Between the Planned and the Lived City: New Road, New Dawn

The material discussed in this chapter concerns the experiential qualities and representations of how urban dwellers may occupy the city. The chapter aims at a better understanding of the multisensory city and at exploring how its mediations could add to representing, describing and designing city spaces in different and innovative ways. By advancing a new spectrum of experience and engagement, designers have the potential to shape the cities that are re-presented. Currently, there is a gap between the ‘planned’ and the ‘lived’ city and a lack of focus on socio-spatial practices often prevents a ‘potential’ city from becoming an ‘effective’ city. In order to bridge the gap, we can read the city in a different way, paying more attention to actual patterns of activity, in sensory terms. To do this we must look to multi- and interdisciplinary studies with a spatial focus on different sensory dimensions and urban life.