The Importance Of Civic Spaces

My point of departure for this thesis is that in many of our post-industrial cities, the civic realm has increasingly shrunk and the private realm has continuously expanded and civic spaces are arguably more important today than ever. Most people are found using the unplanned public spaces rather than the planned public spaces. The issue is approached by focusing on a middle ground- between urban planning and design of individual buildings. The intent is to design an ‘insertion’ that responds to specific features of the existing urban structure and the regulatory framework currently in place. Here the juxtaposition of the old and new becomes the visible passage of time. The re-appropriation of old forms includes what maybe called the neo-vernacular

The basic assumption of this thesis is that- any scale of architectural intervention in an existing urban fabric must recognize and acknowledge the physical and spatial field of the built environment along with study of patterns of use and other cultural significances. To define the civic realm with respect to this thesis, three other concepts relevant to urban form and social organization need to be highlighted:

1. The space of Public Claim: As defined by Anderson , this is that accessible space which includes all spaces that are in any way, directly or sequentially accessible from the public realm; it excludes spaces where their accessibility is not communicated to those spaces that are part of the publicly accessible space. The civic realm needs to be understood to include the space of public claim with the exclusion of certain other accessible, open spaces such as – parking lots and undeveloped land, which are not either clearly defined, intensively used or appropriated for public

It is a group of organic habits……..it has engraved within us the hierarchy of the various functions of inhabiting – Gaston Bachelard

In this spirit, the return to “small town values” becomes a case of social preservation and not just physical preservation. Architecture has a powerful dimension as a symbol of culture and both designers as well as the public must respond to the prevailing issues. As a cultural artifact, the urban environment is largely a reflection of the minds which have created it and if architecture hence created must convey a public idea, it must function as an element in a larger, collective structure. Neo-vernacular maybe defined as the conscious reproduction of vernacular forms, or their transformation into today shells. A part of its effort is to celebrate the past by producing symbols that give a sense of what this specific place means to its inhabitants and visitors over time. At this point it is important to understand that in using an image of the past, the circumstances that created the past cannot be reproduced. However nostalgia could be evoked through recreation of lost elements like diversity of scale and style of architecture. All of these are in time influenced by taste, political and regulatory framework, spatial, visual and social functions