Learning from Small Green Spaces: How Findings on Use and Perception Can Improve the Designing of Urban Experience

Abstract

Small Green Spaces (SGS) are an urban feature that planners consider with increasing interest to regenerate neighborhoods and to promote a healthier and more frequent relationship between people and nature in cities. In this contexts, urban studies have devoted less attention to social dynamics taking place in SGS than to those happening in large urban parks.

This research illustrates the results of a study on human perception and use of SGS in Florence, Italy. The research adopted an exploratory approach with a mixed methods strategy (observation sessions, 50 in-depth interviews, and 430 questionnaires). The analysis is framed within a tripartite model of interaction between people and space as spontaneous appropriation of space through the body, senses, and mind.

The analysis of practices in SGS illustrates how continuous use and proximity make SGS persistent scenarios of users’ daily life, differently from large city parks. Sociality and restorative opportunities afforded by natural features define users’ experiences and SGS appreciation, across different user groups.

Discussion of results illustrates several implications of the theoretical constructs of “functional indetermination” and “non-normativity” that were used to explain users’ perception of SGS as open-ended settings. Functional indetermination is related to the range of practices users can perform in SGS and to the ways opportunities for actions are afforded, both by the SGS natural and designed features. Non-normativity is the perceived freedom from external constraints, often contrasted by users with the experience in other kinds of urban spaces. Both constructs explain how SGS are perceived as spared from the extensive compression of publicness and commodification of other public spaces in contemporary cities.

The understanding of these perceptions feeds back into the design, planning, and management of SGS, with implications for the urban experience at large.