Empirical Exploration for the Social Consideration of Urban Design Interventions

The book presents the research results of the project "Social Impact of Urban Design and Sustainable Development of Cities", which was implemented as a work package of the general program "Social Impacts and Public Policies in Energy, Industry, Urban Design and Infrastructure of the Internet" at the Institute of Social Research of the NCSR (EKKE). The subject matter of the project, work package of the aforementioned program, concerns the study of urban design interventions and the development of the field for exploring the social impact of urban planning and urban design regarding the sustainable development of the contemporary city. The exploration includes qualitative field research and case studies on public spaces that were redeveloped with urban design interventions in central and suburban areas of the city of Athens. The overall objective of the project is to set up a body of theoretical and empirical data appropriate for the scientific support of the project deliverables in the program. These  relate to the systematic review with possibility of meta-analysis in the context of planning and  of urban design studies  as well as to the formulation of proposals concerned with the social impact of urban design on the sustainable development of cities, and in particular for the city of Athens, which has constituted  the work example. For the needs of the project, a combination of methodologies was used both for the collection and creation of primary and secondary data, as well as in their analysis and for the representation of results. A set of methodologies and tools are elaborated in the project, related within the domain of interdisciplinary approaches of urban space, and by focusing on the way and the ability to ascertain and monitor the impact of urban planning and design interventions, which have been implemented previously or  will be implemented later and change the city's space. In particular, social groups are examined, by focusing to the way these are correlated to the spatial changes at both the level of the sites themselves and the level of the surrounding areas  that are determined as their integration areas into the local social and economic tissue. There is a incontestable need to control, with sustainability criteria, the mode the contemporary city is developed and expands. With this view, the proposals based on the results of the research work of the project seek to integrate interdisciplinary approaches and practices into the planning and design of sets of urban interventions as well as in the case of individual interventions..