Relation of the Green Structure and the Appropriation of Public Spaces in Large-Scale Residential Areas

Abstract

More than a half of residents in some capital cities of the former Socialist block live in large-scale residential areas that had been built from the 1950s to the 1980s. The public space satisfaction in the areas is low, the residents rarely appropriate the yards and streets of the housing complexes. The aim of the paper is to provide a framework for the understanding of residents’ assessment of public space and its relation to the appropriation; the framework can be used for the development of building or landscape architecture projects focused at reconstruction of the public space. Public Space Quality Model is generated in the paper. The model includes three spatial categories that are defined by metrical values, configuration components and dominant spatial elements – elements that determine size, category, and the structure of a space. Using the observation method in the residential areas of the former East Berlin, the research concludes that the model demonstrates the highest precision of predictability of the appropriation intensity of the public space when the green structure is used as the dominant spatial element. A method accompanying the model is presented in the paper that permits to use specific types of trees or shrubs in particular distancing and concrete arrangements to create spaces of high, medium, or low appropriation level in large-scale residential areas.