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Public Space, Infrastructure, Landscape: An Interdisciplinary Matrix for Urban Spatial Continuity

Spatial growth of cities corresponded to new theoretical and practical knowledge capacities with new kinds of urban infrastructures, new services organisation and new construction methods, of XIX and most of XX century’s industrial space production. The decline of those capacities and a “crisis” of modern models, followed by the still on-going post-industrial transition process of the past 50 years are translated in many different forms of spatial, social, economic and cultural organisation and diversity of emerging urban contexts. Contemporary processes seem to carry difficulties in understanding and conducting urban transformation in such diverse and changing context. What strategic elements can be used to interpret and act in such contexts? In this paper we intend to show an interdisciplinary perspective of public space as part of strategic and theoretical principles recognised by several fields of urban knowledge and practice: we include the spatial continuity of the Commons in those structuring principles, as a notion of urban “publicness”. These new perspectives require a perception of public space that goes beyond traditional city references, to other peripheral or scattered urban areas, but maintaining its fundamental structuring role, as systemic and interactive reference for complex urban environments. Through a study on the specific case of the South Bank of Lisbon Metropolitan Area, we present a conceptual operative matrix, based on the hypothesis of strategic interaction between urban systems, aiming for its structuring potential for spatial continuity – public space, infrastructure and landscape. Outputs of this study aim at a contribution to a more flexible and interactive structuring approach to urban design and planning, focused on interdisciplinary perspectives of public space production.