(Marriage of Urban Aesthetics and Landscape)

Whether Urban Aesthetics and Landscape go hand in hand.......?

How we interpret the visual environment involves factors that are both innate in origin as
well as acquired during the territorial development process generally influenced by social
and cultural conditions. The brain is “programmed’’ to seek out particular forms and
patterns of visual stimuli that are relevant to human survival. The extent, to which these are
innate and operative from birth, or acquired and influenced by socio-cultural factors, is a
complex area of research that is increasingly providing useful insides. For the purpose of
this study, we will focus our attention on a few operative principals while turning our
attention to an examination of our own personal experiences. We will seek to identify how
and why particular physical characteristics suggest ways we can relate to and make use of
the city. How subconscious processes by which the physical environment provides
meaningful information. Or, let’s examine our perceptual experience and try to “catch it in
action.”

This approach will consist in grouping the various visual elements that comprise the visual
environment of the public domain under three basic components. Each of these
components provides an important source of information that our experience of the Urban
Aesthetics and its Landscape relies on. They include: built and spatial forms, the treatment
of defining surfaces, and ground treatment and furnishing.

The extent to which the different components are coordinated and provide consistent
information is critical in our experience of the public domain. (The lack of coordination
between the visual components is frequently what lies at the root of the abstract and
unsupportive urban conditions associated with many modern developments.

Built and Spatial Forms

Under this component our approach is to focus on buildings and the exterior public spaces
between them. We shall study how individual buildings, as forms, are expressive in their
interior functions and act as symbols for particular ideas and values along with the existing
landscape situation.

When one talks of urban context, the expressive qualities of buildings extend beyond
individual structures. One must consider not only the form of a building relative to other
buildings, also the landscape in which it is sighted also the role it plays in defining public
spaces. Like built forms, the spatial forms of public spaces also convey essential information.

The Treatment of Defining Surfaces

The objective is to verify whether organisation of facades can have an important impact on
the scale and character of public spaces. Contributing to the scale and character of public
spaces, windows and doors can be highly expressive of the use contained within buildings.
They also provide visual and functional linkage between the exterior public domain and the
interior private domain.

Ground Treatment and Furnishing (Designed landscape)

Examination of this component will focus on the way the ground surface is treated in terms
of materials, textures, patterns etc. This may include everything from monuments which act
as focal point, and trees, which may fill up and subdivide spaces, to the use of bollards and
sitting. The aspect of the above component is closely associated with land-use and activity
choices, the interrelation between these are a vital consideration in the city-making process.

The Interrelationship of Form and Content

In the form that comprises the public domain, there is a great deal of overlap that occurs
amongst the above components. Our visual experience of the public domain has a
meaningful context relies on the consistency of the information that each of the
components provides. While considering the value of the city, perhaps the most important
overlap to be considered is that between the three component of form and land-use
planning, which largely determines the basic functions and activities one finds in the public
domain. The contents of form in the cities public domain are associated primarily with use
and use ideas.

The areas of overlap between form and land-use planning, where the public domain is
concerned, can be depicted as in the below figure.
Building forms are largely determined by the type of uses they contained as well as building
technology and density, the street plan is also critical form determinant. Almost complete
overlap of three components occurs between planning choices affecting the content with
ground treatment and furnishing.

The form of buildings often dealt with independently by architects so that the coordination
required to produce public spaces is lacking (personally appreciate examples). We need to
arrive at a statement whether the studied examples is a collection of abstract forms
surrounded with meaningless spaces that are neither public nor effectively private. Similarly
you need to note whether limitations can be seen with regard to treatment of public spaces,
which are often left as after thoughts and often landscape architect is expected to perform
minor miracles.

If the experience of the city, and the expressive and the supportive qualities upon which it
relies, is to be reinstated into the focus of city-making process, the linear process of the
modern tradition must be replace by a truly holistic one. We need to ascertain whether
human criteria, associated with human experience, must become fundamental.
Keywords: innate, public domain, private domain,

Innate: Existing in, belonging to, or determined by factors present in an individual from birth.

Public domain: the state of belonging or being available to the public as a whole, especially
through not being subject to copyright or other legal restrictions.

Private domain: If information is in the private domain, it belongs to a particular person or

organization that may allow others to see or use it with.....

Personal experiences: Personal experiences of a human being is the moment to moment

experience and sensory awareness of internal and external events or sum of experiences.