This dissertation studies the publicness of Narinkka Square, Tennispalatsi Square and Kamppi Shopping Centre, which are three publicly usable spaces located adjacent to one another in the Kamppi area of Helsinki, Finland. The research is conducted in the light of the idea that the publicness of an urban space is primarily grounded in the possibilities for and the actual practices of public use, which is defined by activities, users and control over use. Therefore, in the contemporary city, different kinds of publicly usable spaces shall be considered as public spaces. Drawing on the three cases from the Kamppi area as real-life examples and physical manifestations of the phenomenon of publicness, the study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the publicness of public space and to identify what it implies and how it is practiced and (re)produced in different public spaces of the contemporary city.

The study is designed as a multiple-case study that combines exploratory and instrumental purposes. The overall approach to the scientific inquiry is qualitative, although some elements of a quantitative approach are also incorporated. Three methods were used to gather empirical data: spatial observation, non-participant observation and semi-structured interview. The fieldwork rendered a mass of empirical data, which appeared in the form of text data in field notes and spatial observation forms, text and numeric data in non-participant observation forms, digital photos and interview recordings. Each set of data was processed and analysed separately before all the different sets of data about each of the three spaces studied were put together and examined independently and by making comparisons across the cases.

The multiple-case study showed that despite Narinkka Square, Tennispalatsi Square and Kamppi Shopping Centre being highly different in their physical characteristics and matters concerning their ownership and management, the use of the spaces suits well for comparison. Not only were the three spaces found to be used by the same groups of users, but the principal activities undertaken in the spaces, namely passing through, passive being among other people and sheltering, were identified to be the same. Narinkka Square and Kamppi Shopping Centre, when they are used for special events or when something unexpected happens, showed a tendency to develop an intricate mixture of activities that resembles an ecosystem because of how each activity within the wide range of activities sustains and attracts other activities, splits up into other activities and encourages new activities to develop. In addition, the three spaces were identified to be highly intertwined functionally and somewhat depend upon each other for users and activities. As regards control over the use of the spaces, design solutions and availability of facilities seem to be the only more effective means of control, for other than that, control over use tends to be reduced to social control and mutual respect among the different user groups.

The study concludes that the publicness of public space (which in the contemporary city is suggested to be made up of various publicly usable spaces) is primarily activity-based, whereby different public spaces are likely to vary in their publicness as much as they vary in the activities that their users carry out. In addition, the publicness of each one public space may vary with variations in its own use and the use of adjacent public spaces, implying that the dynamics of publicness is situational and the publicness of geographically close and functionally intertwined public spaces can be complementary. While no one activity is particularly critical to defining or (re)producing publicness, how different activities intermix and what kind of a system of activities they create matter more. Each different set of activities can be seen to imply and (re)produce publicness of a different kind or quality, which does not necessarily involve differences in the degree (or amount) of publicness. This study, thus, demonstrates that different public spaces can not only be of comparable publicness, but their publicness can be interrelated and even interdependent. Therefore, it is argued that each public space is of a unique publicness and has a special contribution to make to the publicness of public space in the contemporary city.