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Links between urban areas and public space have always had a central presence in the field of Urban Sociology. During the last four decades, and in relation with globalization processes, reflection about city places and what constitutes the “public” has increasingly been in line with what has been called an “emplacing heritage process,” which emerged as a controversial point of intervention in urban areas. In this sense, itineraries have been considered of primary importance in urban heritage signification, recognition, and symbolic production. In short, these routes appear as ways in which public space is materially and symbolically occupied, becoming emplacing heritage processes in themselves.

In this chapter, we study two heritage-making processes through neighborhood itineraries, which are carried out in district territory and are located in two peripheral neighborhoods belonging to the City of Madrid (Hortaleza and Carabanchel). Ultimately, the point here is that these routes are not merely a pathway that “goes” along acknowledged heritage places; these itineraries are an emplacement and a signification of patrimony itself. These processes act as markers of iconic places and as remembrance performances of neighborhood memory. We would argue that routes around historical places in Carabanchel, as well as the “Three Wise Men” popular parades in Hortaleza bring shared geographical imaginaries, collective memory, and iconic places together in everyday experiences of both places. These itineraries change both urban sites in terms of their neighborhood heritage by disputing spatial discourses and imaginaries of heritage, urban place, and neighborhood.

This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.

Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.

The scope of this chapter is place and its identity in view of global changes. The ground for undertaking the topic is the belief that by conscious activity undertaken to protect the value of places we are capable of facing modern changes involving the homogenization of space.

Today we are witnessing a rapid destruction of the existing urban forms, leading to fading legibility of the city structure, destroying the state of subtle balance between space and place, and shaking the sense of identity of city inhabitants. The values of identity, legibility, and a traditional network of meanings and symbols are fading away. The space of flows supplants the space of places, evoking essential changes in the functional structure of cities, almost all over the world.

Is it possible to preserve the tradition and identity of place under globalization conditions? It is a challenge for architects, urban planners, decision-makers, investors, and inhabitants. One potential role of the urban planner is perceived as active participation in creating new qualitative social attitudes, as well as undertaking mediating, promotional, and educational activities. Tools that could be helpful in shaping a new model of place involve comprehensive discussion and education in the field of the value of space, shaping social awareness and grounds for social development. It may be concluded with some caution that such comprehensive discussion will contribute to raising the level of knowledge about the world and the sense of the value of space.

Al-Tahrir Square (Liberation Square, in Arabic) is one of the main public spaces in Cairo, Egypt, and was the focal point for the Egyptian Revolution of January 2011. Although Tahrir Square is traditionally a noisy disliked crowded traffic zone, people gathering and demonstrating during 2011 transformed the a space into a livable interactive civic place (Bricoleurbanism, 2019). The study integrates three main subjects affecting each other: first; Tahrir history and its architectural description, second; activities and events of 2011 revolution at Tahrir and thirdly; theories and concepts of place/space transformations. Many space and place transformation cycles of the Al-Tahrir square have been studied for over a century. It shows that transformation happens when a “meaning” is added and “memories” turn into “behavior” and belonging (Pallasmaa, 2014). This chapter discusses how both the functions and the mental image of Al-Tahrir Square changed with the events along with the behavior of its occupants during 2011.

The square was analyzed to discover the mechanisms, motives, and reasons that caused such change. Furthermore, a comparison between Tahrir Square's status before and after 2011 was offered, according to “New Urbanism's successful places criteria” (PPS, 2009). Recently, physical and moral evacuation of the square deliberately enforced to replace its iconographic status as a place of revolution, with ancient Egyptian elements. This study elaborates on these results demonstrating how Cairo's Tahrir Square is a remarkable example of the dynamic nature of public spaces turning into places, and then into spaces again, due to actions of authority or the will of people.

Libraries can be seen as the collective identity of its employees engaged in providing a myriad of services to a community of patrons. Libraries can also exist in virtual settings, defined with descriptive parameters, described by a wider user group external to the library environment. The diverse nature of what constitutes libraries is illustrated by researchers, such as Marino and Lapintie (2015), who use the term “meta-meeting place” when describing its environs. Whatever model is used to describe contemporary libraries, the library environment usually has numerous needs and demands coming from a variety of stakeholders, from administrators to patrons. This chapter examines how we, as librarians, with users, co-construct library as both space and place.

We used a theoretical framework (social constructionism) to show how library identity is established by its users in the space planning process to address their needs and expectations and provided a case study of the main library at the University of South Florida.

We found that libraries are reflective of the vision and values of a diverse community and the social-political milieu in which they are housed. Librarians used a number of innovative methods and frames to create best/evidence-based practice approaches in space planning, re-envisioning library functions, and conducting outcomes/programmatic assessment. For librarians to create that sense of place and space for our users requires effective and open conversations and examination of our own inherent (and often unacknowledged) contradictions as to what libraries are or should be as enduring structures with evolving uses and changing users. For example, only a few of the studies focused on the spatial use and feel of libraries using new technologies or methodologies, such as social network analysis, discourse analysis, or GPS, to map the use of physical and virtual space.

First, new ways of working and engaging require reexamination of assessment and evaluation procedures and processes. To accomplish this, we must develop a more effective culture of assessment and to use innovative evaluation measures to determine use, user paths, and formal and informal groupings. Changes that affect patron and staff perceptions of library as place/third space may be difficult to assess using quantitative surveys, such as LibQual, that may not provide an opportunity for respondents to provide specifics of what “place” means to them. Second, it is important to have effective communication among all members of the library (patrons, library staff, and university administration) so that we design spaces/places that enhance the relationships among users, technology, pedagogy, and learning spaces, not just the latest “thing” in the literature.

This value of this review is to provide a social constructionist perspective (frame) on how we plan library space. This approach provides opportunities to truly engage our patrons and administration in the co-construction of what “our library” should be since it provides insight to group, place, and social dynamics.

This chapter draws on 10 years of ethnographic fieldwork collected in gay bars from three American cities to explore the strategies LGBTQ subcultures deploy to recreate meaningful places within the vestiges of local queer nightlife. As gentrification and social acceptance accelerate the closures of LGBTQ-specific bars and nightclubs worldwide, venues that once served a specific LGBTQ subculture (i.e., leather bars) expand their offerings to incorporate displaced LGBTQ subcultures. Attending to how LGBTQ subcultures might appropriate designated spaces within a gay venue to support community (nightlife complexes), how management and LGBT subcultures temporally circumscribe subcultural practices and traditions to create fleeting, but recurring places (episodic places), and how patrons might disrupt an existing production of place by imposing practices associated with a discrepant LGBTQ subculture(place ruptures), this chapter challenges the notion of “the gay bar” as a singular place catering to a specific subculture. Instead, gay bars increasingly constitute a collection of places within the same space, which may shift depending on its use by patrons occupying the space at any given moment. Beyond the investigation of gay bars, this chapter contributes to the growing sociological literature exploring the multifaceted, unstable, and ephemeral nature of place and place-making in the postmodern city.

This chapter proposes a place atmosphere model, which can be used for all types of space, from the landscape to the municipality to the property. In addition to the emotional aspects, this atmosphere model also describes the socio-cultural, economic and ecologic dimensions that can shape an atmosphere. It is modelled in such a way to permit connecting to the theory and practice of brand and destination management in particular and to the model and process ideas of the planning, design and construction industries.

The professional discourse on academic library planning and design is examined. A critical realist philosophical stance and a constructionist perspective constitute the theoretical framework that, paired with Fairclough's methodology for critical discourse analysis, is used to examine the constitution of interpretative repertoires and of a discourse constructing the academic library as a learning place. The information commons, learning commons, and library designed for learning repertoires are described and the effects of discursive activity are analyzed. Three types of effects are presented: (1) the production by the LIS community of discourse on academic libraries of a sizable body of literature on the information commons and on the learning commons, (2) the construction of new types of libraries on the commons model proposed by Beagle, and (3) the metaphorization of the library as business. The study concludes that the existing discourse takes a facilities management perspective dominated by concerns with technology, equipment, and space requirements that does not address the physical, psychological, and environmental qualities of library space design. Consequently, it is suggested that architectural programming techniques should be used in library planning and design that consider the architectural features and environmental design factors contributing to the making of a place where learning is facilitated.

This chapter focusses on multi-local families and more specifically on the ways in which children of separated parents, living in joint physical custody arrangements, define and construct their ‘home’ in a context of circular mobility. It is based on two case studies drawn from ongoing fieldwork conducted in Belgium with children aged 10–16 in the context of the ERC Starting Grant project ‘MobileKids’. The main aim is to understand how family relations structure children’s ‘life spaces’ and ‘lived space’ (di Meo, 2012). The authors explore in particular the meanings and feelings that family relations confer to the space of the ‘house’ in children’s experiences, including both the physicality of the place of residence, and the relations and emotions that children attach to it (Forsberg, Autonen-Vaaraniemi, & Kauko, 2016, p. 435). The authors also highlight the various strategies that children develop to mediate/influence their family relations through ‘space’, including strategies of spatial appropriation and territorialisation. The authors conclude by summarising the main findings and considering future developments.