Urban Spaces in High-Density Context: Projecting Sustainable Urban Development

Abstract

This paper discusses the framework developed to understand, classify, evaluate, envision and guide design and planning of new urban spaces in high-density conditions, as a response to recent challenges in rapid urban transformations and urge for sustainable development. The objective is to identify and compare critical attributes and parameters, as well as their inter-linkages, shaping the performance of emerging hybrid urban developments. A range of local (Singaporean) and international case studies in high-density contexts are selected to investigate their capabilities to improve living conditions in these settings, making them environmentally and socially sustainable.

The research methods include: documentation of case studies, using primarily on-site observations and mapping techniques; classification and evaluation of selected cases based on conceptual framework that combines design (hardware), use (software) and operational (orgware) criteria; and comparative qualitative analysis. Classification and evaluation are descriptive processes which identify urban space typologies as sets of positive attributes, grouped according to nodal, spatial, environmental, use & socio-perceptual and operational values.

The main outcome is the framework itself, which proved to be capable of highlighting critical urban space parameters and of suggesting principles and design measures to improve the performance of different urban space typologies, especially in Singapore’s high-density context. The framework also provides means to speculate on new hybrid typologies by re-combining attributes across different types of parameters. As such, it enables the rethinking and reconceptualising of the role and meaning of urban space in future development trajectories, and becomes a guiding tool for projecting sustainable urban development and renewal.