A CITY PARK IN STRUCTURAL URBAN DEVELOPMENT (BY THE EXAMPLE OF SIAULIAI CITY)

Nowadays there is a renewed interest in city parks as recreational oases providing tranquillity and balancing out urban processes. This paper reviews characteristic features of city parks situated in an urban environment, presents comparative characteristics of exceptional parks, and summarizes the development of city parks in Lithuania in the 20th century. Within this context a feasibility study of the central park in Siauliai is presented, focussing on the task of clearly distinguishing the park's borders during its moderate urbanization and preserving the park in the process of integration of its urban neighbourhood, meanwhile improving the park's composition and service infrastructure. The paper analyses the park's territory as an element of urban structure: position within the green city structure and the system of green spaces; arrangement of the green space in the overall city structure (hierarchy of values of urban structure elements), degree of its integration; transformations of the park's territory; analysis of the current situation and suggestions