Engineering the Public Realm

Engineering the Public Realm for Thriving Sustainable Communities

Alex Camprubi Design Director PuBang Design Institute Guangzhou. China in collaboration with Isaac Landeros and Clayton Holmes

URBAN DESIGN Tsinghua University Journal 3 2016 - No. 005 CN 10-1376/TU ISSN 2096-1235 Key words: urban density, placemaking, creative class, urban identity, public realm, design strategies, urban proximity, sense of place, cultural effervescence

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Introduction

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Acknowledging the check list for “Place Making”: 12 strategies as a design tool to thrive urban developments

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Exploring the social need for creative class communities and their benefits within high urban intensity

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Engineering urban identity in an existing and growing city

Introduction How to achieve the ideal city has been a human quest since the dawn of our civilization. From ancient Athens to modern Manhattan, from the Ville Radieuse of Le Corbusier to Broadacre City of Wright, from the modular planning of the Zhou (周礼) Chinese classical standards to the ongoing sustainable plan of Singapore. We, as a civilization, have always strived to improve our built environment. But how can we translate from the ideals of utopia to a desirable, reachable, coherent urban reality? How can we transform our current sprawling cities into an exciting yet sustainable place to dwell? How can we measure the urban, social and economic variables in order to tailor our cities to become successful and thriving ones? These concerns are addressed in this essay with the belief that is possible to find new growth patterns for the coming years.

Much has been said about what the idyllic assets within the urban environment should be and now, more than ever, there is an extensive group of specialists from the most diverse fields of study dealing not just with urban matters but with the economic, social, cultural and natural factors involved in the design, development and maintenance of the metropolitan areas worldwide. In our urban based society we are increasingly urged to find accurate tools that allow us as designers, developers and investors to find the right ratio between well-being, sustainability and profit.

But instead of direct the attention to architecture, urbanism or cities, we should direct it first towards people. Frequently, as Edward Glaeser states, we tend to confuse a city, “which is really a mass of connected humanity, with its structures� (Glaeser, 2011). Cities are successful because of the people they attract. In order to understand the urban realm we need to understand people first, and the complex interactions we engage in within our communities.

When individuals get together they exchange experiences, knowledge, services and goods, and when they do it in the right environment these interactions multiply exponentially. Closeness equals development. Thus, one of the main purposes of our cities has been that of gathering diversity into a very compact area, even now in the digital age. Forsaking the sprawling city model, we would aspire to a much denser, pedestrian oriented, highly efficient, multifunction urban core. This is for the purpose of developing three key elements in the urban environment: diversity, proximity and ambiance.

These factors remain consistent throughout the major periods of development in historical and contemporary world cultures. Athens had its public squares, Paris its cafes and California has its Silicon Valley. All of these places encourage the easy encounter of people from different backgrounds in a specific location that allows free interaction. Most of the time these interactions take place in public spaces that are more related to the cultural effervescence of a city than to its technical or productive aspects.

If we see an image of New York, London or Hong Kong we might find urban elements that repeat (tall buildings, noisy streets and human congestion) but definitely we won’t mistake these places for each other. Regardless of their similarities they are instantly recognizable and distinguishable. These cities are attractive not only because of their buildings or landscapes, but also because of the cultural capital they hold. People, workflow, urban nature, food and markets, culture and language, an enormous amount of tangible and intangible forces materialize in the public realm.

People and companies alike are drawn to these places precisely because they are diverse, compact and have an exhilarating environment, traits which are emulated by many developing cities around the world. So, once again, how can we achieve the ideal city in a short time, taking into account as many urban variables as possible?

Placemaking / 12 Strategies Walking down the Ramblas in sunny Barcelona, one can go from a calm café to a busy market, from a department store to a magazine stand, from the seclusion of a cozy apartment to the bustling activity of the wide pedestrian boulevards with great ease. It has a human scale and a vibrant energy that is quite desirable in an urban environment. The ability to achieve this kind of place is now known as Placemaking.

Accordingly to the organization Project for Public Spaces based in New York, “Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of activities and connections (cultural, economic, social, and ecological) that define a place and support its ongoing evolution” (What is Placemaking?). The main obstacle of this planning approach is that takes time. Given the circumstances of today,where the population is growing disproportionately to the cityand developers and designers are competing in an ever-changing market we cannot expect to have the same time frame in which to develop our cities as we once did. Here is where we have to be innovative and audacious by proposing new design strategies that grant us the opportunity recombine people’s needs and predict the way they physically materialize. We need to find a way to measure, asses and implement these strategies in order to accelerate these ongoing urban processes in a successful and a thoughtful manner.

Another problem related to the placemaking approach is the tendency to label it as a flat model where its strategies are conceived mostly for public open spaces and not for a vertical enclosed environment. But as we want to achieve denser urban cores, vertical density has provided an answer and has become a new frontier for designing and investment; just take a look at the Burj Al Khalifa at a staggering 828 meters, as well as the more than 1000 skyscrapers at Hong Kong1 higher than 100 meters. According to Professor Mike Jenks2 there are two main ways to reach urban density and compactness: Building density: increasing ratio of foot print to occupied area (by increasing number of floors).

Density of urban activities: increasing number of different activities and functions that happen in one building.

While density might be desirable, we must change the status quo, which consists of designing, building and investing in random, impersonal, non-contextual, monofunctional urban blocks.

Instead, our thinking must shift to newer models of development to achieve the desirable features of placemaking by increasing both building density and density of urban activities. To this end, we are designing a set of strategies that could help us to effectively attain these goals.

These strategies employ a completely different perspective through all phases of the building process: measurement, analysis, design development of compact dense vertical communities.

The first twelve are enlisted here: 11,326

skyscrapers in Hong Kong. A skyscraper is defined on Emporis as a multi-story building whose architectural height is at least 100 meters. This definition falls midway between many common definitions worldwide, and is intended as a metric compromise which can be applied across the board worldwide.

2Burton, Elizabeth, Mike Jenks, and Katie Williams, eds. The compact city: a sustainable urban form? Routledge, 2003.

Proactive Communities Destination Poles Multipurpose Spaces Social Investment Surgical Urbanism (Interventions) Dwelling Identity Co-working Habitats Neural Spaces Flexible Mega structures Experiential Environments Centripetal Places Interactive Landscapes

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Proactive Communities A community is more than random people gathered together to a building or a district.

It is defined by their shared lifestyle, hobbies and interests. People like to feel valuable and helpful within their communities. By creating different social targets and by giving physical space to each of these targets, it is possible to generate personal investment in these community activities. Urban farming, bike trails, playgrounds, cultural forums, shared working spaces are just a few examples of how to create a Proactive Community.

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Destination Poles Instead of buildings let us create destinations. An Urban Destination is a place that attracts people regardless their background, age or education. It is a place so inter-woven with the city that the urban fabric seems a part of it. Transportation hubs, education and commercial districts and public plazas are all types of Urban Destinations.

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Multipurpose Spaces The mixed use development model has not been enough to fulfill the acceleration of the market changes and no longer suits the needs of a highly dynamic social economy. Therefore the necessity not just to increase the diversity of the uses in a given project but also to consider the life expectancies of each activity and the possibility to recombine during short periods of time. It means to combine the flexibility of an Expo with the impromptu nature of a Pop-up store, while mixing these uses with more permanent options.

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Social Investment Just as good design is translated into good business, investing in public space and in social projects also represents a direct increase in real estate capital. Happier people mean wealthier business. A Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) that allows

interaction with the surroundings will attract a greater flow of people who will interact with the development and its establishments.

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Surgical Urbanism (Interventions) “Urban Acupuncture� (De Sola Morales, 2008) focuses urban interventions in nodes that encourage regeneration of the urban fabric; moreover Surgical Urbanism adds up in the relevance of those actions, creates scenarios of its potential outcomes and analyses cost-effectiveness of any set of design interventions (architecture, landscape, urban, graphic, etc.); the Surgical Urbanism aims to study a vast amount of variables in order to achieve the best results in the shortest possible time. The example of Surgical Urbanism in the pedestrian streets in Curitiba is a compelling case study.

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Dwelling Identity Every residential unit has the personal touch that their dwellers bestow upon it; this uniqueness is reflected in every neighborhood building. It’s a kind of attractiveness that is peculiar and consistent to the idiosyncrasy of the people who live there. By adding the characteristics that the dwellers transfer to their environment, they have evolved and adapted their surroundings according to their needs. In this way each district ends up with an atmosphere that distinguishes it from any other. Unfortunately, we are standardizing the new urban development far beyond recognition, creating in effect clone towns that are identical and soulless. In order to boost the economy, to attract more people and investors each district, each block and if possible each residential unit has to keep a certain portion of uniqueness that at the end reflects a healthy, well integrated community. The Quartier Latin in Paris, Covent Garden in London or the well known SoHo in New York are places that have successfully kept increased and evolved Dwelling Identity.

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Co-working Habitat As the working trends around the world are changing, the places where we work are following suit. Architectural phenomena solidifies faster than social phenomena, and so other relation patterns are needed for our flexible current society. Spaces for shared co-working, changeable layouts and collaboration possibilities should commingle with residential, entertainment and services facilities.

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Neural Spaces Our mood influences our behavior as well as our consumption and investment patterns. Neurosciences have come a long way in deciphering the manner in which our brain works and how it is affected by the built environment. Now we have tools to help us understand how light variations, the color palette and material selection could influence our states of mind. Further we can understand how people behave under certain circumstances and predict behavior patterns and spatial repercussions.

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Flexible Mega Structures There has always been a dichotomy between open and closed space, and public and private developments. More often than is desirable cities, end up with an accumulation of buildings that are detached from their surroundings. A Flexible Mega structure must provide both Multipurpose Spaces and a highly porous public zone, allowing all the urban flows to transit freely through it. There should be a clear continuity to all activities and an easily-accessible way to bridge between street level and higher floors.

1.10 Experiential Environments Experiential Environments are specially-tailored spaces that stimulate all our senses while providing important information related to the surrounding environment. They facilitate the transfer of information on how a building, a public space, a district or even a city works by making evident graphic design in the urban scene and by adding iconic elements that help to landmark a certain situation, action or built element. The specific ethereal net sculptures by Janet Echelman are an example of such specific place making.

1.11 Centripetal Places Technology is a tool that facilitates communication between people. Unfortunately, this tool has its physical limits to the tangible three-dimensional world. New developments should consider that integration of both, digital technology with a physical interface to create a hybrid experience that is shaped by both physical and digital human interactions, therefore promoting a layered interchange and multi-faceted flows of resources and information.

1.12 Interactive Landscapes Beyond the Interactive Landscapes that Dutch designers have recently placed on the outdoor scene, there is a whole study on social interactivity in the public realm that highlights social behavior patterns as a result of excitement, novelty, and making available the capacity to modify your own surrounding through certain movements, facial expressions or tactile sensors. Walking in the street or sitting in a bench will not be the same, since these will trigger light, sound, and water sensors that create surprise. We have taken the game out of the PC’s into the park, the shopping center and the street in order to create magnets; attraction points that designers can employ to inspire recreational, commercial, educational or any other spaces to become a highlight.

This forms the beginning of a new design tool kit that allows us to explore innovative spatial configurations taking into account a wide range of variables. There is no fixed formula to achieve a great community and urban destination, but here there are ways to approach to each particular problem from a set of urban strategies that can be adapted according to each problem’s specific circumstances.

Creative Class “To thrive, cities must attract smart people and enable them to work collaboratively.”

(Glaeser, 2011, p. 223)

To reiterate, cities are more about people than they are about buildings, and people are a very complicated variable to predict. This is especially relevant for the real estate field as it is crucial to spot trends on time in order to predict any possible market fluctuation. The 21 st Century has witnessed a whole spectrum of social and environmental changes that are constantly recalibrating our early expectations on certain urban matters: the increase in natural disasters, the rural-urban exodus, international security matters, and the worldwide financial crisis are some examples. Following all this instability, it is possible to find a common thread which unites these occurrences and provides a set of clear urban responses that better suit the current scenario of uncertainty.

Amidst these fluctuations it seems there is a trend that attracts more capital, more diversity and more interest in a particular urban area by its inhabitants: The Creative Class as an economic propellor and urban catalyst.

The original definition of creative class, coined by the American urban theorist Richard Florida has its roots in the understanding of the “human capital” as the basis for regional development.

“The proponents of the human capital theory argue that the key to regional growth lies not in reducing the costs of doing business, but in endowments of highly-educated and productive people” (Florida, 2004). This model goes beyond the traditional assumptions of location, transportation or natural resources as the only reasons for urban development.

Furthermore, the creative class, or the “creative economy”, as popularized by the British writer and media manager John Howkins was estimated to be worth US$2.2 trillion at the beginning of the 21st Century with an annual growth rate of 5 per cent (Creative Economy Report, 2013).

But as stated in the Creative Economy Report of UNESCO, “the notion (…) remains a very broad one as it embraces not only cultural goods and services, but also toys and games and the entire domain of “research and development” (R&D). Therefore, while recognizing cultural activities and processes as the core of a powerful new economy, it is also concerned with manifestations of creativity in domains that would not be understood as “cultural”.”In this sense there are two main industries of the creative class to take into account: the cultural industries and the creative industries.

The cultural industries are deeply engrained to the local characteristics of any given society; they are more related to the traditional production ways and comprise a wide range of expressions such as music, fashion and design, some forms of art and media industries (radio, film, television, etc.) “All of these productive domains have significant economic value, yet also are vectors of profound social and cultural meanings”. (Creative Economy Report, 2013) On the

other hand, the creative industries include a broader scope of professional activities as they are a part of the innovation, research and development sphere.

Because of the broadness of its definitions, the creative economy should be seen “as a complex system that derives its ‘economic value’ from the facilitation of economic evolution – a system that manufactures attention, complexity, identity and adaptation through the primary resource of creativity.” (Cunningham, 2008) This leads to the understanding of the creative class as a factor that could boost urban development by attracting a wide range of professionals, companies and investors. However by no means it is the only factor necessary to an urban project’s success.

As broad as the definition for creativity, there is also a broad approach when talking about the classification of a creative economy. UNESCO has been given the task of gathering the main classifications in the table below (Figure 1.1) (Creative Economy Report, 2013)

The previous chart is accompanied by a concentric model expressing the relationship between the creative industries and their actors. Figure 1.2 (Creative Economy Report, 2013)

These two graphics show both the scope behind the creative industries and the open system of relations that could be created between them. What is interesting about these relationships is how the sector of economy could influence not only social trends, but also the urban realm itself, actually increasing the effectiveness of the place-making phenomenon within a specific vertical oriented development.

In order to understand this better, it is first is necessary to introduce the concepts of cluster and agglomeration that are tightly linked to the desirable compactness and density of the city explained before. A cluster is primarily known as a group of companies that had settled together with the aim to produce a particular product or service, as Silicon Valley has successfully done with the high-tech corporations. “The proximity of these firms results in vigorous competition, spurs innovation, increases opportunities to share information, augments aggregate demand for particular inputs, and reduces transaction costs. In the cultural and creative industries, clusters are vertically disintegrated networks of production units that can function flexibly when faced by high levels of instability and the risk that prevails in the production and consumption of cultural goods and services. These networks in turn foster the rise of local labor markets that are marked by an array of skills and sensibilities.� (Creative Economy Report, 2013) This clustering takes place in well-defined areas within the urban fabric, with particular characteristics that relate to a strong personality, typically a culture of creative activities occurring in areas with a strong sense of place. Barcelona@22 in the Catalonian capital or Factory 798 in Beijing exemplify this case. The successes of these clusters transform their surroundings and influence land value, attracting people and investments that support their primary activities. This phenomenon furthermore impacts public policies, market trends, and future projects in the city.

Just as clustering and agglomeration have been shown to be desirable characteristics in an optimal working urban environment, it has been shown that inflexible monofunctional districts will eventually suffer due to the lack of options to sustain the whole range of activities that an average citizen enjoys throughout the day. Here is where we have to identify and acknowledge what are the characteristics that attract us to certain places and which discourage us from visiting, in order to mix them with other assets to ensure a well-proportioned blend between attractiveness, functionality, use frequency and affordability.

Rotterdam has been an extraordinary reference in these matters. In the 1980’s the city was bustling during daytime working hours and was abandoned by night. The authorities turned all these around by investing in culture and cultural institutions, and it worked. In 2001, Rotterdam was declared European Capital of Culture, action that paved the way for future public investments of the city. By 2005, the local authorities had created an institutional program to support creative industries, including urban investments in Western Rotterdam. According to Leo van Loon, co-founder of the Creative Factory in Rotterdam, the support of his and other creative institutions generated over 10,000 new jobs, not including those related to other services (restaurants, clubs, and cultural spaces) (Rotterdam’s cultural policies and their impact). Is not a coincidence that in the past 2014 Rotterdam was elected as host of the 6th Asia-Europe Culture Ministers Meeting, where the main topic was “Creative Cities”.

Creative Factory itself has been reported as a great success. The 2010 report related to creative industries from the European network of cities (Eurocities) declares that “The Creative Factory has created around 150 Full Time Equivalent hours (FTE’s) in one of the most employment deprived areas of Rotterdam. The facility has housed over 110 companies in a little over two years. Every city wants a creative hub, but many find managing that risk a difficult undertaking. To alleviate this cost burden, the City of Rotterdam has put the risk of profit or loss with a private company and rents out its building at a fixed cost. In addition, “the Creative Factory has set up new partnerships between businesses, education and governmental bodies.”

All this with a budget of €5.4 million combined public and private funding that were used in different forms (i.e. Subsidies, investments, barters) (Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries – Good practices through European cities, 2010) This success is also acknowledged by UNESCO reporting impacts of this project such as the rapid growth of creative companies, affordable office space for start-ups, the enhancement of the surrounding inner-city area, stimulation of career development, collaborative cross overs between different industries and increased publicity for the sector. (Creative Economy Report, 2013) Cases like this demonstrate the potential of creative industries to change not only the urban environment but also the ways between public and private parties can collaborate, even the creation of new business models. In the United States alone, this employment force represents 2 million artists, 3.6 million cultural workers and 4.9 million cultural industry jobs, altogether a market of 11.5 million people leaving other creative industries aside. (Creative Placemaking, 2010)

This of course requires a planning strategy involving a diverse set of sectors and actors that are able to influence urban matters, but the added value it gives the urban environment is well worth of the effort. It is important to note that people are much more comfortable surrounded by an atmosphere that is able to offer entertainment, security, nature, identity, proximity and beauty, aspects that are promoted both by the placemaking approach and by the creative class.

With this in consideration Ann Markusen (Creative Placemaking, 2010) has coined the concept Creative Placemaking which explains the benefits of merging together the ideas of sense of place with the empowerment of the creative class.

Creative placemaking fosters economic development (Creative Placemaking, 2010) in the following ways: Recirculates residents’ incomes locally at a higher rate Re-uses vacant and underutilized land, buildings and infrastructure Crates jobs in construction, local businesses, and cultural activity Expands entrepreneurial opportunity for artists and designers Trains the next generation of cultural workers Attracts and retains non arts-related businesses and skills As has been described so far, placemaking is desirable as long as is able to adapt to a fast developing world and to the inclusion of vertical solutions that promote proximity, density of activities, diversity of functions and the extension of the public realm into the core of communities. Currently, the creative economies are already stimulating the development of highly active and concentrated urban cores, but these current models are not strong enough to rely entirely on them to achieve stand-alone successful property developments. What is needed now is to take all the previous mentioned variables and engineer, piece by piece, the urban and architectural policies that will transform our cities in that ideal place that we all yearn for.

Engineering Urban Identity “Good design is intelligence made visible” Alina Wheeler

Endless roads of dull high towers spreading in all directions across our cities are a sight we see far more often than we would like. This copy paste approach is erasing any trace of singularity from our developing urban environments. As Moshe Safdie said in the World Architecture Festival 2014 held in Singapore: “Skyscrapers are creating disjointed and disconnected cities”, something far from any urban planner’s aspirations.

The image that inevitably comes to our minds when we mention urban sprawl is the sprawling city, a horizontal menace that consumes everything on its way. At the same time, we need to be careful to control and ensure the quality and livability of the sprawling verticality, before vertical sprawl becomes the next urban epidemic. The urban nature of this vertical growth, and the condition of its attachment to a base are qualities that give us the sense of rootedness and stability.

Imagine that instead of those dull high towers we were able to design buildings that interact with the environment, both built and natural, creating exhilarating communities where the exterior public space is so well integrated to the functions and activities contained by the building itself that it would be hard to notice where one ends and the other begins, a place that helps its users perform every daily activity by linking at the same time the city's flows with the household tasks. A vertical community that considers diversity in order to foster any various forms of creative expression while strengthening its identity and sense of place. An innovative community that dares to be as urban-enriching as it is profitable. This is possible by tailoring the way previously mentioned variables interact between each other. It is first about the implementation of programmatic strategies that provide enough flexibility to cope with the ever-changing markets as well as perform as flexible frames to the occupants, their activities and the surrounding people.

As we are increasingly exposed to complex urban environments, it becomes increasingly critical to develop capabilities to analyze and measure variables in order to shape those environments appropriately, we must experiment with and implement new urban, architecture and landscape approaches in order to stay flexible. The urban designers Reid Ewing and Otto Clemente (Measuring urban design: Metrics for livable places, 2013) have done a wonderful job analyzing, describing and classifying the face of further change: The Street, what they consider the most important of public spaces, and the elements that make up this urban space.

Starting from the assumption that “inviting streets are the centerpiece of thriving, sustainable communities” these planners have undertaken the task of breaking into small pieces the complexity of the street as an urban element. The difficulty of this task lies purely in the amount

of tangible and intangible variables present and the methods used to assess them. In order to do so, they classified the perceptual qualities of the urban environment in 51 categories.

Adaptability Distinctiveness Intricacy Richness Ambiguity Diversity Legibility Sensuousness Centrality Dominance Linkage Singularity Clarity

Enclosure Meaning Spaciousness Coherence Expectancy Mystery Territoriality Comfort Focality Naturalness Texture Compatibility Formality

Novelty Transparency Complementarity Human Scale Openness Unity Complexity Identifiability Ornateness Upkeep Continuity Image-ability Prospect

Variety Contrast Intelligibility Refuge Visibility Deflection Interest Regularity Vividness Depth Intimacy Rhythm

By classifying the possible perceptions found in the public realm they could devise measurement tools that help to determine which elements we find appealing are and how those elements can be manipulated. This opens the possibility of engineering urban identity grounded in a solid, clear and flexible method.

But once again, we are constantly confronted with simplistic dichotomies such as exterior-interior, horizontal-vertical or public-private, that pose a problem in the urban design approach that has not been fully addressed as yet in practice. Martha Schwartz, in her 2013 lecture at ILIA Beijing, said “landscape is everything but the building�. What would happen if we start disintegrating those boundaries?

Engineering urban identity require breaking down urban complexity into its basic units without isolating them in order to understand how they are affected in relation to each other. These packages of information interact, altering in subtle ways our built environment, shaping it and burdening it with positive, negative and neutral connotations. By retrieving the filtered data from those interactions, it is possible to project the impact that any given design solution could imply. Therefore, the variables can be manipulated in order to reconfigure new urban information packages that could be recalibrated in proportions to guarantee the creation of a desirable identity and by doing so, engineer the success of the proposed urban intervention.

The classification of the basic urban information units (BUI) intends to be a comprehensive atlas of the urban variables to analyze and correlate them clearly and easily. This handbook aims to integrate a hierarchical summary of a wide range of factors that are employed in city making: social, cultural, spatial, natural, financial, governmental, political, technical, etc. with the final goal of clarifying their components into BUIs in order to understand and control their associations and the implications of

Camprubi, Alejandro.

Beijing. China

Engineering the Public Realm

Tsinghua University,

their alterations.

This model can potentially guarantee financial success by providing direct benefits to both the citizens and the city. It is a win-win approach that could lead us to a more pleasant, proficable and desirable urban environment.

Why does this matter for urban development? Because at the end good design is good business. According to the DMI (Design Management Institute) study, for the past 10 years design-driven companies have outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 — a stock market index of 500 large public traded companies — by a whopping 228% (Study: Good Design Is Good For Business). Design-driven companies are defined as those that make a significant investment in product design, smoother user experiences, beautiful branding and innovative advertising. Those companies spot opportunities and trends on time in order to define new paths.

Conclusion People are constantly attracted to metropolitan areas worldwide, a trend that shows no signs of slowing in the near future, and with this, the opportunity to achieve an ideal, sustainable, egalitarian city. The current negative urban sprawl has to be replaced by more compact, dense and multifunctional urban solutions, while at the same time, unfortunate vertical sprawl has to find better ways to relate to the built environment and to the changing speed of urban phenomena.

Placemaking, as an urban approach that tries to reconcile the detachment of urbanites from their new urban developments, gives some clues on how to transform our current cities into more friendly places. The raising of the creative class in order to leverage economic growth shows possible patterns to discourage featureless communities and promote desirable ones.

By breaking down urban complexity into basic elements is possible to start understanding the DNA of our cities, how we relate to it and what is that makes it attractive or uncomfortable. If we are able to take those basic urban information units and translate them into design strategies by recombining and adjusting them accordingly, it would be possible to engineer a desirable urban identity responsive to both the social needs and the market aims of a particular urban context.

Camprubi, Alejandro.

Beijing. China

Engineering the Public Realm

Tsinghua University,

Printed References

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Burton, E., Jenks, M., & Williams, K. (Eds.). (2003). the compact city: a sustainable urban form? Routledge.

Cunningham, S., Banks, J. and Potts, J. (2008). Cultural Economy: The Shape of the Field. In The CulturalEconomy. The Cultures and Globalization Series 2, Anheier, H and Isar, Y.R. (eds). London: SAGE Publications.

Ewing, R., & Clemente, O. (2013). Measuring urban design: Metrics for livable places. Island Press.

Florida, R. (2004). The rise of the creative class and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life (Paperback Ed.).

Glaeser, E. (2011). Triumph of the city: How our greatest invention makes US richer, smarter, greener, healthier and happier. Pan Macmillan.

Creative Economy Report. Especial Edition. (2013) UNESCO United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Markusen, A., & Gadwa, A. (2010). Creative placemaking. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts.

Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries – Good practices through European cities. (2010) Eurocities. The Network of Mayor European Cities.

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What is Placemaking?, Project for Public Space. Retrieved February 1, 2015, from:http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/ Hong Kong, Emporis. Retrieved February 1, 2015, from: http://www.emporis.com/city/hongkong-china

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Rotterdam’s cultural policies and their impact, Culture fighter. Retrieved February

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http://www.culturefighter.eu/regeneration-of-cities/regeneration-as-a-result-of-c reative-industries/rotterdams-cultural-policies-and-their-impact

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Study: Good Design Is Good For BusinessFast Company. Retrieved February 5, from: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026287/study-good-design-really-is-good-for-bu siness