Developing guidelines for waterfront pocket parks. Responsive opportunities along the Florence core riverfront

This chapter stresses that over the last few decades, environmental and social changes have created new forms of public space design according to community needs. The preservation of waterfronts and its cultural heritage must promote design for new living spaces and new urban conditions and opportunities that should be created. However, the nature in the city, the strengthening of various urban activities with respect for the environment are the main themes that waterfront design suggests. The various typologies of intervention are important to plan and design ecologically and sustainably the historic city and its waterfronts. Therefore, in a transforming historic waterfront environment it is necessary to design waterfront public spaces in order to: Create new places that are distinguished by high urban and social quality; Enhance waterfronts urban contexts by adding value to their cultural value; Protect urban landscape to meet a community’s needs; Create new living conditions of great social inclusion. Furthermore, it is also needed to define a ´pocket park´ intervention in order to create urbanity and quality of small waterfront urban spaces in the city and along waterfronts. Specifically, a pocket park is presented as a variation of spatial intervention, often a non-planned intervention, based on localisation, potentiality and charactrerisation of a micro space with a variety of functions and according to local needs.