Flexible Public Spaces through Spatial Urban Interventions, Towards Resilient Cities

Abstract

Cities have become the dominant type of human settlements, currently, more than half of the planet population are living in cities. Thus, cities have to be developed not only in terms of sustainability. Cities face more challenges regarding the dealing with extraordinary events, whether they were for natural causes or terrorist attacks, socio-economic changes, in addition to the fact that climate change is responsible for new phenomena of natural disasters, such as tsunamis. The study argues that spatial urban interventions in public spaces under specific criteria can reshape them into flexible spaces that have the potentials to be adapted with extraordinary events. The study has a theoretical methodology that investigates the relations that link flexible public spaces and the achievement of urban resilience. As well as the study has a practical perspective through the analyzing of selected cases that showed how spatial urban interventions in public spaces can contribute efficiently in reshaping these spaces to be both flexible and vibrant. The findings clarified that flexible public spaces act as safety valves for our cities during extraordinary events, meanwhile, in peacetime they act as vibrant and sustainable spaces that deliver multi socio-economic and environmental functions.