Integrative Spatial Quality: A Relational Epistemology of Space and Transdisciplinarity in Urban Design and Planning

摘要

Spatial quality is a central tenet and, at the same time, a highly contentious issue in the urban design and planning field. This is the case for practitioners, academics and researchers alike. Underpinning the canonical texts (e.g. Sitte [1889] 1965; Lynch 1960, 1981; Cullen 1961; Bacon 1974; Alexander et al. 1977, etc.) and even some major recent contributions in defining the theoretical foundations of the field (Steinberg 2000; Banerjee 2001; Madanipour 2006; Carmona 2014), is a broad consensus on the importance of spatial quality as a normative quest that runs through the theories, principles and methods of the field. Yet, different users, professional and research communities tend to have very different views on what makes a particular organization of space 'qualitative' or not (e.g. Madanipour 2006; Ewing and Handy 2009; Mehta 2014). A universal understanding of the concept 'spatial quality' does not exist, except as shorthand for either the intention to invest some 'extra' (talent, care, aesthetics, money, etc.), or to stress a 'normative' attitude and endeavour. Yet when addressing spatial quality within theoretical elaborations or professional operations, different spatial quality preferences cannot just be 'added up' when mobilizing this notion.