Investigating Users Changing Needs in Relation to Non-designed or Unplanned Public Spaces in Cairo

Abstract

In recent studies, public spaces are defined as living organisms that are subjected to continuous change. These changes affect the different uses of the urban space, its composition and design aspects, in order to cope with the users’ changing needs. Rather than that, users intervene in the space formation either formally, by including the community and stakeholders in the design process fully or partially; or informally, by small or big actions done by the space users in order for the space to satisfy their current needs. Several spaces in Cairo are dealt with as leftovers of the buildings design and construction process. These spaces have passed through several changes that affected and was affected by the Cairines (Cairo citizens) and their culture of dealing with public spaces to accommodate their changing needs. The deficiency in public spaces in Cairo urban spaces is reviewed. And the inability of the formal designed/planned spaces to respond to the spaces’ users with their changing needs is investigated throughout the research. In order to focus on a public space in Nasr city district in Cairo, sequential mapping to the area over different ages is carried on, examining the changes -formally and informally- in the space to cope with area users. That is accompanied by surveys and questionnaires that aim to determine the needs of the users in the space and whether they are met or not. The questionnaire also aims to measure the level of intervention and satisfaction of the users in this space, to explain how its users intervene in adapting to the existing formal design, and to find out how these interventions shape and affect directly and indirectly the dynamism of the space as a formal planned public space. The paper aims to review and find out theories and practices that provide solutions for dealing with non-designed open spaces development in terms of users changing needs and contributions. The results from the study show some development considerations that need to be respected in Cairo public spaces with more concern for people’s usage and interaction with the space.