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One of the innumerable ways to systemise contemporary European urban projects is to analyse the urban form originates from the master-plan concept. The duality of closed and open urban situations is an excellent conceptual tool for classification. This classification helps us to recognise, understand and represent the diversity of the city, as it is present on each level of a settlement and architecture.

In the case of “Solid-oriented” projects construction and emplacement of buildings are the main goals. The principle of “Solid-oriented” projects are based on two very different, still existing traditions One is the classical European closed block structure, while the other one is the Modernist open urban system. Today we can identify two new approaches combining those two traditions in different ways. Urban transparency preserves streets, the effect of enclosure, and the dominance of buildings. At the same time density is coupled with spaciousness, blocks are fractured and the environment becomes more complex even within one block. The in-between method, based on the idea of structuralism, attempts to balance the importance of mass and space and creates permeable blocks in a new open urban structure. Besides creating urban volumes or buildings in the city, there is a new type of challenge in contemporary urban design. Since the 1990's attention has shifted to cityscape, i.e. to re-interpreting and reforming open spaces. The international literature calls this un-volumetric architecture. The duality of openness and closedness also appears here. While openness seems to dominate urban situations in contemporary cities, buildings are predominantly used in a closed manner.

Security is one of the most important challenges for contemporary integrated urban developments. In Hungary, every strategic document highlights this goal, seeking social and smart city solutions to the problem. Yet, what about crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)? The purpose of the paper is to introduce a Central-European perspective into the international discussion of the topic.

Focusing on European Union-funded renewal of public space in the historic city centre of Budapest, the research investigates how urban security can be facilitated through urban planning and design. The analysis of two projects based on design documents and interviews with actors highlights the importance of CPTED, although it is not recognised officially either in the development or in the management phase.

March 15th Square is an attractive contemporary public space in the tourist-historic city centre. The project was centrally planned, executed with typical EU indicators, but without any special requirements for security. The process resulted in a safescape. By contrast, the main principal for the renewal of Teleki László Square, the first Hungarian example of community-based planning, was to instil a feeling of security. The public square became a fenced defensible space.

The analysis method can be used for other projects evaluating changes in urban security due to public space renewal: history, requirements for security, design solutions for space division, materials and urban furniture, as well as use of space and management after the regeneration.

The paper uncovers Hungarian cases where environmental crime prevention criteria are not explicitly but implicitly present in contemporary urban planning and design. In relation to urban security, it highlights the gap that exists among disciplines, indicative of a lack of dialogue among policymakers, researchers, designers and management.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a Central-European perspective into the international discussion of the participatory place-making. The research focuses on the renewal of the large prefabricated housing estates, dominant type of urban housing in the area where after the privatisation process resident-owners own only a so-called floating plot under their block. In total, 80 per cent of the land of the whole neighbourhood remains public. The question is how participatory place-making works in this specific urban, social and cultural situation?

By introducing the topic from a theoretical point of view, the study is based on research conducted in Budapest’s Újpalota Housing Estate. Fieldwork, project analysis and interviews uncover the complexity of this Hungarian case where appropriation of residents, municipality and European social regeneration projects are simultaneously present with different types of participatory methods.

The majority of real changes in Újpalota – as well as in housing estates of post-Communist countries in general – are led by individual or common appropriation that sometimes becomes convincing participation. This informal transformation of the built or natural environment can create a small sense of place everywhere. At the same time, it can work against the architectural and urban character of a neighbourhood or a building, rendering a feeling of disorder.

The paper based on this Hungarian case shows that the real culture of participatory place-making is still missing in post-Communist context, and despite some good examples, the majority of people are inactive, waiting for changes to be made by leaders.