architecture, and trying to create a platform where I could develop opportunities for public space initiatives, events and projects.

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I was taking advantage of my academic career because I was into PhD and post PhD and so I was also into some international connections and research periods abroad.

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I already had, let's say, a nice network of people, you know, working on public space. And I was always thinking, what can I do now that I have these great connections and I know these amazing people, you know, I could not believe how these people were so generous with me,

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inviting me and also giving me the chance to know others, to be engaged, because I think that people that are working on public space are very passionate, you know, because public space is something that really belongs to your heart, in a way, because it's about

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being able to interact with others and care for others.

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And I had this kind of welcoming attitude and appreciation. And so I said to myself, so I need to do something to actually give others the same opportunities and expand the work that I'm doing so that others can find the same excitement and passion, you know, for public space.

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And so I started this nonprofit organization.

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10 years ago, I started this very challenging and very difficult path.

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I had this ambition at the very beginning to actually develop something really meaningful, but not just at the academic level, but taking advantage of the quality of these academic scholars

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and actually expand impact beyond academia, because as I said, public space is about people, you know, it's about expanding the impact of this meaningful research to the real world.

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And you're also the founder of the Public Space Academy, which is a free transdisciplinary educational program on complexities built around public space. Where do you see the need for setting up the Public Space Academy?

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Yes. Well, when I started with the Journal of Public Space was 2016. So just three years after I established the city space architecture, and I immediately started this cooperation with UN habitat with the Global Public Space Program, they wanted to support the journal.

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And so the journal is an academic venue for researchers, and I started to actually see a great potential from the Journal of Public Space.

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And so I, at the same time started to receive some emails from people that I didn't know, asking, where can I attend a very good program, educational program on public space.

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And so I started to realize that actually public space as a topic is not properly taught. I mean, it's part of urban design, I actually teach urban design at the University of Florence.

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It's not part of landscape architect architecture or landscape urbanism, but it's it's not a proper topic.

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And so, in 2018, I started to think about, you know, using the Journal of Public Space to actually move interest from research production to educational contents.

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And so I developed this concept for the public space academy. So only seven, several years later, I was able to get support from the over our foundation, so it was 2022.

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And now we are establishing the public space academy through an online program, free, as you said, and also some in-presence activities and we are starting with this workshop in September in Bologna.

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We want to engage many different people and expertise and to actually provide an overall picture of the complexity of public space, which is not just related to design activities.

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Because this is something that we have to say very clearly. Public space is not just about design. It's much more than that.

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And also we have to clarify that to reach that design step requires a lot of work of observation, review, investigation, and several cycles of, you know, thinking and rethinking and readjusting.

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So there is a lot of work prior to the design activity.

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And we want to actually work exactly on this part, so that when you reach design, you are properly prepared to deliver something which is really successful.

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And we see that a lot in cities, especially in Europe, that there is an ambition by local public administration to change public spaces, but the understanding of how to do it is often limited to the design aspect of public spaces without taking into consideration all the other aspects.

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I would say that that's also the reason why a lot of these projects fail or why people do not use the public spaces, although they might be designed very well, but there's no culture attached to it to make sense of the public space.

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The public space is very context dependent. And so, analyzing the context, it's quite complex, and you have to deal with so many issues, which is physical environment, but also all those immaterial and somehow ephemeral aspects that makes public space successful.

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That's why I'm saying it's not just about design, but if you are able to include and incorporate in your design, all these different aspects that are not immediately perceived when you visit the site, but it requires a lot of time, as also Gail was used to say,

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observation and the mapping and human behavior. I think that the public space is nowadays much more complex from what Gail describes, because we have multicultural society, we have sometimes some conflicts happening in public space.

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I really like that this, our conversation, what you just said, links so well to another conversation I had on the podcast with Stefan Fugger, who is a local journalist in the south of Austria in my hometown Klagenfurt.

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He told us about the difficulties or the failure of a public space project where the city wanted to pedestrianize temporarily a part of a street, and it completely blew off. People were against it, people didn't see the value, and this links so well to what you just said, so I really love this connection.

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Thank you. Luisa, what would you suggest to someone who would like to start action to reimagine their cities?

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Well, I'm doing this because I really have a very strong motivation. I really want to contribute, and I really want to do something meaningful. So it is very important that you build your action on a very, very strong motivation.

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Something that requires a lot of efforts every day, because you need to actually find that same motivation every day, even if there are a lot of challenges, a lot of difficulties, and sometimes things will be bad, you know, and you will think that this is the wrong direction.

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But still, you need to keep that motivation strong and push for the next step.

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It is very important that if you really want to succeed, and especially in public space, that there are so many, really so many difficulties at many different levels.

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You really need a very strong motivation.

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This is the very first thing you have to consider, strong motivation, but also the second, you need to find allies, you know, people that have same strong motivation that can support, that can help, also in brainstorming, you know, because you need to get inspiration and directions, sometimes when you are lost.

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So, that's why I think it's very important to establish this public space culture. And that's why also we are working on this idea of having a community of people that have same interests, so that we can actually brainstorm and exchange lessons and good practices.

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And you need to actually find something that it is meaningful for you, but also meaningful for others.

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And then you have to invest your time, a lot of time.

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Before, you know, convincing others that they should also invest what you are doing. And I would like to close this podcast by saying something that I understood after 10 years of my work in public space.

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Because people are usually telling me, ah, you have these very successful projects, the journal, now the academy and there is a lot of excitement.

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Yes, yes, that's true. But if there is something that I really did in a very good way in the last 10 years is to actually talk with people and convince people that this was right, that this was meaningful.

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And if they wanted to invest in something meaningful, this was the way.

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And again, this is a public space lesson, because it is about people.

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Because I established connections with people, I spend time to talk with people to listen to people and to say, let's share something together, let's make this path together.

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Right. And so that's why I also like this idea that after visiting me in Bologna, now you are inviting me to contribute to this podcast series.

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Thank you. Absolutely, Luisa. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you.

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And I really think your work is, in your words, extremely meaningful and it's also inspirational for others. The things you set up and put different strings together is really, really amazing.

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I'm really looking forward to come to Bologna again in a couple of weeks for the public space academy workshops.

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And with that, Luisa, thank you so much for taking the time being on the show.

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Thank you.

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This was my conversation with Luisa Braver from Cityscape Architecture based in Bologna, Italy.

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If you want to find out more about Luisa's work, you find all the relevant links in the description to this podcast.

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I would highly recommend either checking out the Journal for Public Space, the Public Space Academy or all the other activities Cityscape Architecture and Luisa do.

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In the next episode of Cities Reimagined, I will talk to Jim and Sophie from Citymind based in Brussels.

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We will talk about how to radically include disadvantaged groups of society into urban development projects and much more.

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So be sure to not miss this one.

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If you liked this episode of Cities Reimagined, please consider subscribing.

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Find us on social media or even better, send me an email at johannes at enchoposine.city.

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I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear your feedback on this show and on any other episodes of Cities Reimagined and also hear from your expectations for the show.

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So please don't be shy and send me an email.

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This episode has been hosted, produced and edited by myself, Johannes Regler.

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That was the first episode of many to come, hopefully.

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I hope you stick with me and I hope to catch you soon.

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Thank you.