?PLACEMAKING IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE SPACE-PRODUCTION OR EVENT-CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

Architectural role is to [celebrate] human behavioral patterns into spatial configurations of meaning and depth. In our Egyptian community, architects tend to create spaces that are functionally mechanized to serve the owning-institutional requirements without seriously examining the events and human activities that occur by people. They focus on module-construction, norms-standards and neglect humane aspects. This produces a single-minded design product, and consequently people modify this design to suit themselves in a process of appropriation. This thesis focuses on these other aspects; aspects of creating places instead of producing spaces.

Taking this into account, our thesis argues a three-fold inquiry in designing places of humane interaction; the formal design of place, the social design of place and the construct of a meaningful place. This research is a call for architects to consider designing places that nourishes human presence and celebrates our being's existence in architectural places through Event-Construction. It attempts at creating a Placemaking Design Guideline based on simple morphological elements and concepts deduced from Philosophy vs. Practice. Meanwhile, it constructs an Analytical Experimental Model that could be used to examine the performance of projects in terms of Place; Morphological Concepts and Phenomenological Philosophy.

The Thesis is divided into three main parts. Part one is Observations and Philosophical Framework. Part two is the Architectural-Theoretical Investigation. Part three is Experimenting the Case-Study and Final Conclusion. All three parts are dealt with in a matter ofPhilosophyffheory vs. Practice as a Research Strategy of Analysis.

Chapter One includes the Thesis Outline. It includes the research problem and critical observations; from which the hypotheses are developed. It also includes the Research Aim, Targets, Philosophical Framework adopted and Methodology. Chapter Two deals with Martin Heidegger's phenomenology and Christian Norberg-Schulz's existentialism. The chapter deals with Heidegger's four basic features of understanding the "Being-in Place". Then the second part of the chapter handles Norberg-Schulz's structure of the Phenomenological Place.