Conceptual model for Urban Interventions in Historic cities based on Space Syntax

Abstract

Urbanism today is a synthesis of inheritance, prevalence and futurism. As our inheritance struggles with the rapid transformations and anxiously waits for the future, their conservation becomes an issue related to our cognizance of the genuine relations between tangible and intangible properties. While urban development strategies enormously emphasis the issues on sustainability, social balance, public realm, environment and heritage, the space proxemics of cities are very often ignored. This model is designed in a way that combines analytical techniques of space syntax and cultural context for an objective enquiry into user precise space proxemics of the city and scientifically states the spatial configuration as visible spatial rules or principles of urbanism in the traditional urban cores, thereby evolving a rational approach towards urban interventions. This model caters both for conservation studies and as well for rejuvenation of existing built environments or to design new urban centers for developing traditional urban cores of any city. The model has its application for urban interventions in the chosen area with quantified syntactic parameters
for their spatial configuration. This resulted in both cases improving and depriving the culture-precise-human-predilections about space proxemics affecting cultural integration values.