Ten years ago, in 2011, The Charter of Public Space started to be created and in the 2013 Biennale dello Spazio Pubblico it was adopted (www.biennalespaziopubblico.it).
The Charter - composed by 50 principles for quality public spaces - developed a partnership with the United Nations Programme for Human Settlements (UN-HABITAT) as a contribution to the Habitat III Conference and to the drafting of its plan of action, aimed at offering a definition of public space and at proposing clear and concise principles for the creation, management and enjoyment of public spaces in cities. The Charter has been disseminated at numerous international fora, translated in seven languages and formed since a basis for the Global Public Space Toolkit (https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2019/10/global-public-space-toolkit-from-global-principles-to-local-policies-and-practice.pdf).
In recent years international recognition of the importance of public space has grown, as witnessed by the New Urban Agenda and by Agenda 2030’s Goal 11, and in particular its public space target (11.7). At the same time, new challenges and new approaches have emerged in relation to urban public space.
In view of the above, the sixth Biennial of Public Space has included in its objectives a relaunch of the Charter through an updating process which, as before, intends to be transparent and open to all.
The Biennale’s programme envisages on next May the Charterplatz 2.2 online event on the updating of the Charter of Public Space. We are collecting proposals about it by anyone is interested in it, namely architects, planners, historians, economist and so on.
Charterplatz commences as of now in virtual mode, with an invitation to send suggestions for the updating of one or more principles of the Charter to the following e-mail addresses: marichela.sepe@gmail.com
Deadline is April 30th 2021.