Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

The largest among the major cities of Bangladesh, Dhaka, with a population of over seventeen million, is segmented in planned and unplanned areas developed by local city authority, where the people-space interactions are quite diverse in regards to the treatment and behavioral perception of place. This paper explores the coherent relationship between the soft edges where the built form meets the adjacent street level and acts diversely with the attachment of the people. The paper is based on two case studies oriented on active water edges from the city’s planned and unplanned residential neighborhoods. Some common dictating factors are measured to reveal the physiological and psychological liveliness of the user group. The study also offers evidence of a similar type of urban fabric that behaves differently due to various socio-economic-cultural backgrounds of the people, which influences the activity pattern of the soft edges of built form in the very same city.