MIN-FENG HSIEH
Architectural Studies
School of Arts, Culture and Environment
University of Edinburgh

Urban environment, as a mega-space, not only contains highly dense physical spaces but also drums an extremely dynamic perceptual context. Density of urban space could be interpreted in tow dimensions: static, in terms of the quantity of physically built and occupied volumes of space per unit;mutable, in terms of the on-going growth and decline of urban development. In addition to these two dimensions, the ever-changing flows of event and activity tiding in and out the urban platform also largely contribute to the dynamic fluctuations of our urban experience. Trying to grasp how these relatively indescribable aspects influence the way we perceive the urban space is the main interest of this exploration.

Subjective perception of our spatial experience, which has been left far behind in the main stream of the discourse of architectural design and urban planning, dominantly shapes the way we appreciate and interact with the urban environment we lived in. While we are plotting the macro-scale physical context of our city in the geometrical manner based on the quantifiable factors of populations, traffic flow, real estate value.....etc., we tend to neglect those non-quantifiable aspects of our micro-spatial experience which should also be taken into account.