It is widely believed that good urban design involves the design of spaces within the built environment. Consequently, urban designers are always interested in what should be considered for a good design. They are consciously thinking about space components and their mutual relationship. In general, there is a rich professional vocabulary for appropriateness of a space, or in other word the quality of space.
The criteria which define the quality of these spaces have been changed different times along last century. This could be easily figured through city urban structure and its space patterns. Meanwhile, problems for contemporary urban built environment could be seen through many aspects as following:
Loss of orientation and poor living environment.
In attempting to achieve quality within these notions, urban designers have two main approaches. The first one deals with the design of space itself (improving facades, introducing benches,…(. The supporters of the second approach argue that while all these are important in context as a local level of design, the key factor in understanding urban form and its use is how a space relates to other spaces in a system- as a global pattern. Due to the limitation of the research, three main approaches will be studied and investigated. The first concern swith the imagability of the city- the visual intelligibility which is shared by all inhabitants through their mental perception. The second refers this quality to the urbanity of spaces, the unforced liveness that creates sense of safety and belonging. The third relates to the effect of the geometric characteristics of physical elements of the urban fabric ) building facades and street furniture(. Although the research is dealing with a universal phenomenon, referring to the Egyptian context will be indicated. Nasr City will be used as a tool to achieve this goal.
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