On Public Space. Exploring Liminal Spaces in the Contemporary City

The contemporary city offers us multiple visions of very heterogeneous spaces. Suburban areas, large buildings-containers, liminal spaces of old centres, open spaces, fields and streets are translated into new potential urban phenomena that we could call public. Reading and recognising these types of spaces that are between different material and immaterial conditions offers the contemporary architect a new way of intervening, transforming and returning to the community places that are too often residual or unrecognised. Public space becomes a pretext for imagining, but above all for recognising, the new places for urban life, places that are no longer fixed, but changeable, reactive and adaptable to the dynamics of society and the needs of the community.