Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (PSUC) is a thematic group established under the umbrella of the Association of the European Schools of Planning (AESOP) as an initiative of Sabine Knierbein (Ass. Prof. - TU Vienna - Austria), Ceren Sezer (Architect and Urban planner - TU Delft, Urban 4 - the Netherlands) and Chiara Tornaghi (Reader - University of Leeds/ Coventry University - United Kingdom) in April 2010. The main aim of the group is to generate an international and an interdisciplinary exchange between the research and the practices on public spaces and urban cultures. By doing so, it aims to support research, planning, and a design agenda within and beyond the AESOP community. In this paper, we present the members, the organisation, working themes, meetings, and the publications of the PSUC.
The PSUC invites practitioners, academics, governmental and non-governmental professionals, and further interest groups to join the Group’s activities in several ways: by hosting or participating in the Group’s annual meetings, workshops, conferences and roundtables; by initiating new research projects, publications or other types of work (e.g. participation in international expert commissions, consultancies, and as such; by becoming active innovators of academic curricula in urban studies and related fields on the issues of public spaces and urban cultures; and by being active in the online forums and discussions of the Group).
Currently, the PSUC consists of 45 members, who are both researchers and practitioners working with public spaces that are located mainly in Europe, but also in Canada, the United States, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Bangladesh.
