Formulation of design strategies of urban nodes in strengthening the imageability of a city with special reference to Colombo fort

Abstract

A city can be identified as a place; being a 'place', a city must be accomplished the necessary quality of a 'place', 'Imageability'. As a result each city posses a particular character unique to it. A strong image is a prime requirement to achieve this quality in a city and symbolizing it as a 'whole'. Urban environments or cities can be considered as the most imageable amongst human habitations around the world. There for persons like Kevin Lynch had been selected them for their studies on the image. Structure and the meaning are the two prime characteristics necessary to making this strong image and together with these two characteristics, a 'identity' is automatically derived for the particular context. This strong image is a product of vivid and integrated physical setting, which can be referred to as physical objects and spaces within a city. These physical objects and spaces are organized in the form of physical elements in order to strengthening the image in the events of designing and development of cities.Proper integration between these elements will make a^ positive image of any context. Here nodes are identified as one of the important element in urban context, that forms a city and which gives a special character and identity to it. Basically nodes are man made spaces, which comes mostly the form of junctions of paths. Apart from this, a node can be concentrations having a special use or function and a physical character.