This is a recorded livestream of RIBA Gulf's live lunch talk with Dr Rasem Badran on the topic of humanised urbanism that took place on 31 August 2021.

Under the present priorities of city making, the contemporary city is heavily biased towards continuity, connection and communication. Architectural projects should create a more unified urban fabric and dialogue between the built environment. Humanised urbanism defines the required paradigm shift in the way cities are conceived and developed with the intention of creating better places for humans to inhabit.

When creating a clustered organisation of masses, intertwined with spatial voids, Badran focuses on the act of place-forming through these spatial voids; designing spaces that create sequential experiences for the user. Users create a set of memories through their interaction and engagement with the outer surface of a city. It is critical to understand the stories of the users that make a place into a social memory. Humanising a city and embedding it with idiosyncrasies allows us to bond with the urbanity of a city. Not only are such spaces key in generating human connections within the cities’ fabric, but also in creating a positive psychological effect by bringing together different social classes, and establishing relationships between members of different communities. Having an open space to experience, certainly prompts a sense of community and belonging to one’s own proximate as well as the larger built environment.

Speaker
Dr Rasem Badran - Founding Partner and Principal Architect at Dar Al-Omran, Aga Khan Award Winner, and Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

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