Highly visual and containing contributions from leading names in landscape, architecture and design, this volume provides a rare insight into people's engagement with the outdoor environment; looking at the ways in which the design of spaces and places meets people's needs and desires in the twenty-first century.
Embracing issues of social inclusion, recreation, and environmental quality, the editors explore innovative ways to develop an understanding of how the landscape, urban or rural, can contribute to health and quality of life.
Open Space: People Space examines the nature and value of people's access to outdoor environments. Led by Edinburgh's OPENspace research centre, the debate focuses on current research to support good design for open space and brings expertise from a range of disciplines to look at:
an analysis of policy and planning issues and challenges
understanding the nature and experience of exclusion
the development of evidence-based inclusive design
innovative research approaches which focus on people's access to open space and the implications of that experience.
Invaluable to policy makers, researchers, urban designers, landscape architects, planners, managers and students, it is also essential reading for those working in child development, health care and community development.
Part 1: Policy Issues: What are the Current Challenges in Planning for Inclusive Access? 1. Public Spaces for a Changing Public Life 2. 'The Health of the People is the Highest Law': Public Health, Public Policy and Green Space 3. Playful Nature: What Makes the Difference Between Some People Going Outside and Others Not? Part 2: The Nature of Exclusion: What is the Experience of Exclusion in Different Contexts? 4. Culture, Heritage and Access to Open Spaces 5. Landscape Perception as a Reflection of Quality of Life and Social Exclusion in Rural Areas: What Does it Mean in an Expanded Europe? 6. Mapping Youth Spaces in the Public Realm: Identity, Space and Social Exclusion Part 3: Design Issues: Where are the Design Challenges and What Does Inclusive Design Mean in Practice? 7. What Makes a Park Inclusive and Universally Designed?: A Multi-Method Approach 8. 'You Just Follow the Signs': Understanding Visitor Wayfinding Problems in the Countryside 9. Developing Evidence-Based Design: Environmental Interventions for Healthy Development of Young Children in the Outdoors 10. Healing Gardens for People Living with Alzheimer's: Challenges to Creating an Evidence Base for Treatment Outcomes Part 4: Research Issues: Where are the Research Challenges and Which Theories and Methods Offer Most Promise? 11. Measuring the Quality of the Outdoor Environment Relevant to Older People's Lives 12. Three Steps to Understanding Restorative Environments as Health Resources 13. On Quality of life, Analysis and Evidence Based Belief
