Aesthetics of urban space through collaborative urban planning: integrating environmental aesthetics with communicative theory of planning

Harsha Munasinghe

doi:10.4038/besl.v2i1.7629

Abstract

The collaborative urban planning has the potentials to make cities more aesthetically pleasing to the dweller. In this paper, we focus on the strengths of the said theory to bring in the views of the user to the designing process of the urban space. Our current research interest in the Collaborative Planning is also based on its ability to formulate a wider basis for evaluation, development and conservation of the city and its life. We intend to argue that aesthetics, within the current consciousness, is not what is meant by beauty but what makes the man familiar within his dwelling space. Aesthetic theories help understanding the perception, appreciation or experiencing of the space in everyday life. By developing useful tools to discuss the values of urban space, the contemporary developments in the environmental aesthetics, especially within phenomenological and pragmatist philosophy, could make the communicative planning theory more context-oriented. The current conception of planning as a decisionmaking process that has little to do with humanistic perspective of the city is to be challenged and provided with alternatives here. This decision-making deals with many practical demands, but its conventional attitude has cost the city life. The communicative theory and collaborative planning as a practice, strengthen inhabitant's relations to the urban space and as such, could create a new as well as manage the existing without losing its links with the users. Once reinforced with phenomenological and pragmatist ideas developed in the environmental aesthetic theories, this new practice could strengthen the urban space to promote dwelling.

Highlights

Theoretical DiscourseEnvironmental aesthetics is a neivfield of study and, does not form any consistent paradigm of research yet
Aesthetics has since been mostly known as a philosophy of art, some classical works such as Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement dealt with the objects of nature
In the twentieth century the idea of aesthetics as a philosophy of art culminated in analytical philosophy with the analysis of conceptual problems in the field of art, but towards the end of the century, questions* concerning the environmental aesthetics and aesthetic experience have been taken into consideration anew

Summary

Theoretical Discourse

Environmental aesthetics is a neivfield of study and, does not form any consistent paradigm of research yet. Phenomenological and pragmatist aesthetics offer more promising ways to assess the experience of those .everyday environments (Dewey, 1934/1980; Berleant, 1992 & 1997; Shusterman, 2000) This facet of environmental aesthetics parallels to the fields of urban studies that examine the experience of space, such as cultural geography and theory of architecture. Dewey never used the concept of life-world in his aesthetic experience, the experiencing subject is found in the middle of his practical dealings with the world His point of departure differs completely from the phenomenology as Dewey finds the interaction between organism and its environment in a way that is mainly in line with the evolutionary theory. We find collaborative planning and the communicative turn as the most able ways to integrate this undefined dimension in urban planning

From Aesthetics of Environment to Aesthetics of Place

Theory of Collaborative Planning

The City of Multiple Voices