Inclusive public spaces in Montrèal: design requirements in a multicultural perspective

Since the last decades, architects, urbanists, sociologists have been arguing the role of public spaces as aggregation and relation junctions within urban physical, social and economic dynamics. Collective spaces’ shape, dimensions, structures, finishes directly influence the quality of people’s lives. The design, planning and management requirements enhance or restrict peoples’ sense of belonging, acting on feelings of security, boundaries, mobility, health. Among the North American metropolis, Montreal distinguished, since its foundation, for its urban spaces creativity. In the last decades, Montreal municipality has been strongly working to preserve local identity, improving urban lifestyles and reducing social gaps between citizens. Architectural design has been assumed as a disclosure opportunity for granting an active preservation of the original quality of life, promoting a pedestrian use of spaces, making infrastructures more efficient, maintaining the character of the different boroughs, saving all the natural spaces from transformation, and integrating them into the urban development scheme. An inclusive design approach has been informing the renewal experiences realised in the last ten years in public spaces; these have been thought as dignified, accessible, affordable, safe and easy to use. The paper deals with the inclusive design requirements that have been supporting the renewal experiences of the Quartier International de Montréal, taking into account their attitudes in terms of sociability fostering and tourist attracting. Square Victoria and Place Riopelle are proposed as master examples of an inclusive approach to physical, economic and social dynamics management, through the realisation of public spaces responsive to people’s needs, flexible in use, convenient, welcoming to a wide variety of people, able to make them feel they belong and accommodate. Consultation has been the key to inclusive design approach in a decisional process that has lead Montreal, due to its outdoor public spaces, to become one of the most significant examples of urban life renewal in a multicultural perspective.