The Role Of Public Space To Achieve Urban Happiness

Urban happiness can be defined as a character which gives to the place a positive perception in people who live it and which induces them to spend long time there and/or to live there again the same experience. While it is quite comprehensible the identification of a happy place, more difficult is to investigate on how to obtain it. Aim of this paper is to present the Happy place mapping, carried out in the framework of CNR research projects. The Happy place mapping aims at: identifying sustainable urban happiness and the factors which make places happy from the users point of view; identifying design interventions to enhance or create it. The method consists in surveys, observations and questionnaires. A series of case studies have been carried out in Europe, USA and China. These case studies resulted in a Charter of Urban Happiness with 20 principles which is part of the method. The description of the software which can support the method, still in development, and observation both on the method and software conclude the paper.