ABSTRACT
Scholars have traditionally focused on the ecological function of urban parks. Lately though, ecology is playing a secondary role, as demonstrated by many newly awarded parks. The ‘people’s park’ typology, with a strong emphasis on design and program, is seen as a potential everyday space that can promote social wellbeing. This research aims to find out what about design makes the ‘people’s park’ a convivial place. We conducted a pilot study at Superkilen, a ‘people’s park’ in Copenhagen, testing for markers of conviviality. Observations show it is a robustly convivial environment. To test how design can influence the level of conviviality in the people’s park we developed a checklist based on scores. The findings at Superkilen show that there are correlations between a park’s level of conviviality and the scores obtained. This methodology will be tested in other parks – successful and non-successful – in order to make it generalizable. The significance of the research lies in the development of this methodology or checklist that can serve both in the design phase as well as on the diagnosis to assess the design problems of underperforming parks.
