Session 16

To understand, explain and promote the quality of the urban environment, the discipline of urban design remains subject to knowledge and analysis from other disciplines that consider the social nature of space. Recently, the number of researches in the field of urban design that focus on the lived experiences of people by applying qualitative methodologies, e.g. ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory etc. are growing. Emphasizing the contextual attributes of people experience, the qualitative research has empowered urban design to consider more cultural and local differentiations. However, these methodologies are primarily rooted and developed within other human sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, nursing, etc. Despite the relatively large body of literature about qualitative research methodologies especially the text-based data analysis methods, Urban Design is still borrowing from other disciplines and did not develop actively compatible and identical methods.

Emphasizing the methodological knowledge within the urban design discipline, this session invites theoretical as well as empirical and self-reflexive papers considering the following questions: What is urban design contribution in the qualitative methodology discourse, within and beyond its disciplinary boundaries? What are the disciplinary obstacles, limitations, and potentials within Urban Design in developing relevant qualitative methods? What are educational, institutional and local challenges for developing and conducting qualitative research in urban design? If and how other disciplines benefit from qualitative urban design studies? How methodological knowledge of urban design ‒ e.g. spatial analysis, visual language, observation, etc. ‒ can contribute to the qualitative methodology discourse? How and if qualitative methods in urban design facilitate understanding of the materiality of social space?

ABSTRACTS

1.Hermeneutics ‒ Interaction ‒ Social Structure

Kai-Olaf Maiwald  (Germany)

In the last decades, the concept of “social structure” has been often addressed within the frames of “micro/macro” or “subjectivism/objectivism”. Predominant in these approaches is the idea of a tension between “individual actions” and “structure”. “Structure” is conceived as a macro-phenomenon which needs to be theoretically mediated in terms of “aggregation” of more or less rational individual actions (Coleman), “habitus” (Bourdieu) or “structuration” (Giddens). Even in systems theory, with its distinction of interaction, organization, and society as three different levels of social structure (Luhmann), there is a notion of some macro-aspects residing “above” interaction. This session attempts to address the concept of “social structure” in a more methodological way. Several major approaches in qualitative sociology operate under the premise that the primary sociological data are interactional data (e.g. interaction transcripts, interviews, visual recordings of interactions). What if we turn this into a theoretical perspective and state that “society” basically operates in interactions and communications (Maiwald/Suerig 2020)? Is it thus possible to identify social structure in properties of interactions? Even if we assume that certain aspects of social structure, like institutions, norms or roles, are not, in a strict sense, socially constructed in interactions, but analytically precede each specific interaction, one could still argue that it is in interaction only that they “happen” (being reproduced or transformed, refreshed or rejected). How, then, is structure formation on the interaction level conceived? What are relevant dimensions of structure in this respect? Are there limits to this interactionist approach? What about, e.g., typical macro-structures like social inequality?

2.The Contribution of Urban Design to the Qualitative Methodology Discourse

Shamin Golrokh  (Iran)

To understand, explain and promote the quality of the urban environment, the discipline of urban design remains subject to knowledge and analysis from other disciplines that consider the social nature of space. Recently, the number of research in the field of urban design that focus on the lived experiences of people by applying qualitative methodologies, e.g. ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory etc. are growing. Emphasizing the contextual attributes of people experience, the qualitative research has empowered urban design to consider more cultural and local differentiations. However, these methodologies are primarily rooted and developed within other human sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, nursing, etc. Despite the relatively large body of literature about qualitative research methodologies especially the text-based data analysis methods, Urban Design is still borrowing from other disciplines and did not develop actively compatible and identical methods. Emphasizing the methodological knowledge within the urban design discipline, this session invites theoretical as well as empirical and self-reflexive papers considering the following questions: What is urban design contribution in the qualitative methodology discourse, within and beyond its disciplinary boundaries? What are the disciplinary obstacles, limitations, and potentials within Urban Design in developing relevant qualitative methods? What are educational, institutional and local challenges for developing and conducting qualitative research in urban design? If and how other disciplines benefit from qualitative urban design studies? How methodological knowledge of urban design ‒ e.g. spatial analysis, visual language, observation, etc. ‒ can contribute to the qualitative methodology discourse? How and if qualitative methods in urban design facilitate understanding of the materiality of social space?

3.Stories are not told in a vacuum; The contribution of urban design to spatializing narrative inquiry

Maryam Saedi  (University of Tehran, Iran)

The role of narrative research in urban design has been more or less discussed. Based on this perspective, the city, as a medium for human narratives, is read by urban designers. They play a role in telling and retelling the story of a city in their own way as well. The importance of such a perspective on the relationship between urban design and narrative inquiry is including multiple and sometimes conflicting stories in urban design and hearing silent voices. However, in my presentation, I am going to talk about the other side of this relationship which is the contribution of urban design to spatializing narrative inquiry. In general, one of the fundamental propositions in narrative inquiry is that “narrative is individual expression but collective production and reproduction of a sequence of events occurring in time “. What we can add to this fundamental proposition is that “narrative is not formed in a vacuum but has a spatial anchor and connect itself to the physical world”. Thus, narratives have three characteristics of collectivity, temporality, and spatiality. However, with reference to the mental stories of individuals, narrative research focuses mainly on the “temporal sequence of events” and neglects their spatial-physical aspects. From this perspective, the contribution of urban design to narrative studies is to viewing the spatial-physical aspects of human experiences and their fundamental role in the construction of narratives. The inclusion of this perspective in narrative inquiry at the epistemological level causes a reconsideration of the researcher’s relationship with actors and the field of research. It also expands the tools of collecting and analyzing narratives at the methodological level by re-explaining the application and combination of methods, and at the method level by introducing physical-spatial methods and techniques. Such a process can finally enrich descriptions of narratives in the temporal-spatial context.

4.Postcolonial and Territorialized Perspectives for contextualized planning practices in the thematic Global South(s): A cultural-sensitive approach

Janek Becker  (University of Dortmund, Germany)

Fauster Agbenyo  (University for Development Studies (Tamale), Ghana)

The so-called Global South is not a homogenous mass of spaces on neither national nor local scales. That’s why we distinguish the geographic Global South, defined by the location in northern or southern hemisphere and the thematic Global South(s) as a differentiated approach that recognizes postcolonial-al and territorialized perspectives regardless of their positioning on the globe. Consequently, we are focusing on the thematic approach, that recognizes thematic similarities of the challenges, and considering the socio-historical backgrounds. Therefore, we want to show the possibility for a global approach to the analysis of urban spaces at the local in the Global South(s). However, in the literature available, there is no clear-cut methodological approach that is able to juxtapose the contextualized thematic-based case studies to investigate both development challenges in spatial production and the specific approaches adopted in planning to resolve these challenges in the geographic global south, which are unified by the commonalities from the perspective of thematic Global South(s). As Researchers from Ghana and Germany we want to emphasise that “cultural” barriers and preconceived ideas related to planning practices in the Global South(s) can produce similar planning outcomes from a thematic Global South(s) perspective. We are, therefore, taking a stand for a contextualized approach to the investigation of neighbourhood revitalization interventions in the thematic Global South(s) in two selected case studies; one from Brazil and the other from Ghana to show how our approach can be used in the analysis of spatial production and planning practices that produces similar but context-specific planning outcomes.

5.Innovative analytical approach to urban space: syntactic reading of the city of Sétif in Algeria

Wiem Zerouati  (University of Setif 1, Algeria)

At the end of the 1970s, architects and urban morphologists Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson initiated the theory of space syntax. The theory, as a method of spatial analysis, was based on the assumption that societies use and configure space and that social structure is expressed spatially. The techniques of spatial syntax have been developed primarily for architects and urban planners as a decision support tool to improve the design of buildings and urban spaces and to simulate the social effect of forms before their realization. The interest in this subject was determined by the absence of in-depth analytical studies undertaken in Algeria on the question of the urban configuration in relation to the inhabitants’ social practices, using Space syntax and its tools. The majority of studies carried out were descriptive of the evolution and extension of the city through urban policies initiated by decision-makers using qualitative sociological tools, mainly the survey. This research attempts to fill this gap by providing a quantitative and qualitative analytical reading of the urban space and enriches existing scientific knowledge. This research is based on an urban analysis of the city of Setif located in eastern Algeria. The study explores through the spatial structure of the city, how the road structure is used for movement, commercial activity and the interaction between people and the implications this has on the future development of the city. Space Syntax was used by establishing a segment map of Setif to analyze the spatial configuration of the city and their public spaces. How can we highlight certain places, based on their spatial characteristics, by exploiting the strengths and remedying the weaknesses? The present study attempts to answer this question in order to understand in a concrete way, through syntactic mapping, the urban evolution of the city of Setif.

6.A retrospective of the outdoor spaces in a renewed residential community in Nanjing before renewal

Kexin Cheng  (Southeast University, China)

When studying transformations in outdoor space before and after the renewal of a residential community, it is more difficult to obtain information about the area before the renewal than it is to collect spatial information after the renewal process. There are two possible approaches, including Situative Mapping and Analysing Pictures, that can be used to understand how the community was before the renewal process. Situative Mapping is a memory mapping method that provides both a social and physical view of the outdoor environment. Firstly, long-staying respondents are sought in the community and asked to explain what the outdoor environment used to be like, who lived where and what outdoor activities they participated in, and then these actions are recorded, including notes of conversations with these people, and the locations are marked on a map with different legends. Analysing Pictures can provide a wealth of information about what the environment looks like and what activities have taken place in the past. The pictures to be analysed were taken during the fieldwork before the start of the regeneration process and contain information about the space and the actions on site. These photos can be obtained from the planning and design team’s photo database and pre-survey documents. Interviews with the original planners and designers can also be used as supplementary resource. This study uses a combination of these methods to depict the condition of outdoor space before renewal in a residential community in Nanjing, China, as a methodological exploration and to provide a basis for comparing outdoor space-action relationships before and after renewal. The community under study belongs to a historical residential area formed before 1949, with the main building type being low-density courtyard housing, one of the most typical types of old communities in East China.