Jagath Munasinghe | University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (original) (raw)
Papers by Jagath Munasinghe
This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need f... more This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need for such method is felt in a context that designing streets has been an area of wider concern but without adequately developed guides. Improving streets and their qualities necessitates an appropriate understanding of their presently available characteristics and therefore, demand robust methods for that purpose. The method presented in this paper is evolved upon Alan Jacob specified 'requirements' for a 'great street'. It demonstrates a process for the evaluation of a streetscape in relation to a set of physical attributes, derived from Jacob's requirements. The attributes are derived though diagnostics analysis of the requirements with the support of the other literature available in this area. Their strength is tested in a selected street segment of the Galle Road in Sri Lanka.Senate Research Gran
FARU Journal, Jul 29, 2022
Sense of place' is a phenomenal which is still vaguely defined and appeared to be with the associ... more Sense of place' is a phenomenal which is still vaguely defined and appeared to be with the association of the inhabitants. The behavior pattern, the values people attribute in a built environment often said to have bought sense of place in urban environments. The composition of both permanent structures and temporary assemblages set forth to gets the form and character of every built environment. This has become more apparent in sacred built environments where non-lasting structures assembled for temporal benefits to play an important role in making them functional places in the formally arranged spaces. Nevertheless, the character, utility and sense of place build on to day-today lived in environments by these informally planned impermanent structures associated with many uncertainties, hence the existence of them considered as 'problematic' in formal planning and design arrangements. In the context where the limited studies in this regard, the study examines these temporary interventions and their impact in experiencing of places, for the purpose of expanding the awareness and thorough understanding of planners, urban designers and the authorities, who are responsible for the making of sustainable built environments. First, a review of relevant literature presents in this paper to identify a suitable theoretical framework to study the impacts of temporary assemblage on sense of place. Second, it employs the conceptual framework profound of 'Bennett's six triads' to present the mutual transactive relationship between the behavior patterns of the inhabitants and activity spaces in "Aluthnuwara Devalaya" sacred area as observed by the authors. This shows how the temporary assemblages impact on the values and the behaviors of the inhabitants and thereby form the sense of place, within a formal built environment. The study highlights that temporary assemblage adds sense to places not only by their presence but also by changing people's behaviors.
Bristol University Press eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
FARU Journal, Nov 19, 2021
How a city is known to its inhabitants is largely impacted by its physical environment and this k... more How a city is known to its inhabitants is largely impacted by its physical environment and this knowledge in turn, impacts the behavior and the sustainability of the city. From Kevin Lynch's landmark study in 1960, many studies attempted to explore the 'image of a city' and revealed that the image was a collectively held psycho-spatial phenomenon that evolved with the changes take place in its physical environment. Colombo, the primate city of Sri Lanka has experienced a fast growth both internally and externally over the last four decades. A large number of highrises, modern shopping facilities, etc., have been dramatically changing its physical environment. This study investigated the changes evident in the image of the City of Colombo as a result of ongoing developments through the findings of a survey, carried out during 2019-20 period. Analyzing the free recalling responses of 150 participants from different age and user categories, the study reveals that there is a shift in the constituents of the image of Colombo, and the emerging high-rise developments and modern facilities do have, but only a marginal impact on this shift. What matters more are the spaces and physical elements experienced at the ground level.
Informality is an inevitable ingredient in an urban environment. The 'formally' established urban... more Informality is an inevitable ingredient in an urban environment. The 'formally' established urban built environments are informally shaped by people for the appropriation of spaces for their activities. Within dominant institutionalized urban planning processes, such informalities are often regarded as 'nuisances', 'out-of-place', and 'misfits' in urban spaces. Yet, informally organized spaces are as important as formal spaces for the vitality, equity, and sustainability of all types of urban environments. People's processes in the creation and operation of informal spaces, resisting, contesting, and negotiating the dominant formal networks, have been the subject of many scholarly works over the last few decades, but a lack of empirical work and informative case studies on the subject has distanced mainstream planners and urban designers from learning and integrating such informal space production into institutionalized urban development processes. In order to mend this gap and reorient the prevalent understanding among planning professionals, a people's endeavor in Puttalam town in Sri Lanka to form and sustain informal spaces is presented in this paper. The paper elaborates on the 'self-organizing' behaviour of the small-scale retail vendors and the day-today users of the city to withstand interventions by the authorities on the public market space of the town.
Seizure-european Journal of Epilepsy, 2021
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
Informal Settlements of the Global South
Volume 4: Policy and Planning
Urban environments are in a continuous process of evolution. The process is non-reversible, the c... more Urban environments are in a continuous process of evolution. The process is non-reversible, the changes are inevitable, their implications are multi-faceted and the inhabitant’s adaptations to the situations surging form this change are essentially not smooth. The struggle to live with changing situations compelled human beings, both individuals and societies, either to react in aggressive modes or to respond with innovative measures.
Small cities in Asia will have to playa major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable sh... more Small cities in Asia will have to playa major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable share of the world urban population by the mid of this century will be living in them. Planning their growth thus, has become a need of the day, and to support their planning with better informed decisions research is urgently needed in many aspects of small cities. One such important aspect is the dynamics of the configuration of spaces, which the existing body of knowledge in planning has yet not fully explained and, towards which the planning approaches are conventionally least sensitive. In that context, this paper explores the dynamics of the spatial order in two small cities in Sri Lanka, namely Galle and Rathnapura. The two cities have been experiencing two types of forces associated with their growth and change. The first is the set of endogenous forces that urges them to change, sometimes expanding outward from their boundaries. The second is the flux of exogenous forces, among which technocratic urban planning process and recurrent and unexpected natural disasters are the prominent. Rathnapura city experienced annual floods, and a planned intervention to overcome that, and Galle city experienced asudden tsunami disaster and an unplanned project based intervention that affected its growth. The interventions resulted in a reconfigurations and changes in the spatial order of activities in both cities, but in manners that were unprecedented by the planning agencies. The paper discusses this phenomenon of self-organizing, responding to the effects of external forces of change, as a function of the 'spatial configuration': that is the overall composition of spatial elements, to determine the 'activity pattern': that is the order of the location of activities in space. The spatial configurations and the activity patterns of these two cities before and after the said interventions are compared. The pattern of the activity spaces are studied with activity mapping and the spatial configurations are studied using Space Syntax.Senate Research Gran
This article presents a hypothetical review of the envisaged changes in built environments, insti... more This article presents a hypothetical review of the envisaged changes in built environments, institutionalized planning processes and the real estate sector under the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic situation. While the dominant discourse in planning and urban development envisages a drastic change in human behavior, responding to likely future pandemic situations, causing a major transformation in the order of public spaces, the form of cities and the methods of planning, this article discusses the uncertainties associated with such ideologies. Further, it questions the possibility of catastrophes to change built environments and the necessity ofpandemic-adaptive planning
K e y w o r d s : E n v i r o n m e n t a l I m a g e , Cogni t ion , P l a c e , L o c a l i t y... more K e y w o r d s : E n v i r o n m e n t a l I m a g e , Cogni t ion , P l a c e , L o c a l i t y , Inhabitants , Spatial E lements .
The placement of outdoor advertising is a crucial task where people identify those are as intrusi... more The placement of outdoor advertising is a crucial task where people identify those are as intrusive elements of the built environment. Thus, there is a need of finding, why outdoor advertisements are considered as intrusive elements. In this background, this research aims to examine an association between the level of intrusiveness (a negative visual quality) and the level of visual information. The methodology of this research includes Shannon's Information Theory based entropy values to measure the level of visual information and the level of intrusiveness is evaluated by conducting a perception survey. The result of the level of visual information is correlated with the road users' perception to see the association. The findings of the research are, the t-test result shows the outdoor advertising add visual information to the built environment and the correlation analysis depicts a positive correlation between the level of visual information and intrusiveness. Moreover, t...
As a collection of lively phenomenon city, life is dependent on series of factors which define th... more As a collection of lively phenomenon city, life is dependent on series of factors which define the urban spatial structure also. Conventional urban planning typically takes the view that the classification of city activities as commercial, institutional, residential, public, etc. But understanding the urban space in the category of third spaces, gives that real meaning of the urban space. According to that classification there are three spaces as first (home), second (Work place) and third (Other) spaces in the urban environment. In urban planning the second space is the mostly concerned space. There are many different activity based locations and those can be identified within the category of ‘third spaces’, but the ones such as pubs, bars, cafes, special restaurants, brothel houses, illegal drug spots etc. are a special category that is generally regarded as ‘not-so-desired’ activities in a city but more functioning locations of the city. But this category of third spaces is not g...
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need f... more This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need for such method is felt in a context that designing streets has been an area of wider concern but without adequately developed guides. Improving streets and their qualities necessitates an appropriate understanding of their presently available characteristics and therefore, demand robust methods for that purpose. The method presented in this paper is evolved upon Alan Jacob specified 'requirements' for a 'great street'. It demonstrates a process for the evaluation of a streetscape in relation to a set of physical attributes, derived from Jacob's requirements. The attributes are derived though diagnostics analysis of the requirements with the support of the other literature available in this area. Their strength is tested in a selected street segment of the Galle Road in Sri Lanka.Senate Research Gran
FARU Journal, Jul 29, 2022
Sense of place' is a phenomenal which is still vaguely defined and appeared to be with the associ... more Sense of place' is a phenomenal which is still vaguely defined and appeared to be with the association of the inhabitants. The behavior pattern, the values people attribute in a built environment often said to have bought sense of place in urban environments. The composition of both permanent structures and temporary assemblages set forth to gets the form and character of every built environment. This has become more apparent in sacred built environments where non-lasting structures assembled for temporal benefits to play an important role in making them functional places in the formally arranged spaces. Nevertheless, the character, utility and sense of place build on to day-today lived in environments by these informally planned impermanent structures associated with many uncertainties, hence the existence of them considered as 'problematic' in formal planning and design arrangements. In the context where the limited studies in this regard, the study examines these temporary interventions and their impact in experiencing of places, for the purpose of expanding the awareness and thorough understanding of planners, urban designers and the authorities, who are responsible for the making of sustainable built environments. First, a review of relevant literature presents in this paper to identify a suitable theoretical framework to study the impacts of temporary assemblage on sense of place. Second, it employs the conceptual framework profound of 'Bennett's six triads' to present the mutual transactive relationship between the behavior patterns of the inhabitants and activity spaces in "Aluthnuwara Devalaya" sacred area as observed by the authors. This shows how the temporary assemblages impact on the values and the behaviors of the inhabitants and thereby form the sense of place, within a formal built environment. The study highlights that temporary assemblage adds sense to places not only by their presence but also by changing people's behaviors.
Bristol University Press eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
FARU Journal, Nov 19, 2021
How a city is known to its inhabitants is largely impacted by its physical environment and this k... more How a city is known to its inhabitants is largely impacted by its physical environment and this knowledge in turn, impacts the behavior and the sustainability of the city. From Kevin Lynch's landmark study in 1960, many studies attempted to explore the 'image of a city' and revealed that the image was a collectively held psycho-spatial phenomenon that evolved with the changes take place in its physical environment. Colombo, the primate city of Sri Lanka has experienced a fast growth both internally and externally over the last four decades. A large number of highrises, modern shopping facilities, etc., have been dramatically changing its physical environment. This study investigated the changes evident in the image of the City of Colombo as a result of ongoing developments through the findings of a survey, carried out during 2019-20 period. Analyzing the free recalling responses of 150 participants from different age and user categories, the study reveals that there is a shift in the constituents of the image of Colombo, and the emerging high-rise developments and modern facilities do have, but only a marginal impact on this shift. What matters more are the spaces and physical elements experienced at the ground level.
Informality is an inevitable ingredient in an urban environment. The 'formally' established urban... more Informality is an inevitable ingredient in an urban environment. The 'formally' established urban built environments are informally shaped by people for the appropriation of spaces for their activities. Within dominant institutionalized urban planning processes, such informalities are often regarded as 'nuisances', 'out-of-place', and 'misfits' in urban spaces. Yet, informally organized spaces are as important as formal spaces for the vitality, equity, and sustainability of all types of urban environments. People's processes in the creation and operation of informal spaces, resisting, contesting, and negotiating the dominant formal networks, have been the subject of many scholarly works over the last few decades, but a lack of empirical work and informative case studies on the subject has distanced mainstream planners and urban designers from learning and integrating such informal space production into institutionalized urban development processes. In order to mend this gap and reorient the prevalent understanding among planning professionals, a people's endeavor in Puttalam town in Sri Lanka to form and sustain informal spaces is presented in this paper. The paper elaborates on the 'self-organizing' behaviour of the small-scale retail vendors and the day-today users of the city to withstand interventions by the authorities on the public market space of the town.
Seizure-european Journal of Epilepsy, 2021
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
Informal Settlements of the Global South
Volume 4: Policy and Planning
Urban environments are in a continuous process of evolution. The process is non-reversible, the c... more Urban environments are in a continuous process of evolution. The process is non-reversible, the changes are inevitable, their implications are multi-faceted and the inhabitant’s adaptations to the situations surging form this change are essentially not smooth. The struggle to live with changing situations compelled human beings, both individuals and societies, either to react in aggressive modes or to respond with innovative measures.
Small cities in Asia will have to playa major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable sh... more Small cities in Asia will have to playa major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable share of the world urban population by the mid of this century will be living in them. Planning their growth thus, has become a need of the day, and to support their planning with better informed decisions research is urgently needed in many aspects of small cities. One such important aspect is the dynamics of the configuration of spaces, which the existing body of knowledge in planning has yet not fully explained and, towards which the planning approaches are conventionally least sensitive. In that context, this paper explores the dynamics of the spatial order in two small cities in Sri Lanka, namely Galle and Rathnapura. The two cities have been experiencing two types of forces associated with their growth and change. The first is the set of endogenous forces that urges them to change, sometimes expanding outward from their boundaries. The second is the flux of exogenous forces, among which technocratic urban planning process and recurrent and unexpected natural disasters are the prominent. Rathnapura city experienced annual floods, and a planned intervention to overcome that, and Galle city experienced asudden tsunami disaster and an unplanned project based intervention that affected its growth. The interventions resulted in a reconfigurations and changes in the spatial order of activities in both cities, but in manners that were unprecedented by the planning agencies. The paper discusses this phenomenon of self-organizing, responding to the effects of external forces of change, as a function of the 'spatial configuration': that is the overall composition of spatial elements, to determine the 'activity pattern': that is the order of the location of activities in space. The spatial configurations and the activity patterns of these two cities before and after the said interventions are compared. The pattern of the activity spaces are studied with activity mapping and the spatial configurations are studied using Space Syntax.Senate Research Gran
This article presents a hypothetical review of the envisaged changes in built environments, insti... more This article presents a hypothetical review of the envisaged changes in built environments, institutionalized planning processes and the real estate sector under the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic situation. While the dominant discourse in planning and urban development envisages a drastic change in human behavior, responding to likely future pandemic situations, causing a major transformation in the order of public spaces, the form of cities and the methods of planning, this article discusses the uncertainties associated with such ideologies. Further, it questions the possibility of catastrophes to change built environments and the necessity ofpandemic-adaptive planning
K e y w o r d s : E n v i r o n m e n t a l I m a g e , Cogni t ion , P l a c e , L o c a l i t y... more K e y w o r d s : E n v i r o n m e n t a l I m a g e , Cogni t ion , P l a c e , L o c a l i t y , Inhabitants , Spatial E lements .
The placement of outdoor advertising is a crucial task where people identify those are as intrusi... more The placement of outdoor advertising is a crucial task where people identify those are as intrusive elements of the built environment. Thus, there is a need of finding, why outdoor advertisements are considered as intrusive elements. In this background, this research aims to examine an association between the level of intrusiveness (a negative visual quality) and the level of visual information. The methodology of this research includes Shannon's Information Theory based entropy values to measure the level of visual information and the level of intrusiveness is evaluated by conducting a perception survey. The result of the level of visual information is correlated with the road users' perception to see the association. The findings of the research are, the t-test result shows the outdoor advertising add visual information to the built environment and the correlation analysis depicts a positive correlation between the level of visual information and intrusiveness. Moreover, t...
As a collection of lively phenomenon city, life is dependent on series of factors which define th... more As a collection of lively phenomenon city, life is dependent on series of factors which define the urban spatial structure also. Conventional urban planning typically takes the view that the classification of city activities as commercial, institutional, residential, public, etc. But understanding the urban space in the category of third spaces, gives that real meaning of the urban space. According to that classification there are three spaces as first (home), second (Work place) and third (Other) spaces in the urban environment. In urban planning the second space is the mostly concerned space. There are many different activity based locations and those can be identified within the category of ‘third spaces’, but the ones such as pubs, bars, cafes, special restaurants, brothel houses, illegal drug spots etc. are a special category that is generally regarded as ‘not-so-desired’ activities in a city but more functioning locations of the city. But this category of third spaces is not g...
Bhumi, The Planning Research Journal
The Updated National Physical Planning Policy and the Plan 2050, 2018
The 2019 update of the National Physical Planning Policy and the Plan 2050 for Sri Lanka, enacted... more The 2019 update of the National Physical Planning Policy and the Plan 2050 for Sri Lanka, enacted by Special Gazette Notification of 12th June 2019.
National Physical Planning Policy and Plan 2030, 2019
In order to address the need for planned physical development throughout the island, a National P... more In order to address the need for planned physical development throughout the island, a National Physical Planning Policy was first formulated in 2007 and it was made a statute in 2011. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries that can be proud of having a National Physical Planning Policy. The National Physical Plan derived out of that policy and known to all development agencies is now being updated by the National Physical Planning Department with a wider consultation of national and regional level authorities, government and non-government sector development agencies, and other interest groups. The Plan provides a comprehensive guide towards directing the physical developments of the island, addressing issues related to conservation, optimization and the sustainable use of land, water, ocean, and human resources.
The National Physical Plan shall be understood as a broad policy guide which needs to be effectuated at the local level by various national level development agencies and the local authorities. To that end, many statutory provisions are available, of which the Urban Development Authority Law of 1978, along with the subsequent amendments, is the most highlighted.
The existing National Physical Planning Policy is being updated by the National Physical Planning Department with a range of background studies, a series of in-depth analyses and wider involvement of expert consultations, development agencies and interest groups.
As the overall objective the proposed plan intends to provide a guide towards developing a physical environment that will facilitate Sri Lanka to become a smart nation and a competitive economy of the world within the next decade and remain thereafter, assuring the optimum and sustainable use of the available and unexplored resources of its land, its inhabitants and the ocean, and harnessing the potentials attributed by its strategic geographic location in the globe.
In order to achieve this objective and based on the findings of the detail studies on the existing and the foreseeable future situations and the desired development scenarios, the updates to the National Physical Plan, the overall policy has been formulated on the following principles:
1. Conservation of the ‘critical’ and the ‘unique’ qualities and elements in the island's landscape
2. Promotion of the areas ‘livable’ for future human settlement developments
3. Optimization of the utility of the ‘available’ resources and already built infrastructure, and investing only on necessities and minimum on new.
4. Exploration of the untapped ‘potentials’ and the ‘enhancement’ of the use of the existing land, location and human resources.
The Plan has been enacted on 12th June 2019.
PhD Thesis, 2004
Recent trends in local level planning have emphasized the importance of enhancing place images. H... more Recent trends in local level planning have emphasized the importance of enhancing place images.
Hence, conceptualizing the form of a locality’s image has become a need in urban planning.
Having noted the limitations in available approaches, and the knowledge gaps for such
conceptualizing through a literature review, this study was undertaken to evolve a conceptual
model of the structure of a locality’s image. For this purpose the results of an empirical
investigation of the inhabitants’ cognition were interpreted in the light of theoretical positions
established by previous studies. The research was designed on the premises that the ‘spatial
extent’ of the environment constitutes the substantial domain of urban planning and the planners
aspire to work in its ‘public realm’. Hence, the focus was on the shared spatial references in
inhabitants’ cognition. The empirical work included a questionnaire survey, a field
reconnaissance and a cartographic survey. Referring to the ‘invariant’ and the ‘context specific’
characteristics of the findings, it was suggested that the environmental image of a place was a
‘unitary’ concept and its structure was configured of the ‘reference points’ both ‘collectively’ and
‘individually’ held by the inhabitants. Therefore, the model evolved here was named the unitary
image of the place. Its ‘collective’ domain was shown as the potential area for the urban planners
to intervene to work about a locality’s image and thereby, to integrate inhabitants’ cognition with
the planning process.