accessible public spaces for all; in other words, sustainable
public spaces. The report provided an excellent documentation of several successful cities that managed to create
successful public space for all. The president of the Project
for Public Spaces stated in their report that ‘You have to turn
everything upside down to get it right-side up’, a strategy
that considers the public space as a vital ingredient of successful cities. The cases mentioned in the report clearly
explained how they helped in building a sense of community, civic identity and culture. They also helped facilitate
social capital, economic development and community revitalization (PPS 2015)
The urban planner Bill Hillier discussed in his recent
book ‘Space Is A Machine’ the failure of modernism as it
was mainly focused on form and function and the integral
interrelation between them more than the understanding of
the relation between form and meaning which was due to
architecture; several peculiar social pressures had become
more concerned and preoccupied with social engineering
through architecture rather than with architecture itself.
Hillier argues that there are many versions of this belief, and
some assume that the direct relationship between building
and behaviour should take the form of ‘fitting’ activities to
spaces. Others stress the intervening role of cognition where
the built environment acts as a series of behavioural clues
(Hillier 2015).
Such social activities should reinsure a sustainable
use/reuse of the public space in general, an idea that Steven
Cohen profoundly talked about in his book ‘The Sustainable
City’. He asserted the fact that sustainable cities must provide clean water, toxin-free air, renewable energy, mass
transit, environmentally sound solid waste management and
public space. He looked at examples of existing parks and
open space plazas in the United States and Brazil. What
those examples had in common was the fact that they were
transformed and repurposed from a non-functional, abandoned site or ‘lost spaces’ into widely popular open spaces
that everyone can freely and safely utilize. He urged to
develop a deeper understanding of human technologies and
the impact of those technologies on the living systems of
vivid places. The key to a sustainable and renewable
(resource-based) economy is the sustainable city itself
(Cohen 2017).
Relying on this theoretical discussion followed by
exploring some successful cases of transforming forgotten/
abandoned pockets into sustainable urban spaces outside of
Egypt, this research should get a clearer view on how to
identify a sustainable approach in redefining street spaces as
interactive public places for all. A process of thinking that
can improve the usability, aesthetics and the liveability of
some of the hidden or misused streets in Cairo and converting them into sustainably inviting public spaces.
3 Public Spaces as Tools for Social
Sustainability, Experimental Urban
Interventions
Urbanization is the defining trend of the 21st century; by 2030, 75
percent of the world’s 9 billion people will be living in cities. And
urbanization is occurring most rapidly in places with the greatest
lack of planning for urbanization. UN-HABITAT Executive
Director Joan Clos I Matheu. (Streets are Public Spaces 2015)
Accessible areas play an important role in boosting the
social and economic life of their communities. New
typologies of public places and street spaces are now being
created internationally in several towns and cities, which can
be an important source of inspiration for other cities from a
socio-economical point of view.
A selection of 18 international cases proposed good
examples on how to create an accessible public space that
fulfils the needs of its users through an ‘open-minded’ collaboration between policymakers, designers and users. They
are chosen for their diversity in location, the proposed
strategies and their functional similarities to the chosen two
pilot projects in Cairo, which are the focus of this research.
While the diversity of the cases makes 1:1 comparison difficult, it allows for an evaluation of how use and perception
are similar or different despite socio-economic and geographic circumstances, as well as variations in the background of the space itself and its financial management. It
also helped come up with a list of indicators that would
assist in evaluating the success/failure of our cases from a
sustainable viewpoint, Table 1.
4 The Prototypes, from a Decaying Street
to a Vibrant Public Space
Think of a city and what comes to mind? Its streets. If a city’s
streets look interesting, the city looks interesting; if they look
dull, the city looks dull. (Jacobs 2016)
In 1872, Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, sought to
change the nature and typology of Cairo as a medieval city,
famous for its compact structure with short walking distances, squares and marketplaces. He commissioned
Haussmann to replicate his Parisian model in an unoccupied
zone northwest of old Cairo and directly east of the Nile
banks. The Haussmannization process, as it was called, is
one of many westernization movements to modernize the
urban fabric and increase the global competitiveness of cities
at that time, Fig. 3. The idea goes back to the late nineteenth
century when countries such as France began to demonstrate
the rationality of their government through space and urban
planning. Policing the city became increasingly important at
this point. It is perhaps where the rationale of Haussmann’s
Private Initiatives versus State Interventions …
133
public spaces. The report provided an excellent documentation of several successful cities that managed to create
successful public space for all. The president of the Project
for Public Spaces stated in their report that ‘You have to turn
everything upside down to get it right-side up’, a strategy
that considers the public space as a vital ingredient of successful cities. The cases mentioned in the report clearly
explained how they helped in building a sense of community, civic identity and culture. They also helped facilitate
social capital, economic development and community revitalization (PPS 2015)
The urban planner Bill Hillier discussed in his recent
book ‘Space Is A Machine’ the failure of modernism as it
was mainly focused on form and function and the integral
interrelation between them more than the understanding of
the relation between form and meaning which was due to
architecture; several peculiar social pressures had become
more concerned and preoccupied with social engineering
through architecture rather than with architecture itself.
Hillier argues that there are many versions of this belief, and
some assume that the direct relationship between building
and behaviour should take the form of ‘fitting’ activities to
spaces. Others stress the intervening role of cognition where
the built environment acts as a series of behavioural clues
(Hillier 2015).
Such social activities should reinsure a sustainable
use/reuse of the public space in general, an idea that Steven
Cohen profoundly talked about in his book ‘The Sustainable
City’. He asserted the fact that sustainable cities must provide clean water, toxin-free air, renewable energy, mass
transit, environmentally sound solid waste management and
public space. He looked at examples of existing parks and
open space plazas in the United States and Brazil. What
those examples had in common was the fact that they were
transformed and repurposed from a non-functional, abandoned site or ‘lost spaces’ into widely popular open spaces
that everyone can freely and safely utilize. He urged to
develop a deeper understanding of human technologies and
the impact of those technologies on the living systems of
vivid places. The key to a sustainable and renewable
(resource-based) economy is the sustainable city itself
(Cohen 2017).
Relying on this theoretical discussion followed by
exploring some successful cases of transforming forgotten/
abandoned pockets into sustainable urban spaces outside of
Egypt, this research should get a clearer view on how to
identify a sustainable approach in redefining street spaces as
interactive public places for all. A process of thinking that
can improve the usability, aesthetics and the liveability of
some of the hidden or misused streets in Cairo and converting them into sustainably inviting public spaces.
3 Public Spaces as Tools for Social
Sustainability, Experimental Urban
Interventions
Urbanization is the defining trend of the 21st century; by 2030, 75
percent of the world’s 9 billion people will be living in cities. And
urbanization is occurring most rapidly in places with the greatest
lack of planning for urbanization. UN-HABITAT Executive
Director Joan Clos I Matheu. (Streets are Public Spaces 2015)
Accessible areas play an important role in boosting the
social and economic life of their communities. New
typologies of public places and street spaces are now being
created internationally in several towns and cities, which can
be an important source of inspiration for other cities from a
socio-economical point of view.
A selection of 18 international cases proposed good
examples on how to create an accessible public space that
fulfils the needs of its users through an ‘open-minded’ collaboration between policymakers, designers and users. They
are chosen for their diversity in location, the proposed
strategies and their functional similarities to the chosen two
pilot projects in Cairo, which are the focus of this research.
While the diversity of the cases makes 1:1 comparison difficult, it allows for an evaluation of how use and perception
are similar or different despite socio-economic and geographic circumstances, as well as variations in the background of the space itself and its financial management. It
also helped come up with a list of indicators that would
assist in evaluating the success/failure of our cases from a
sustainable viewpoint, Table 1.
4 The Prototypes, from a Decaying Street
to a Vibrant Public Space
Think of a city and what comes to mind? Its streets. If a city’s
streets look interesting, the city looks interesting; if they look
dull, the city looks dull. (Jacobs 2016)
In 1872, Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, sought to
change the nature and typology of Cairo as a medieval city,
famous for its compact structure with short walking distances, squares and marketplaces. He commissioned
Haussmann to replicate his Parisian model in an unoccupied
zone northwest of old Cairo and directly east of the Nile
banks. The Haussmannization process, as it was called, is
one of many westernization movements to modernize the
urban fabric and increase the global competitiveness of cities
at that time, Fig. 3. The idea goes back to the late nineteenth
century when countries such as France began to demonstrate
the rationality of their government through space and urban
planning. Policing the city became increasingly important at
this point. It is perhaps where the rationale of Haussmann’s
Private Initiatives versus State Interventions …
133