Urban Attachment

Abstract

The Composition of a city is the direct product of ideas and habits that have been invented, reformed and re imagined over the course of a city’s existence. The size of a city is often limited to the amount of people that reside within its limits, or the corporations that use a city as their economic hub. As time progresses, the form and identity of the city changes with fluctuating ideas regarding political agendas, economic trends and social viewpoints. These ideas are manifested within each individual person as a result of experience, education and spatial awareness. How can architecture begin to place importance on the most crucial aspects of a city in order to promote a significant identity? In a most literal sense, architecture is able to directly shape our environment. It can bring forth an identity or brand to a city. Today, the importance of architecture in the city has become less about the context and more about the form of the building. The lines have been blurred regarding the relationship between concepts and context. How can urban architecture begin to once again create meaningful experiences through aesthetics and context? The significance of an identity to any city is crucial to its success and cultural diversity. Through the collaboration of designers, scholars and city planners, an architecture can be created that will act as identifying agent to the most important aspects of the individual city. This architecture’s significance will not be placed on its permanence, but instead on its ability to identify, evaluate, and accentuate the urban spaces that give a city its identity. This thesis does not attempt to solve an urban problem for an individual city; rather, this thesis attempts to investigate the role that design, innovation, and culture play in the shaping of cities, and through this examination, explore the opportunities to use these attributes as a catalyst for future development in any city. The importance of an identity to a city is crucial to its success and cultural diversity. Through these investigations, the city can begin to establish itself as an economic hub with a distinctive culture and a true sense of place. How can architecture position these collaborators in a way to inspire and enhance their way of thinking to reinvent the identity of the city?