Loose Space

Karen A. Franck

Quentin Stevens

Routledge

The Ludic City: Exploring the Potential of Public Spaces

This international and illustrated work challenges current writings focussing on the problems of urban public space to present a more nuanced and dialectical conception of urban life. Detailed and extensive international urban case studies show how urban open spaces are used for play, which is defined and discussed using Caillois' four-part definition – competition, chance, simulation and vertigo. Stevens explores and analyzes these case studies according to locations where play has been observed: paths, intersections, thresholds, boundaries and props. Applicable to a wide-range of countries and city forms, The Ludic City is a fascinating and stimulating read for all who are involved or interested in the design of urban spaces.

The Ludic City

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Memorials as Spaces of Engagement: Design, Use and Meaning

Memorials are more diverse in design and subject matter than ever before. No longer limited to statues of heroes placed high on pedestals, contemporary memorials engage visitors in new, often surprising ways, contributing to the liveliness of public space. In Memorials as Spaces of Engagement Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck explore how changes in memorial design and use have helped forge closer, richer relationships between commemorative sites and their visitors. The authors combine first hand analysis of key examples with material drawn from existing scholarship. Examples from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe include official, formally designed memorials and informal ones, those created by the public without official sanction. Memorials as Spaces of Engagement discusses important issues for the design, management and planning of memorials and public space in general. The book is organized around three topics: how the physical design of memorial objects and spaces has evolved since the 19th century; how people experience and understand memorials through the activities of commemorating, occupying and interpreting; and the issues memorials raise for management and planning. Memorials as Spaces of Engagement will be of interest to architects, landscape architects and artists; historians of art, architecture and culture; urban sociologists and geographers; planners, policymakers and memorial sponsors; and all those concerned with the design and use of public space.

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life

In cities around the world people use a variety of public spaces to relax, to protest, to buy and sell, to experiment and to celebrate. Loose Space explores the many ways that urban residents, with creativity and determination, appropriate public space to meet their own needs and desires. Familiar or unexpected, spontaneous or planned, momentary or long-lasting, the activities that make urban space loose continue to give cities life and vitality. The book examines physical spaces and how people use them. Contributors discuss a wide range of recreational, commercial and political activities; some are conventional, others are more experimental. Some of the activities occur alongside the intended uses of planned public spaces, such as sidewalks and plazas; other activities replace former uses, as in abandoned warehouses and industrial sites. The thirteen case studies, international in scope, demonstrate the continuing richness of urban public life that is created and sustained by urbanites themselves <ul>
<li>Presents a fresh way of looking at urban public space, focusing on its positive uses and aspects. </li> <li>Comprises 13 detailed, well-illustrated case studies based on sustained observation and research by social scientists, architects and urban designers. </li> <li>Looks at a range of activities, both everyday occurrences and more unusual uses, in a variety of public spaces -- planned, leftover and abandoned. </li> <li>Explores the spatial and the behavioral; considers the wider historical and social context. </li> <li>Addresses issues of urban research, architecture, urban design and planning. </li> <li>Takes a broad international perspective with cases from New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, Guadalajara, Athens, Tel Aviv, Melbourne, Bangkok, Kandy, Buffalo, and the North of England.</li> </ul>

Sociology

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Books by Quentin Stevens