I would like to take part in the research group about public space. Public space plays an essential role in defining a city: it forms social and cultural connections, while it also creates a personal history of the area in relation to the individuals living there, as Hayden described [1]. More specifically, I would like to research the various designs and methods of creating green public space. In a time in which people are becoming more cognizant of their environmental impact, public green space provides that personal connection between a person and the environment while also shaping an aesthetically pleasing and purposeful space, beneficial to the environment.

In Hayden’s The Power of Place, she emphasizes the idea that a space can be shaped and characterized by the qualities within it and its relations with the people using the space. She believes that through public space, people can “use the social history of places to make more resonant connections to public memory” [2]. This highlights the importance of public space in a city because it can form the cultural identity of a location, which affects both the present state of the city and the future. Similarly, in Townsend’s lecture concerning his novel Smart Cities, he focuses on the individualized experience of the citizen through public accessibility. He states that cities should be constructed “bottom up”, meaning that the people should be empowered to design the city rather than a “top down” approach facilitated by big companies. [3] Public space directly affects the people using them and can be used to create a more personal location and a deeper cultural identity.

Part of my interest in green public space stemmed from one of my trips to New York City to the High Line, which is a public park built on top of an old train line that is no longer in use. It beautifully recreated the space on the elevated tracks into a public walkway for people of all kinds to use. It is free to the public, home to many forms of vegetation, and has art displayed throughout the park. The entire park is creatively built so that it incorporates the natural beauty of the vegetation, while also emphasizing the beauty of the city itself through various architectural structures, such as a glass wall overlooking the streets of Lower Manhattan. This park made me more interested in the balance of creating an environmentally friendly public space that connects the cultural environment of the city.

1. Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1995), 14-43.

2. Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1995), 43.

3. Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia [Anthony Townsend]. 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1evCV6_e8Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player.