Legibility of Built Space and the Method for Determining Architecturally Conditioned Spatial Identity – MAPPI

Abstract

There is no space without people and no people without space. The very theory of genius loci (the spirit of a place) highlights the importance of spatial identity, as it is precisely this prerequisite for the formation of awareness of belonging to a certain community. Urban theory, which deals with the morphological composition of the built space, focuses on recognizing existing morphological patterns and reacts to these patterns depending on the different levels of development of thought doctrines or individual interpretations of the researcher. On the other hand, the gestalt spatial-architectural theory focuses on the meaning of an individual particle and its influence on other building blocks within its spatial context. The question arises of the relationship between the patterns of the built space and their building blocks; of the relationship between urban composition and individual architecture - buildings. To intertwine these two levels of reading space, the Method for determining Architecturally Conditioned Spatial Identity (MAPPI) was developed. Using the MAPPI method, we systematically monitor and check qualitative and quantitative data about the building/settlement. The intertwining of two levels and the diversity of data verification offers a different view of the interdependence between the building/settlement, from which the possibility of determining a spatially conditioned identity arises. This can be achieved by recognizing contemporary trends in architectural identity and key changes in recent decades, as well as based on existing classifications of architectural typology. In this way, it is possible to redefine settlement and architectural typologies, their characteristics, and their spatial distribution. The various tools used in the MAPPI method are designed so that, through partial automation and data synthesis, they facilitate the determination of closed spatial entities. The applicability of the MAPPI tools and method was verified on the example of the Prebold settlement.