Mixed use development at urban district level and publicness. The case studies of Bicocca in Milan and Hafencity in Hamburg

There are 3 typical research areas about mixed-use development: “WHY – the reason to insist mixed-use development”, “WHAT – the definition and the genre ” and “HOW – the realization”. In the WHAT area, it’s still ambiguous on several definition; while in the HOW area, most researches are focused on individual case studies, there’s a lack of exploration on approaches to achieve the success of development. Based on document research, there’s a particular lack of research on mixed-use development on urban district level, which is the study object of this research. Firstly, specific land use size is identified in the research. Secondly, the reasonable function type, scale are discussed. Then the research makes effort in the “HOW” part to find out the factor which could contribute to the success of development. As the development at urban district level is a public event, the research chooses a public perspective, focus on the “publicness within the development”, and analysis its influence on the success of development based on a publicness framework. The research studies on Bicocca project in Milan and Hafencity project in Hamburg, makes comparison of “apparent functional mixture”, “publicness within the development” and “functional mixture under the publicness perspective”; also makes interviews on both sites. As the results indicate, from the “lens” of publicness, the virtual functional mixture is quite different from the apparent functional mixture. The difference shows the limitation on the special accessibility as well as social segregation. Based on the interviews, the virtual functional mixture is more close to the reality. The analysis of interview also indicates that, publicness works positively on the success of the development; in another word, a high level publicness within the mixed-use development of urban district, could help to result in a successful development.