THE SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS FOR FULFILLING THE MULTI-FUNCTIONS OF MEGA PUBLIC SPACES IN CITIES. THE CASE STUDY OF RAMSES SQUARE, CAIRO, EGYPT

Abstract

Thesis Summary Public spaces are considered the mirror of people’s daily lives. In each urban context, public spaces perform different functions to satisfy the needs of different users interacting with public spaces. The fulfilment relationship between needs of users and functions of public spaces requires different significant aspects to be existed in order to help public spaces to fulfil those needs. These aspects can be listed under four qualities of public spaces as accessibility, environment and facilities, uses and activities and sociability. On the other hand, several crosscutting problems face public spaces and affect negatively the performance of them specially in developing countries such as Egypt and in congested cities such as Cairo with very high congested mobility and enormous number of population. The congested mobility and disorganized distribution of activities in public spaces minimize the performance of public spaces to the extent of being just mobility node -sometimes unsafe- regardless the other aspects of environment, uses, entertainment, sociability etc…