After protesters in places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square and New York City's Zuccotti Park galvanized the world's attention in 2011, architects, planners, lawyers, government officials, and the public began re-examining the role of physical public space in a digital age. Now Harvard professor Jerold S. Kayden has organized a conference on March 7 and 8 at the GSD to look at public space from a variety of perspectives, bringing in speakers such as former NYC commissioner of parks and recreation Adrian Benepe, Design Trust for Public Space executive director Susan Chin, KPF principal Paul Katz, architecture critic Blair Kamin, urban planning professor Peter Marcuse, Harvard Law School dean Martha Minow, and others.