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| In the realm of architectural discourse, people are always talking about the loss of public space. In reality, nothing is further from the truth. Since the end of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of new roads have been created that are free for public use. And while such roads are primarily intended for drivers and the automobiles they drive, increasingly one finds that the public uses them, their medians, and their edge spaces in several other ways. Some of the uses include homeless shanties, protest space and areas for the distribution of information, like newspaper stands. Businesses and individuals, unable to afford a billboard often staple advertisements to a telephone pole, and community organizations often advertise their events by staking a sign into the ground. Panhandlers and solicitors for charitable (and quasi-charitable) organizations also find such spaces good for not only making money, but also for getting their message across. And its not uncommon to see fringes of roads looked after by corporations and other organizations, who sponsor medians and stretches of roadways by planting new shrubs, taking care of existing plants, and by cleaning up litter through programs such as Adopt-A-Highway. Thus, public space is not being lost, its actually being gained. What is being lost, however, is good public space.
In the precedent section of this webpage, one will find a section drawing of the Vienna Central Library, designed by architect Ernst Mayr. The library he designed is located in the median of the road, above a subway line, and flanked on either side by light rail transit. Because it is surrounded by a road that carries a lot of traffic by foot, transit, and car, it successfully keeps the pedestrian scale of the surrounding environment, rather than dividing it by slicing it up with a major thoroughfare.
Suburbs can benefit from this precedent for a variety of reasons. First, it provides clues as to how to make major roadways more pedestrian—by occupying the median. Second, it also provides clues as to how to make the unofficial town centre of suburbia, the shopping mall, more public—by providing public facilities and public spaces within the existing roadway rights of way. The result is the establishment of a symbiotic relationship that will encourage infill retail and housing development in the axis in between.
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