Exploration of Tools and Techniques for Studying the Tangible and Intangible Aspects of Urban Settlements: Evidence from a Postgraduate Design Studio

This research study investigates the tangible and intangible aspects of the urban settlement and explores the tools for it. It was based on a post-graduation design studio named Understanding Urban Settlement, which is part of the Masters in Architecture program at a leading university in Lahore, Pakistan. The research is based on the exploratory methodological approach to attain a deep understanding of the social, cultural, environmental and religious characteristics of the Walled City of Lahore. It further explored the effects of these aspects and the way they affect the built environment, particularly the urban squares. The characteristics of the urban squares became the central part of the study through the research question formulated by students. The tools of space syntax and depth map and the approaches of psychogeographic analysis, systems thinking, and giga mapping were applied. These three approaches make the three sections of the exploratory methodology. Furthermore, the tools helped to understand various aspects of the city, where space syntax helped to explore the tangible character of the built environment and psychogeographic analysis helped to comprehend the intangible nature of social character in the city. Systems thinking and giga mapping are used to grasp and make sense of all the data gathered through the first two tools. The results showed that using these tools not only provides the framework to understand the most complex urban scenarios but also helped to triangulate the information through different sources. Based on the work of the students and their feedback about the three explored tools, it became evident that these approaches helped them to visualize the city under a new light and made the most complex urban scenarios a little more comprehensible. It also showed that the intangible and tangible characteristics of a city are co-dependent and exploring the social and cultural aspects of a city helps to develop a deeper and complete understanding of the spatial character of a city.