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This article illustrates how spatial/cultural representations come into being with data collected during a 7-month ethnographic study of two plazas, the Parque Central and the Plaza de la Culture in San José, the capital city of Costa Rica. The comparison of their history, physical and spatial symbolism, user activities and daily behaviors, and news reports and commentaries demonstrates how these cultural representations reflect meanings that change in response to the material conditions and social values of the historical period. Further, the analysis uncovers that moral contradictions in those meanings are expressed first in the traditional plaza setting, and then, are transformed into contradictions across both plazas.

In this article I explore how an integrated approach to the anthropological study of urban space would work ethnographically. I discuss four areas of spatial/cultural analysis—historical emergence, sociopolitical and economic structuring, patterns of social use, and experiential meanings—as a means of working out of the methodological implications of broader social construction theoretical perspectives. Two plazas in San Jose, Costa Rica, furnish ethnographic illustrations of the social mediating processes of spatial practices, symbolic meaning, and social control that provide insight into the conflicts that arise as different groups and sociopolitical forces struggle to claim and define these culturally significant public spaces.

Drawing on some results of a broader research project, this paper aims to discuss the relation between urban design and creative dynamics in cultural districts. Appropriation and production of public spaces in three ‘creative quarters’ are analyzed, through a photographic approach, covering material aspects, human appropriation and symbolic dimensions in these areas. Discussing the boundaries of public spaces and their relevance for creative activity (through the conviviality and sociability they promote), it is argued that urban design characteristics and specific place morphologies significantly influence the appropriation of these areas and the development of specific creative dynamics.

Today, although most of the international research community considers climate change adaptation to be essential, there is limited knowledge on its concrete integration with contemporary placemaking. Yet, with the emergence of the adaptation agenda, the effects of urban climatology are continually coercing the need for concrete action to increase the climatic responsiveness of urban environments. This article is constructed upon a “Research for Design” approach, and focuses upon improving urban design guidelines by reviewing existing theoretical/empirical research on how pedestrian comfort levels can be addressed through public space design. The objective is to incorporate such qualitative and quantitative interrogations into a generic tool such as the “Place Diagram” by the PPS. A total of six intangible criteria, and six measurable attributes, are explored and structured in order to introduce new generic design considerations which can contribute to the responsiveness of urban outdoor spaces in an era of expected climate variability.