Public space is not neutral: a trauma-informed approach
- Gabriele Carmelo Rosato
- Nov 5
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 11
On November 7, 2025, I was honoured to speak at the International Conference “Streets for People”, held in Venice and organised by the Environmental Accessibility cluster of the Italian Society of Architectural Technology (SITdA). The conference is part of a long-standing effort to reimagine architecture as a tool for psychophysical wellbeing and inclusive urban life. My presentation, titled “Trauma-Informed Approaches to Outdoor Spaces: Pathways to Inclusive Design”, offered an anthropological perspective on contemporary urban planning, grounded in a simple but often overlooked fact: public space is not safe for everyone as it is not neutral.
Trauma in the City: The Invisible Pair
We live in a world where over 70% of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event, yet our urban environments are still largely planned as if trauma were rare, private, or irrelevant. But the city is not a neutral backdrop: it interacts with our bodies, emotions, and memories. It can foster safety and belonging, or reinforce fear and alienation.
That’s why I argued for the importance of applying trauma-informed principles to the design of outdoor public spaces, especially for individuals and communities living with the long-term effects of trauma.
Beyond PEBA: Empathic and Participatory Design
My proposal focused on reframing the PEBA (Plan for the Elimination of Architectural Barriers) through a trauma-sensitive lens. This involves going beyond purely physical accessibility, to include emotional and perceptual thresholds that may prevent people from feeling safe or welcome in public space. In this perspective, removing a barrier doesn’t just mean providing ramps and signage—it means designing with care, with attention to memory, vulnerability, and cultural context.
A City That Acknowledges Such Wounds
A trauma-informed urbanism doesn’t only aim to avoid harm. It actively seeks to host difficult experiences without reinforcing them, to transform exclusion into presence, and to recognise the cracks in the urban landscape as traces of human life, not defects. In this vision, the city becomes a narrative space—a witness to pain, and a stage for collective reconciliation. Urban care is not only about infrastructure. It’s about relationships, memory, and the radical possibility of feeling at home, again, in the world.
The principles I have discussed can be translated into practical actions, and they are effective when users are involved: when you ask, ‘What makes you feel safe?’.
The slides can be downloaded here. 👇🏽
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