Introduction/ Abstract

Have you been drown into the scene of people walking within the city everyday, having a specific destination, to meet up with certain target or people, so concentrated that they have forgotten they have walk through buildings, passed through people, but loosing the ability to admire everything that surrounds them, experience whatever that could happen, and whoever whom they might meet by chances? 

People in the city has known to be living with a fast paced lifestyle, concrete structures and high technologies development are being set as the background of a city, following by a series of behavioral bench mark representation. In the mean of these symbolism, we could prejudge that our society has successfully grown in terms of developments diversity and technologies, but rather pessimistic in terms of social behavioral and community interactions. Have we communicate less? Are we being passive in interacting with others in public? Are people in today's society more self-centered? In the end, what is the future of the development if the non-living (architecture technology) is being fast-growing, but the beauty of the relationship among people varnishes?

In this dissertation, I am presuming that architecture could be a social catalyst, as a positive force in ameliorating human relationship in a long run. Architecture has made up a big part of our lives, whether of the space, planning of town, or the environment, we don’t live any moment without being in the world of architecture. It is a force to control human behavior, with appropriate planning it formulate users to perform in a definite way, consciously or unconsciously. Believing it could then also be able to eliminate the negative performances such as crimes, strangeness and pressure, if not for a personal gain, encourages conversations, interactions and positivity in the contemporary society. We made space, and then space made us. By any means, architecture could possibly be the remedy to the issues, providing us a more genial social community in the future.

During the research study, I will be able to study and understand the positive and negative influence stimulated by contemporary architecture and public spaces towards human behavior and to investigate whether the root of urban social issues is induced by mis-conceptual of architectural planning. At the end of the dissertation, I will then be able to find out method and solutions towards the issues, if exist, in terms of architecture, to ease and resolves the critical relationship among the current social community and to examine the role of public architecture as a catalyst, in strengthening the bond of human relationship as a community.

The research study will be carried out in two phases, first of all, understanding the relationship between people and architecture, to determine the core of social issues -- mentality, behavior and practice of people living in the city, and following with architectural approach, study and determine solutions to encounter the issues, in order to eliminate the negative social practices -- that limits interactions, and promote the importance of social ties among people in the city.