Being the vital element of successful cities, public spaces play an important role in achieving sustainable development goals and in coping with climate change. The new urban agenda considers public spaces indispensable for sustaining the productivity of cities, social cohesion and inclusion, civic identity, and quality of life. Accordingly, there is no doubt about the importance of public spaces, while their quality is generated through the symbiosis of various elements. On the basis of normative theories of urban design, several public space design frameworks have been established in order to define what makes a good public place. Such a framework for public space quality evaluation is developed and tested at the Chair for Planning and Design in Landscape Architecture at the University of Belgrade—Faculty of Forestry. The framework covers six criteria which illuminate key aspects of public spaces: safety and security, accessibility, legibility, comfort, inspiration and sensitivity and liveability. In this research, special attention is paid to the criteria of comfort analysed on two scale levels in Belgrade, Serbia. In the past, Belgrade was affected by extreme weather events that caused serious and sometimes disastrous consequences. The most pronounced challenges among them are heat waves in summer that, due to the shortage of vegetation combined with the proliferation of tarmac and concrete surfaces and reduced air ventilation, particularly threaten the densely populated central municipalities of Stari Grad, Savski Venac and Vracar. The first scale level covers the analysis of the public space network and the degree of establishment of green infrastructure in Lower Dorcol quartier, which is located in the Municipality of Stari Grad, using quantitative and qualitative indicators and GIS (Geographic Information System) digital tools. The aim of this study is to observe the actual state of the public space network and to define a future scenario of its development in line with climate change challenges. Jevrejska Street, as an element of the above-mentioned public space network, is the subject of the next phase of the research. The study on this scale level will cover qualitative and quantitative analysis of public space elements such as paving, urban equipment, greenery, lighting, water facilities, etc. Next to that, by using the ENVI Met platform, the actual and proposed improvement of the street will be explored. The final part of this research will include a discussion about the research methodology used in order to improve the public space design process and to point out the need for the careful consideration of comfort as an important aspect of good public space.

The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed a growth in our understanding of the importance of planning urban landscapes in the context of urban population growth and unpredictable climatic conditions. In the search for responses to the challenges set by the development of contemporary urban landscapes, researchers have offered solutions based on the concept of sustainable and resilient cities, whose spatial development would be based on an interdisciplinary approach to strategy development: biodiversity, urban ecological networks and connectivity, multifunctionality and modularity. Although the concepts of a green infrastructure, in their spatial and functional dimensions, allow the application of such strategies, there are still problems when it comes to implementation and measuring the results achieved. At the same time, there is a growing discussion of the important role played by urban forestry in the context of the collaborative planning of urban landscapes and the application of the ideas of a green infrastructure. The key question is: what are the modalities of application of the concept of green infrastructure in the process of planning the development of the modern city and how can the resulting benefits be evaluated? With the modalities of application of the concept of green infrastructure in mind, we discuss its multi-scale and multifunctional dimensions as applied in the case of Serbia. The realisation of the green infrastructure concept is presented through the example of the Urban Forest Management Plan for the City of Belgrade - Mladenovac Municipality. The results of using the spatial-ecological approach in creating the plan and establishing connectivity as a new aim in forest management planning show that the implementation of the green infrastructure concept, and the achieved multifunctional ecosystem values, can be presented on the basis of the parameters of landscape metrics. In light of the new urban world, future research should focus on the application of the landscape ecological approach of the green infrastructure concept in collaborative planning at the urban landscape scale, which allows the creation of ecosystem services and benefits to human well-being.

Purpose: This paper aims to present the potential ofplacemakingas an approach of sustainable urban facilities management and its impacts on the improvement of the planning procedures which was aimed at involving citizens in the process itself. The study is based on the general concept ofplacemakingrepresented as an “overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighbourhood, city or region”, that serves as a process that “inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community” (PPS, 2007).Design/methodology/approach: The study used placemaking (onsite analysis, stakeholder identification, citizen survey and emotional mapping) and public participation geographic information systems (The Kernel Density tool in ArcGIS and hot spot analysis) methodologies to map problems and preferences identified by stakeholders related to particular spaces within the move formed by Maršala Birjuzova and Sremska streets in Belgrade. The research covered two-day stakeholders’ workshops including four groups of users participated in the workshop – pupils of local private high school, street residents, students of the Faculty of Forestry and the Faculty of Architecture and owners of local shops and businesses.Findings: Research has shown that different stakeholders can offer very rational observations on the quality of a particular space and provide clear suggestions on its improvement and transformation. These proposals can be organised in the form of visions of the future appearance and functioning of the space, thus recognising the potential in the function of a sustainable urban facilities management tool in the form of creating a common idea, which will result in the creation of a common space.Research limitations/implications: The research covered only part of the process that resulted in the creation of an idea of future public space transformation. Continued research should be conducted after the intervention, which would give a more comprehensive picture of the effects of the approach.Practical implications: Practical implications include the presentation of the ways different groups of users perceive the actual and future transformation of the street to make this place more user-friendly and sustainable, i.e. practical example of the co-design process.Originality/value: This paper provide an overview of the possibilities ofplacemakingapproach seen from the perspective of sustainable urban facilities management.

Spatial and urban planning are directed towards achieving territorial cohesion as one of the sustainable development goals. Considering the hybrid concept of green infrastructure, this paper aims to provide an “ecological model” of achieving territorial cohesion in spatial and urban planning. Based on the connectivity level analysis between green infrastructure elements (green infrastructure hubs, nodes, gateways and dots), application of the GI concept guides the development of spatial planning scenarios. The application of Voronoi diagrams and landscape graph-based principles contribute to defining the shortest distances between green infrastructure elements, which resulted in the definition of the significance of structural and functional arrangement of green infrastructure dots in the matrix of the urban rural continuum in the territory of the urban-rural landscape of three case studies in Vojvodina, Serbia (Novi Sad, Subotica, Zrenjanin). As a result of this study, green infrastructure dots showed a great potential of application at the local level by developing them through landscape design with creative and artistic elements in order to achieve higher level of cohesion through visual attractivity, multifunctionality and recreation. The level of connectivity between elements of green infrastructure should be considered as an indicator of the sustainable spatial development goals achievement, in the field of nature conservation and territorial and social cohesion.