Exploring Collaborative Public Space Design: In Conversation with Luisa Bravo


Luisa Bravo is a public space scholar and passionate activist, cultural entrepreneur, and academic. She is the Founder and President of City Space Architecture, an Italian non-profit organization promoting public space culture at the global scale in partnership with UN-Habitat. She has initiated and is currently leading several public space projects, including The Journal of Public Space, the Public Space Academy, the web-magazine Mastering Public Space and the Public Space Museum in Bologna. She is Adjunct Professor in Urban Design at the University of Florence. 

Q: What does user experience mean in your work?

LB: Public space, by definition, serves a diverse range of users, each with unique needs, behaviours and ways of engaging with the space. Prioritizing their experience means putting aside preconceived ideas, actively considering different perspectives, and encouraging open dialogue throughout the process. In my experience, inclusion challenges that seem difficult at first can often be resolved by bringing people together and encouraging honest, constructive dialogue and conversations. Active listening, respect, and a willingness to understand what is most important to each group are essential. True inclusivity is about consistently including every voice and every need throughout the process, not just during meetings aimed at appeasing stakeholders. Caring, building trust, and maintaining credibility for all engaged users are key to effectively collecting these different demands and including them in the workflow.

Q: How do you integrate user experience into your projects, and what do you believe are the key elements of designing public spaces that truly meet the needs of their users?

LB: Being on the ground is crucial to designing public spaces according to users’ needs. Observing everyday spaces, during the day and at night, in different light and weather conditions, during the week and at weekends, reveals the dynamic and ever-changing nature of users and their activities. Effective design requires both a keen sensitivity to these evolving needs and the flexibility to adapt to their complexity. Public spaces should incorporate a level of openness that allows users to shape and transform them over time, as they are often better equipped than designers to adapt spaces to their daily lives. Users have imagination and the ability to improve their own everyday spaces in many different ways through the use of creative ideas and tools within spontaneous actions and practices. Designing public spaces is a collaborative process initiated by the designer but continuously shaped and redefined by its users.

Q: How do you see the role of interdisciplinary and participatory approaches in shaping the future of public spaces?

LB: In my work at City Space Architecture, which aims to promote public space culture, interdisciplinarity is one of the key pillars. Public space is so rich in perspectives and understandings that it is always inspiring and stimulating to discuss with academics, practitioners, artists, community leaders, and activists from different backgrounds and countries. Defining a space for dialogue and participatory approaches is crucial to shaping the future of public space: societies are exposed to political instability, financial crises, increasingly difficult economic circumstances and growing social inequalities, oppressive legislation and hyper-bureaucratic systems, the rise of conflicts and social uprisings to reclaim civil rights, all factors that exacerbate divisions rather than promote solidarity between individuals. As the Brazilian architect and mayor of Curitiba, Jaime Lerner, wrote in a brilliant article published in the New York Times (2015): “A city’s design must be a collective construct, a shared dream so that a feeling of co-responsibility informs our efforts.” The ongoing debate about the design and use of public space is, at its heart, a debate about the rights and democratic processes that shape our society. Each of us can be an active part of the dream of better public spaces, bearing in mind that we are not alone and that the only way to convince others that public space matters is to lead by example. This is why I have created the Museo Spazio Pubblico in Bologna, to reaffirm that now, more than ever, we must unite to promote values and beliefs that are deeply rooted in public space.