Studying Sustainable Actions of Syntactic Structures of Historic Hit Citadel: A Morphological Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the morphological changes of Historic Citadel in Hit, Iraq, in relation to the changes in syntactic properties of street networks and land use distribution during the last century. Founded before 1600 BC, Historic Hit Citadel (HHC) has been considered as one of the most important fortified cores in Iraq. It consists of a rich variety of urban structures representing different historic periods of the city history. However, HHC was continuously deteriorated by a lack of urban development programs and maintenance processes since 1900s. The study thus covers the three remarkable changes of HHC in order to find proper sustainable actions for developing this historic site and to promote programs of economic diversity as a sustainable agenda. Methods use space syntax techniques and measures to describe the accessibility and connectivity of street networks based on syntactic properties of the built environment. Generated maps of syntactic structures helped to identify the integration and segregation urban areas on the city map. A discussion of the implications of integration areas, needed to be improved, and segregation areas, required to be developed, was conducted. Results have shown where the integrated and segregated cores were located and so helped to provide general improvements by adopting new activities, developing the existing spatial quality of the built environm.