The Improvement of the Quality of Public Spaces on the Example of Student Competition Designs: A Case Study

The paper discusses the modernisation of public spaces being the subject of conceptual competition designs produced by students of the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology. The design phase was preceded by extensive studies. As a result of these activities, design findings and guidelines were formulated. They were framed in order to improve the discussed public spaces by means of the modernisation of functional, formal and ergonomic aspects. As a result, various architectural designs taking into account contemporary requirements related to this kind of facilities were produced. The paper proves that a competition for an architectural concept enables a broader look at the discussed issues, shows a full spectrum of solutions and, as a consequence, contributes to the improvement of the quality of discussed public spaces. The positive effect is, however, conditioned on the necessity to perform a wide spectrum of analyses ad pre-design studies.