5.1 Regeneration
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5.2 Quality of Space. Human Scale
The word space in the context of the public realm is normally assumed to describe an outdoor area bounded by buildings, though it could also refer to any open area such as a park.
Victoria Square, Birmingham
The quality of a space can be measured from many points of view. Generally the measurements consider the extent to which the space fulfils its various intended purposes. A shopping area would be expected to have a vitality. A wild wilderness would be expected to provide solitude.
In a town centre, a market place would be successful if people were attracted to it, if they obviously enjoyed being there and seemed to want to stay and come again.
As an example this historic market place in a small east of England town is a place where people come to meet their friends, stop and chat and sit in family groups. The shops are sufficiently varied to provide a really useful range of local convenience goods. The space itself is managed to provide a series of local community based events.
Yet it is surrounded by listed buildings and has a street pattern little changed in two hundred years and still follows the line of the curved boundary walls of a Norman castle.
Sitting & meeting friends in Wisbech
Getting out wheel chairs
Listed buildings giving an interesting roof line
Historic street patterns
Parked cars in Laycock village
Entertainers in Kingston-upon-Thames
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5.3 Importance of Image
There is an undoubted co-relation between environmental quality, appearance and image, and economic well-being. Much regeneration expenditure is spent on making a place appear attractive and looked after. Unkempt public parks attract vandalism and are statistically less safe. In a street, traffic paraphernalia: redundant or badly sighted and maintained street equipment and signs are a major contributor to the erosion of visual quality. Street where clutter has been removed are safer.
