Unique Projects of a Universal ‘Public Park Making’ Trend Viewed on the Example of Four Global Cities

• Main Author: Ekaterina Shafray
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-11-01
• Series: Urban Science
• Subjects: Public park making; landscape design; global features of a public park; nature in the city; global cities index; social activities city index; the Hills on Governors Island; Ginza Sony Park; Seoullo 7017 Skypark; Zaryadye Park
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/2/4/107

From a social perspective, successful cities compete with other cities and with each other for residents, resources, and economic power. The important characteristic of that is the number of outdoor social activities (events, festivals, forums, etc.) held in cities that are included in several cities’ evaluation indexes. Attempting to analyze the urban environment features that foster a productive ground for social activities, this paper correlates the number of social activities with the recent ‘public park-making’ urban regeneration trend. It considers four unique project case studies in New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and Moscow in the 2016⁻2018 years, with outstanding and ambitious designs selected to represent the trend. This paper analyzes the global ‘public park making’ trend for city’s urban regeneration with different scales of project interventions viewed through qualitative case studies. This paper puts forward a question of global features of a public park and continues the discussion on keeping a balance between local architecture and the global public park making trend, as well as public facilities and profit, and a role of nature as a universal remedy and tool in reshaping the image of cities.