Description of Research in Relation to Placemaking :
The research focuses on community resilience, which provides a capacity to speed up the recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impact of crisis and helps to plan and adapt to long-term urban challenges. Public places are considered as useful tools for community resilience, if they have social adaptive capacities, with inclusiveness as their conceptual basis. The research explores main resources and activities of community resilience in public places and the benefits from the use of new and promising Blockchain technology in time of crisis to support these activities.
The research looks into the valorisation of public places, which should focus on the need of the community and capitalise on the social functions of the place, with inclusiveness as a main function. It is argued that inclusive opportunities in public places can be facilitated by employing co-creative practices, where co-creation is used as a tool to produce a new public value, to contribute to more inclusive decision-making process and to build a stronger sense of community ownership to the public place. It looks into contribution of digital technologies to the co-creation process by engaging people in the design, use and management of public spaces, providing new resources for interaction and users' empowerment.
Case Studies Conducted / Participated In:
Case Study 1. The effect of public places on urban resilience and the potential improvements by blockchain technology. A case study of the city of Volos (Greece) with prof K.Lalenis.
Case Study 2. Revealing the potential of public places: adding a new digital layer to the existing thematic gardens in Thessaloniki waterfront.
Case Study 3. The case study of urban identity of Kavala (Greece) connected to tobacco elaboration during the 19th and half of the 20th century with prof K.Lalenis
Case Study 4. UK perspective on the relationship between community and public places with underground built heritage.
Links to Institution / Personal Profile: