Safely connected: continuous design for a mutating city

Abstract

The renewed interest in the quality of public space is fostered by the need to regenerate parts of the modern city and to improve environmental conditions of urban centres. Major changes due to the recent economic crises, to ICT technologies and to the current pandemic are posing new challenges to the rethinking of the design approach in terms of mobility, health, safety, and communal life. This paper aims at highlighting a renewed attitude to the design of public spaces which reinterprets these issues, also indicating a possible scaling up to other urban contexts. Accordingly, it is presented the experience of a recently completed international research project aimed at transforming a French city centre into an open-air urban market. Done through the pedestrianization of streets and encouraging multimodality and multifunctionality of spaces and services, it simultaneously enhances the ability to interpret the needs of the inhabitants and leverages their sense of community.