Eleventh International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Some urban design scholars perceive South Asian cities as disorganized, chaotic, and confusing. This view originates from a Eurocentric stance that cities must follow a standardized, systematic urban order. However, traditional and historic urban spaces in South Asia tend to follow a different order altogether with spatial patterns and uses evolving slowly over time in a more organic, tacit manner. Additionally, such urban spaces consist of not merely a different physical morphology but also conspicuous sensoryscapes (i.e. sounds, aromas, textures, and so on) created by spontaneous and varied uses and activities. This paper presents the argument that such sensorial urban experiences are critical in deciphering South Asian urban identity beyond the visual fabric. Through extensive literature reviews, empirical participant observation studies and sensory mapping in naturalistic settings, and qualitative content analyses, the research focused on comparing three cities in Sri Lanka. The scope of the research included: (a) analyzing space-form-function layouts of each city; (b) identifying specific sensory modalities and related spatial activities; and (c) determining how the resulting sensoryscapes contribute to specific urban place identities beyond the physical urban fabric. The paper illustrates the comparative findings that sensoryscapes are vital to place identity and socio-cultural meanings of a city, and that by association, they also form a critical component of the cultural heritage. The research implications include developing a non-Eurocentric research mode emphasizing the importance of systematic study of sensorial experiences and generating a framework to gain a deeper understanding of place identities of other South Asian cities.