Public Space Academy / Keynote Lecture by Vikas Mehta

The Public Space Academy is proud to present the Keynote Lecture Series, featuring leading academics, practitioners and urban innovators working on the theory and practice of public space.

The first keynote lecturer is Dr. Vikas Mehta, the Fruth/Gemini Chair, Ohio Eminent Scholar of Urban/Environmental Design and Professor of Urban Design at the School of Planning, College of DAAP, University of Cincinnati.
Dr. Mehta’s work focuses on the role of design and planning in creating a more responsive, equitable, stimulating, and communicative environment. He is interested in various dimensions of urbanity through the exploration of place as a social and ecological setting and as a sensorial art. This work emphasizes the sense of place and place distinctiveness, design and visualization of urban places, cities, and regions as just, equitable, and sustainable living systems. In his work, Dr. Mehta has developed new measures of sociability that have advanced existing methods to study human behavior in public spaces. Dr. Mehta has authored/co-authored and edited/co-edited 6 books and numerous book chapters and journal articles on urban design pedagogy, public space, urban streets, neighborhoods, retail, signage and visual identity, public space in the Global south and more. His first book, The Street: a quintessential social public space received the 2014 Book Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) and was also a finalist for the 2014 Francis Tibbalds Award for Best Book of the Year. His most recent book Public Space: notes on why it matters, what we should know, and how to realize its potential was published by Routledge in 2022. Dr. Mehta holds degrees in architecture, urban design and city planning.