Based on the Köppen Geiger (KG) classification system, this review article examines existing studies and projects that have endeavoured to address local outdoor thermal comfort thresholds through Public Space Design (PSD). The review is divided into two sequential stages, whereby (1) overall existing approaches to pedestrian thermal comfort thresholds are reviewed within both quantitative and qualitative spectrums; and (2) the different techniques and measures are reviewed and framed into four Measure Review Frameworks (MRFs), in which each type of PSD measure is presented alongside its respective local scale urban specificities/conditions and their resulting thermal attenuation outcomes. The result of this review article is the assessment of how current practices of PSD within three specific subcategories of the KG ‘Temperate’ group have addressed microclimatic aggravations such as elevated urban temperatures and Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects. Based upon a bottom-up approach, the interdisciplinary practice of PSD is hence approached as a means to address existing and future thermal risk factors within the urban public realm in an era of potential climate change.

Assuming the importance of public space design in the implementation of effective adaptation action towards urban flooding, this paper identifies and systematizes a wide range of flood adaptation measures pertinent to the design of public spaces. It presents findings from both a systematic literature review and an empirical analysis retrieved from concrete public space design precedents. It concludes with the presentation of a conceptual framework that organizes the identified measures in accordance to their main, and secondary, infrastructural strategies. The intention behind the disclosed framework is to aid a multitude of professionals during the initial exploratory phases of public space projects that incorporate flooding adaptation capacities.

Urban public space is extraordinarily adaptable under a pattern of relatively stable changes. However, when facing unprecedented and potentially extreme climatic changes, public spaces may not have the same adaptation capacity. In this context, planned adaptation gains strength against “business as usual”. While public spaces are among the most vulnerable areas to climatic hazards, they entail relevant characteristics for adaptation efforts. As such, public space design can lead to effective adaptation undertakings, explicitly influencing urban design practices as we know them. Amongst its different intrinsic roles and benefits, such as being a civic common gathering place of social and economic exchanges, public space may have found an enhanced protagonism under the climate change adaptation perspective. In light of the conducted empirical analysis, which gathered existing examples of public spaces with flood adaptation purposes, specific public space potentialities for the application of flood adaptation measures are here identified and characterized. Overall, this research questions the specific social potentiality of public space adaptation in the processes of vulnerability tackling, namely considering the need of alternatives in current flood management practices. Through literature review and case study analysis, it is here argued that: people and communities can be perceived as more than susceptible targets and rather be professed as active agents in the process of managing urban vulnerability; that climate change literacy, through the design of a public space, may endorse an increased common need for action and the pursuit of suitable solutions; and that local know-how and locally-driven design can be considered as a service with added value for adaptation endeavors.