Revue d'Architecture
Volume 1, Numéro 1, Pages 55-67
2021-10-01

The Value Of The Sensorial Urban Space; Between Past And Present

Authors : Benzagouta Yasser Nassim . Debache Samira .

Abstract

The public open place remains a very controversial space in terms of its nature or function. It is above all an open and accessible public space in the city. Whether this urban space is delimited physically in its morphology or theoretically in its perceptual experience or its socio-cultural and symbolic interrelationships, the public place also presents itself under a complex interaction of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of its environment and ambiences. All these effects interact and mingle to finally give it its form and existence. Because of this complexity, some public places unfortunately find themselves marginalized in their daily life and in the social practice of their spaces. Ambient and environmental factors create or accentuate breaks in their continuum daily life. The public place is not what it should be as regards its primary function in the urban fabric. It is therefore sometimes marginalized by the dysfunction of the elements that make up its surrounding environment or, often, reappropriated for other uses or by other users. The present research work focuses on its experience and the social practice of its space that are far from reflecting the principles of its first design ideas and its original destination. Many public places in our cities, between marginalization and reappropriation, have lost their elements which make these spaces the showcase of the city, the anchors and expressions that are very revealing of the degree of dynamism of the urban texture. On the other hand, the growing mastery of the sensory environment of cities - by means of lighting, sound, ventilation and other animation strategies - tends to produce increasingly conditioned spaces, leaving little room for the rituals of interaction between passers-by and for the improvisational possibilities of the public. Don’t these new ambiences run the risk of producing public spaces that are too neutralized, formatted and pacified, limiting opportunities for exchange and small friction between passers-by? But also, does an excessively artificial environment not lead to a relative loss of contact with reality, resulting in a feeling of strangeness? These are all questions, concerned with this paper, that merely extend in another form those arising from the aesthetics of modernity in three public places in Constantine, Hong Kong and Madrid

Keywords

built environnent, marginalization, noise – ambiences, public place, reappropriation, urban space.