Cities are areas with focused purposes and applications, purpose-filled spaces. Living, services, administration, recreation, transportation, culture, and industry. No vacuum or space is revealed in the city map without purpose (“E-architect—Architecture News—Buildings," n.d.). Limit space is used to meet a huge number of requirements. However, urban vacuums exist. And perhaps they're big. Examples include London's old harbor or Berlin's Tempelhofer Feld. They lost their original function, covering areas like entire districts. Urban voids gave new meaning in both cases. Once dirty docklands in London, nowadays, individuals are living their lives in the apartments overlooking the Thames River. Many towns view the British capital in the form of a model that can reuse bare dock areas. Currently, the Berlin Tempelhof area provides space for urban gardening, culture, sports, and recreation. So, it is according to the citizens' demands for having some free area for creative purposes. Germany tends to keep cities safe from growing more and so taking control of free areas. This is the turn of this age. As an alternative, planners focus on growing indoors. There was appropriate space as most of the harbor regions, military barracks, factories, and warehouses were diminished or abandoned." Can this happen sustainably, smoothly? "In the future, if cities do not grow into the landscape, we' will have to move towards an effective solution (Urbanologics, 2012).
This research addresses former airports in cities as urban voids and exceptional cases and examines two case studies (Tempelhof / Berlin, Germany and Imbaba / Giza, Egypt). They are discussed as potential urban commons while recognizing the cultural, historical, political, economic and urban complexities and specificities that each of the two cities and the respective countries involves.