ABSTRACT
The designing process followed in creating squares, or any other artifact, often seems to be irrational. “The pseudoscience of planning seems almost neurotic in its determination to imitate empiric failure and ignore empiric success,” as Jane Jacobs noted (1961: 183). Municipal officials and designers are seduced by bold images of what they have seen or read about. “Why don’t we create a place like Paley Park in New York?” or “We need to have something like Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester.” They consider squares as products and seek to adapt prestigious examples to an available site. Following such a process can lead to a successful result if the climatic, sociocultural, urban and economic context of the precedent is close to the situation in which it is being applied. Many ideas are indeed transferable across sociocultural and even climatic boundaries because of unrecognized latent demands. The High Line in New York has a precedent in the Promenade Plantée in Paris; the Goods Line in Sydney has a precedent in the High Line. Outdoor cafés work as well, with some climatic management techniques, in Copenhagen as in Rome. The latent demand for such places existed in New York and Copenhagen respectively. The case studies in Chapter 12 were not presented as precedents but rather as a basis for the design principles presented in Chapters 13 and 14. Much can be learnt from specific cases but designers need to retain a critical attitude in considering whether a potential precedent or some aspect of it is applicable in the situation they face.
