Academic literature on the topic 'Urban leftover spaces'

In a metropolis and metropolitan public space, increased attention has recently been given to overlooked and uncontrolled spaces. Considered as spatial 'voids,' 'idle spaces,' 'interstices,' and 'in-between' spaces, they all have one characteristic in common: 'the waiting for use' potential that can be ignited by users' creativity and tenacity, and with designers taking the role of 'enablers' rather than 'deciders'. Hence, urban leftover space becomes meaningful place with a strong local identity, enabling new connections and maximising its socio-spatial potential. This paper analyses Tokyo as a paradigmatic case study to investigate the roles of local spatial practices in the process of leftovers' identity (re)construction. More so than other global metropolises, the city represents a living laboratory for experimentation due to its compactness and the variety of small-scale urban patterns. A combination of ethnographic observations and visual analysis is applied as a trans-disciplinary method to investigate small-scale urban leftovers in Tokyo's traditional urban tissue of the shitamachi districts. This approach allows an understanding of how individuals transform and utilise leftovers, which become a dispersed constellation of tangible spaces of identity. Extrapolation of home into a public zone of liminal leftover space, through appropriation and care, becomes the key to the resilience of local identities.

Cities worldwide are urgently moving towards a more resilient and sustainable future. On this quest, national, regional, and local governments apply a combination of socio-spatial tools that regenerate and transform the city’s leftover spaces. There is an abundance of community gardens, cultural centers, and large-scale urban developments that, through programmed activities, reactivate underused spaces. The bearers of this process are professionals and individuals who have become aware of their actions in the contemporary urban landscape. This paper highlights possible design strategies that domesticate leftover spaces of diverse scales by injecting creative and playful programs, using Tokyo as a paradigmatic case study. More so than other global metropolises, the city represents a living laboratory for experimentation due to its compactness and the variety of urban patterns. Its leftover spaces demonstrate how play positively affects everyday life in public spaces, and how it enables extraordinary uses. A combination of ethnographic observations and spatial analysis is applied as a trans-disciplinary method. This approach allows an understanding of how people use playfulness to transform, appropriate, and utilize leftover spaces, which serves as guidance for urban planners and designers.

The construction of urban highways within and around the city has resulted in a significant amount of residual spaces, which are rarely incorporated into official planning and design efforts. This literature review paper provides an overview of space underneath elevated highways delivered by urban leftover space: What types of leftover space have been discussed? Which underneath elevated highways have been identified in leftover space? 112 scientific papers were analyzed for their 1) leftover space terms applied, 2) space underneath elevated highways studied, 3) current or potential underneath elevated highways discussed. Through the review, we found that although different types of space have been identified in leftover space, most studies did not consider underneath elevated highways synergies and trade-offs. The literature review highlights two knowledge gaps for future research: Firstly, the existing research on residual space under urban viaducts has been exhaustive in terms of connecting with environmental attributes. Secondly, the content of the social interaction and use of the remaining space under the viaducts can be connected to the content of the environmental attributes. The existing gaps in the research indicate the importance of exploring the potential impacts aimed at utilizing leftover spaces. By highlighting the value of the environmental attributes of under-bridge spaces, the literature study promotes the recognition of the association of social interactions with the environmental attributes of under-bridge spaces and further outlines future research directions for the remaining under-bridge spaces in the urban design process.

The built environment, urban processes, and experience all work together to create the spatial environment of a city. Many urban spaces, especially those that appear to be ‘leftover’, do not reflect a set concept but are constantly questioned and recreated. Recognizing leftover spaces in an urban environment is an important aspect of the urban redevelopment process. Researchers have highlighted the difficulties, circumstances, and relevance of making good use of leftover space. To accomplish environmental and social benefits, these places can be created, changed, and incorporated into the main urban fabric; however, there is a scarcity of knowledge on how to go about constructing such environments. This study explores the visual perception of two groups of people, those with knowledge of the built environment and those with other educational backgrounds regarding leftover spaces in Wellington City. The research, which employs a mixed approach, consists of three studies, beginning with a visual preference study to better understand human perceptions, which might lead to better design solutions. The second study looked at differences in design preferences across the built environment and non-built environment participants. Finally, individuals from the built and non-built environments participants were invited to a focus group discussion for study three. To summarize, the findings demonstrated that adding vegetation is a crucial design feature. The findings refute the hypotheses of non-built environment specialists have different design perceptions for a built environment.

Residual spaces are the leftover spaces such as the spaces under flyovers. These spaces further act as physical barriers in the city’s urban form.. The spaces under flyovers have been neglected, left underused, even in some cases, remain frightening, and unattractive. These spaces provide local communities with various opportunities. In the city of Lahore, there is a lack of public places that enhance social interaction. There are many possibilities of transforming the dead and unused spaces under flyovers into creative venues for various communal activities. This paper attempts to focus on the concept and importance of leftover spaces, while identifying and analyzing the type of social space according to the presented concept of Lefebvre.

The Urban Heat Island phenomenon and urban overheating are serious consequences of urbanization resulting in impacts on thermal comfort levels, heat stress and even mortality. This paper builds on previous findings on the topic of non-constructible parcels, small vacant or built spaces in Municipal Beirut, some of which belong to the municipality while others are privately owned and which might be used for different functional purposes. This paper further examines the possibility of implementing cool surface or paving materials and urban vegetation to reduce air urban temperature, especially during the summer period and with the view to project the positive findings of this case study to the entire Municipal Beirut area. A numerical analysis using ENVI-met 4.0 investigates the thermal performance of these non-constructibles further to implementation of high reflective surfaces and urban vegetation on a broad neighborhood scale, taking the Bachoura District as a reference case for a typical summer day. The best air temperature reductions correspond to the use of cool material in areas that are far from buildings where there are no shadow effects. In some cases, the introduction of trees leads to an increase of the air temperature near the ground because they became an obstacle of the natural ventilation. Results show a maximum mitigation effect with the use of cool materials that lead to reductions in air temperatures up to 0.42 °C if used alone and up to 0.77 °C if used in combination with trees. Within the framework of an integrated approach to planning, this form of urban intervention aims for substantial overheating reduction.

Urbanization, a global phenomenon has gained attention due to Poor urban planning often posing hazards to individuals’ and environment. This research investigates negative impacts of leftover and grey areas and their utilization to promote sustainable urban environment by enhancing ecosystem services by implementing Green Infrastructure specifically focusing on Dhaka’s context. The objective is to assess the strategy’s feasibility and impact on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11, through both qualitative and quantitative analysis including field survey, green area assessment, thermal environmental measurement, structured interview and relevant case study analysis is done to understand the current scenario and priorities. Findings highlight the loss of green spaces exacerbating environmental issues, particularly thermal conditions. Furthermore, the misuse of leftover spaces has negative environmental, social, and economic repercussions, yet presents an opportunity for green integration, minimizing the challenges of acquiring large green development areas that’s appreciated by dwellers and scholars. The case studies shows the feasibility, significance and potentiality of implementing various scale, pattern of Green Infrastructure. The outcome offers valuable insights and policy recommendations for policymakers, local government officials, architects, and urban planners to enhance integrated urban development and climate-resilient plans for Bangladesh.

The present study reflects on spontaneous nature’s agency to reclaim abandoned urban areas in Italian urban brownfields, providing a focused analysis of the Metropolitan Area of Milan. These spaces are the products of phenomena, such as deindustrialization, demilitarization, and uncontrolled urban expansion, which have produced a compromised heritage and challenges to regeneration. Such abandonment sometimes produces new forms of urban nature, which suggests a possible path for ecological regeneration and coexistence, as affirmed by the multidisciplinary literature. The related informal urban biodiversity grows regardless of future planning provisions, triggering unexpected transformations of the urban environment and producing socio-ecological value, as demonstrated by citizens’ recognition of these places. The present study maps informal urban biodiversity in the Milan territory, identifying the presence of large contaminated sites, relevant urban voids, vacant lots, and former agricultural spaces. This study also reflects on possible paths for urban planning and policies to integrate informal urban biodiversity within the urban ecological structure by analyzing the main features and challenges of the corresponding regeneration processes.

New revitalization and regeneration strategies are currently taking place as a scheme for reassessing urban spaces. This paper, as a result, navigates the theory of Urban Acupuncture (UA) as a quick and effective tool that can be adopted in large cities. Using Riyadh city as a case study, it discusses how this tool can be used to achieve maximum results with minimal effort in the most critical places. Riyadh city is the capital of Saudi Arabia and is considered as one of the fastest-growing metropolitan cities in the Arab world. Through time, it has transformed into a city with leftover open spaces and an ever-increasing population. The study commences by exploring the term UA and its principles and similarly presents some of its successful international examples. It thereafter delves on the past and current situation in the city to show some of the challenges it faces. The study aims to develop a filtering framework for selecting a suitable sensitive spot that can be used to apply the concept of UA. A conclusion is made that as a small-scale space approach and a progressive concentrated urban renewal strategy.

The planning of cities and transformation of social, political and economic structures have resulted in open spaces of two types. First, the type of open space that is planned and designed and the second type, that is undesigned. These undesigned open spaces are referred to as leftover spaces. They are unused roof tops, or space under a flyover that is vacant, or spaces behind a building that are unattractive or a parking lot that is empty on weekends. Their nature, appearance and qualities vary from context to context. Some cities are recognizing the untapped potential of these spaces and are working towards revitalizing them. The narrative of a city can change when these spaces are incorporated into the urban fabric of the city. Malmö, as a city with so much industrial history and one in the forefront of sustainable development, is also home to many leftover spaces. These spaces could be a test ground for working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Leftover spaces are also already being recognized for different needs such as temporary uses, artworks, tactical urbanism, environmental design. This thesis maps the types of leftover spaces in the city using different methods and suggests a typology of spaces for the city. Case study examples from Scandinavia and strategies that were inferred from them form the basis of linking these spaces to the SDGs. These leftover spaces are not ‘seen’ by the city and pose various challenges such as ownership, funding and the building traditions of Sweden. This discussion will put Malmö, Sweden and broadly Scandinavia among the other studies done on the realm of leftover spaces.

Les espaces délaissés urbains (EDU) (friches, vacants, délaissés...), historiquement sources de réappropriation citoyenne depuis la fin du XXe siècle, pourraient permettre d'interroger la fabrique de la ville actuelle autour d'enjeux de transition. Dans un contexte institutionnel davantage tourné vers les EDU de grande envergure, cette recherche à l’interface entre l'économie comportementale, les sustainability transitions et le champ de l'aménagement, repose sur le postulat suivant : l’intégration de parties prenantes citoyennes dans les décisions d’aménagement se montrerait bénéfique pour activer le vaste potentiel des EDU de faible envergure, en révélant, au-delà de la seule valeur marchande, certaines formes de valeur parfois propres au public comme des valeurs de lien social et de reconnexion à la nature. Dès lors il est nécessaire de révéler les systèmes d'acteurs et de gouvernance impliqués dans la mobilisation des EDU en tant que ressource, et notamment les jeux de valeurs qui leur sont propres et motivent la réalisation des comportements de transformation et de gestion des EDU. Ces valeurs, porteuses d’innovation sociale, se diffusent progressivement dans la société et se renforcent au travers de réseaux amorçant des transformations à une échelle plus large. Ce processus interroge alors le statut des EDU dans les stratégies des villes, comme potentiel d’expérimentation et d’adaptation d’un modèle urbain résilient. Cette thèse s’appuie sur une étude de cas multi-sites, combinant diagnostics territoriaux (approche spatiale, historique, socio-démographique, paysagère et environnementale, du projet de développement) et entretiens semi-directifs (d’habitants, d’acteurs de l’intermédiation, d’acteurs de l’aménagement). Elle porte sur deux expérimentations de transition urbaine sur des espaces délaissés, l’une à Nantes dans le cadre du dispositif des "15 lieux à réinventer", appel à la créativité des citoyens nantais pour s’approprier le "petit" patrimoine de leur ville et l’autre à Montréal dans le cadre du projet "Nos Milieux de Vie !", proposition post-développementaliste qui favorise l’expérimentation de formes alternatives de vivre ensemble
Urban leftover spaces, which have historically been a source of citizen reappropriation since the end of the 20th century, could be a way of examining how cities are made today in a context of sustainability transition. Against an institutional context that is focused more on large- scale brownfields, this research, at the interface between behavioural economics, sustainability transitions and the field of planning, is based on the following premise: the inclusion of citizen stakeholders in planning decisions could prove beneficial in unlocking the vast potential of small-scale urban leftovers, by revealing, over and above market value alone, certain forms of values sometimes specific to the public, such as the values of social inclusion and connection with nature. It is therefore necessary to reveal the systems of actors and governance involved in the mobilisation of urban leftovers as a resource, and in particular the sets of values that are specific to them and motivate them to engage in behaviours of transformation and management of urban leftovers. These values, bearing hallmarks of social innovation, are gradually being spread throughout society and strengthened through networks that lead to transformations on a wider scale. This process raises questions about the status of urban leftovers in city strategies, in terms of their experimentation and adaptation potential for a resilient urban model. This PhD thesis is based on a multi-site case study, combining territorial diagnoses (spatial, historical, socio-demographic, landscape and environmental approach to the project) and semi-structured interviews (with citizens, intermediation actors and city planning stakeholders). It focuses on two experiments in urban transition in urban leftovers, one in Nantes as part of the ‘15 lieux à réinventer’ programme, which calls on the creativity of Nantes residents to take ownership of their city's ‘small’ property, and the other in Montreal as part of the ‘Nos Milieux de Vie !’ project, a post-development proposal that encourages experimentation with alternative ways of living together

In a world studded with forgotten leftovers and abandoned buildings, there is a need to consider rethinking the traditional approach to design and architecture by imagining, instead of great new works, myriad precise interventions that bring all those spaces back to life appear forgotten and without value. Working on dismissed buildings is about multiple stories, forgotten beauties, and human absence. It's about fighting over-production and over-consumption in a world in which it's totally normal to buy and throw away things even if they are still new. Society needs to use what it's already built because it's enough. Society needs to use what it's already built by thinking of it in a new, more flexible, sustainable, and ethical way. Cross-disciplinary approach, short-time interventions, and low-cost interventions are the clue solution to make those abandoned architectural leftovers live again. This chapter proposes ethically, flexibly, and sustainably considering the variety and complexity of these spaces as a starting point and value and an effective opportunity to study contemporary urban dynamics.

In the pursuit of sustainable built environments, this paper delves into the innovative realm of Temporary Use (TU) strategies within communities in-between spaces. Urban spaces evolve entities and the efficient utilization of transitional spaces which holds immense potential for fostering community engagement, environmental stewardship, and economic resilience. This paper, using the case study method, aims to explore the multifaceted dimensions of TU practices, emphasizing their role in redefining the dynamics of urban living.Under the framework of TU, the research team conducted several on-field projects to explore and test the impact of TU in the KIC community in Shanghai from 2022 to 2023. From these cases, this discourse encompasses diverse perspectives, ranging from different types of TU and discusses their strategies and sustainable impact. By scrutinizing these case studies and ongoing projects, we aim to decipher the strategies that transform leftover or in-between spaces into vibrant community hubs. These spaces present opportunities for fostering social cohesion, promoting sustainable practices, and catalyzing economic development. This paper not only contributes to academic discourse but also provides practical guidance for policymakers and urban planners striving to create resilient, vibrant, and sustainable urban environments.