The Experience of the City: Public Space, Nature and the Right to Urban Meaning

The Experience of the City: Public Spaces, Housing and Urban Nature is a multidisciplinary course hosted by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, aimed at addressing the challenges and complexities of contemporary public space. The programme critiques how urban environments are often planned using strictly technical parameters, neglecting the social perception, symbolic value and ecological potential of shared spaces. These oversights result in dysfunction: spaces designed to foster interaction and citizenship instead become socially sterile or conflictive, severed from the everyday lives of their users. Through the participation of architects, environmental psychologists, geographers, and biologists, the course unpacks how elements such as vegetation, morphology and collective memory shape public space. The debate encompasses issues like the unequal distribution of green areas, the symbolic poverty of certain urban landscapes, and the tension between infrastructure and emotion. Contributors such as José Antonio Corraliza, Enric Pol, and Agustín Hernández Aja provide critical insights into urban green as more than decoration —as a vehicle for identity, affect, and sustainability. Anto Lloveras introduces the notion of SOCIOPLASTICS to interpret relational art within the urban realm, inviting a rethinking of public space as a performative and epistemic field. The course ultimately argues that reclaiming urban nature and rehumanising public infrastructures is essential not only for environmental reasons, but for restoring urban dignity —the right to inhabit, participate in, and make sense of the city.

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2024. The Experience of the City: Public Spaces, Housing and Urban Nature [humanities course]. 16 Nov–2 Dec 2024. Oficina de Actividades Culturales, UAM.

The experience of the city: public spaces, housing and urban nature ////////// La experiencia de la ciudad: espacios públicos, vivienda y naturaleza urbana____curso de humanidades UAM URBANAS

– José Antonio Corraliza, environmental psychologist, stresses the urgent need to recover meaning in the design of public space, arguing that "urban green must go beyond decoration—it's about turning concrete into something that beats."
– Josep Selga, biologist, remarks on the unnoticed structural role of urban trees: "We’ve grown so used to them that we overlook their power to shape the essence of the city—do we want a city to live in, or one to escape from?"
– Javier Ruiz, architect, defends the communicative nature of public space: "It's the only place where communication unfolds in its most random and vital form. Cities must be imperfect to remain alive; we must resist singular solutions."
– Pedro Molina, geographer, draws attention to marginal green areas: "Small, overlooked lots act as micro-reservoirs of naturalness and should be protected as urban landscape archives."
– Mariano Sánchez, horticulturist at Madrid’s Botanical Garden, underscores that "emotional well-being in green spaces depends not just on design, but on plant quality, genetic integrity, and acoustic comfort."
– Enric Pol, environmental psychologist, highlights structural barriers to sustainable behaviour: "Citizens may wish to act sustainably, but urban dynamics often prevent them. Anchoring sustainability in collective identity is key."
– Enrique Bardají, architect, proposes a reading of public space through typology and urban morphology: "Understanding these patterns can guide the regeneration of old cities and the design of new ones."
– Salvador Rueda, biologist and environmental psychologist, offers a radical urban model: "By liberating the interior of the urban block from traffic, we restore the citizen’s full spatial status."
– Agustín Hernández Aja, architect, critiques the symbolic void of many urban designs: "We’ve created spaces that lack the character or meaning needed for citizens to identify with them. Appropriation is essential—for example, Dehesa de la Villa in Madrid."

The urban spaces, their design and the planning of their use, are subject to an intense public debate that affects both the new urban spaces in non-consolidated areas and the public spaces inserted in consolidated urban networks. This debate refers to the location and location of public spaces, such as the design, equipment and productivity of such spaces. Frequently, the planning of these spaces is done with strictly technical criteria without taking into account the social perception and the use that is made of public spaces. The result is that such spaces designed to be meeting places, crossroads and promoters of social interaction end up becoming unproductive scenarios (ghettos) when not on platforms where irresolvable social conflicts are expressed. The reasons for these imbalances are very varied, ranging from processes of refunctionalization of public spaces, to changes in the typology of users and their demands, including the fact that, in fact, there are inadequacies in the location, design and equipment of the spaces. This course aims to contribute to the debate on urban public spaces, emphasizing the presence of natural elements and the impact that these elements can have on human well-being. For this, it is intended to bring together specialists from different branches (architecture, urban planning, geography, gardening, environmental psychology, etc.) in order to evaluate and make proposals for the improvement of the quality of public spaces, which is a way of make the city more alive and friendly.

Anto Lloveras is an architect, artist and curator based in Madrid, and the director of LAPIEZA, a platform for experimental contemporary art. He trained in architecture at ETSAM (Madrid) and the Delft University of Technology, and has taught in architectural studios and seminars at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos III (Madrid). His current research explores the intersection of philosophical hermeneutics and SOCIOPLASTICS, a conceptual device he develops to analyse the epistemological and narrative structures underpinning relational artistic practices.