The project Urbanisation and Public Space in Eastern Attica: birth of a problematic «city»

The organization and design of urban and peri-urban space is directly related to the way it is developed and it is involved in the implementation of multiple economic and political choices. Nowadays, the thematic issues of growth modes and models of development re-emerge with the new conditions of the crisis affecting most countries, highlighting new data and new demands for sustainable development. New trends are being made in relation to the reorganization and planning processes of both residential areas in general, and coastal zone inside the metropolitan wider area in particular, while urban planning tools are called to respond to new requirements. In this context, the interest in public spaces is restated more and more frequently, and is expanding in terms both of their development processes and social and cultural considerations about their use. Public spaces are the meeting field for  the problems of creating and using communication networks and infrastructures in the city. In the framework of the project 'Urbanisation and public spaces in the East Coastal Areas of Attica: the generation of a problematic "city" ',  the urban development of the last decades in demarcated areas of second residences that where included in the master plan of the city with the procedures of the Law 1337/1983, is investigated in order to evaluate the changes that have been made in the respective areas basing on the application of the urbanization and land policy mechanisms and the way those mechanisms have contributed to shape the public / communal space. The project aims at highlighting the relationship between the non-planned mode of previous  development and the today creation of a  'new' wider regional area of particular peri-urban development. By studying specifically the formation of public open spaces, their spatial and social functioning is assessed for the wider coastal zone of Eastern Attica.