The production of public spaces: Design dialectics and pedagogy

This dissertation contributes to building a dialectical understanding of the process of urban design from the perspective of Henri Lefebvre's theory of spatial production. From this perspective, urban space is the material expression of the practice of a society; space is socially produced by the conflicts and contradictions existent within the social order. A dialectic approach considers the opposite sides in unity, and in design reasoning aims to offer a synthesis that brings in unity the contradictions present within the design process. Hence I propose a dynamic understanding of urban design as an ongoing dialectic of spatial production. In this study the narrative centers on the contemporary production of urban spaces for public life.; The narratives of loss that emerged in urban studies in the last decades express dissatisfaction with respect to the disappearance of public spaces in the American cities and the consequence of privatization of public life. At the same time, the practice of everyday life in the modern city is often a disconnected experience that disregards individual experiences and the particularities of places. Despite initiatives of community life revival by design, like in the New Urbanist communities in the USA, there appears to exist a gap between the intentions and the outcomes of the urban design processes. In this research I ask the following questions: How has the relationship between the public and the private transformed over time? What might be the necessary transformations within the professional practice with respect to the roles played by planners and designers in the current production of public spaces? How would planning and design pedagogy build a different understanding of spatial research, in order to prepare planners and designers to practice with alternatives to the rational comprehensive models?; The social interaction that takes place in the city core is a good measure for the vitality of the city, which is an important characteristic for the city's potential successful position in the global marketplace. In this study I propose an ideal of spaces for public life that are civil, diverse, and convivial. A characteristic of the production of this ideal is a dynamic understanding of the design process with the consequence of blurring the boundaries between the public and the private. I argue that the production of this spatial ideal for public life is capable to configure the city's successful image in a globalized world.; In order to find out how planning and design practice should target this ideal, I performed field research regarding two newly developed projects: the Third Street Promenade, a pedestrian street in Santa Monica, United States, and CentrO, a shopping mall and entertainment center in Neue Mitte Oberhausen, Germany. I chose this comparative case study due to its potential to illustrate an irony in the productions of public spaces within the current process of globalization. While in the United States urban development aims to replicate the quality of the European public spaces, new developments in Europe reproduce the suburban, off-center, destination places like the American shopping malls and entertainment centers. I present in comparison these two projects that illustrate planning and design practices with rational comprehensive models. Among the main findings of the comparative analyses is that in spite of the similarities of these two public spaces, they exemplify different solutions with respect to the project's impact on the city cores of Oberhausen and Santa Monica.; I propose in this study the definition of design dialectics as the dynamic understanding of a life cycle of a place across the moments of the following spatial triad: a sense of a place, the conception of a place, and the life and enduring civic presence of a place. I structured this spatial triad on different ways to interact with places according to Lefebvre's dialectical moments that refer to diff...