Towards a socio-spatial approach to urban design: an exploratory study

Abstract

We may be conscious of a constant transformation of urban space rather than the cityscape around us, we live with a mutation that we have came associate with livelihood. Without moment and change , we have learnt that there is no life. This transformation of urban space has to be done very carefully , because it affects people who use and live in it. "Urban design is concerned with creation, regeneration , enhancement and management of the built environments, which are sensitive to their contexts and sympathetic to people's needs"1 (Billingham, 1994:18} As Billingham interprets, this study would explore the Socio-Spatial Process which, address physical dimension and social dimension of urban space simultaneously and as a better process of transformation and to understand urban space. A socio-spatial view point in which these two dimensions with their complexities are intermeshed will allow us to see how spatial structures express the social formations as well as how it affects them.First, urban space will be explored through it's physical and social dimensions , in order to understand as it exists in socio-spatial continuum. Special emphasis would be given to dimension of human behavior since it is ignored and insufficiently addressed. Finally study would offer an insight into sociospatial process as a better way of understanding the urban design process and the space it help to shape.