Beyond public spaces: shared spaces in the contemporary city. How to define design strategies for open spaces.

Public space has always been a protagonist in the construction of the form of the city, the text aims to investigate the relevance of the concept of 'public space' and the continuous variations which have changed its meaning. It is necessary to go beyond the concept of ‘public space’ to understand the semantic boundaries of this definition: today, the relational spaces and the shared spaces are the forms with which we can express the concept of public space. Moreover, it is possible to observe the increasing construction of places that have different degrees of publicity and different relationships between interior and exterior. The gradual spread of new forms of communication has transformed the static view of public space in a more dynamic condition, the classic distinction between the square, street, garden has lost its meaning leaving space to fragments, residues, absences. The places of contemporary public space are defined, nowadays, as the residual spaces that come from the abandonment of industries. The large voids mono-functional, that originate from the industrial disposal, should be reconsidered as new shared public spaces, where the integration between different functions lead to reactivate new forms of re-use of built space.