<Symposium Overview: Presentations' outlines>Capturing from Human Activities: the Multiscale Dynamisms of Dwelt Environment

Abstract

Focusing on South Asian colonial cities as frontiers of hybridization of modern elements and local elements, the author has made a study on historical transformation of their dwelt environment for getting a better understanding on contemporary dwelt environment. Colombo, Sri Lanka's major city and at the same time the Indian Ocean's hub city, has been the major target of the study since 2004. In recent years, the author has participated as an architect in a project to find a local tutoring school in the historic area of Colombo to regenerate its local dwelt environment. A chat with a local dweller and the author at a teashop on the street during a field study spans off the project. Establishment of an effective method for local dwelt environment consists of three phases as 1. Understanding of the present local dwelt environment and its development path through dwelt environment formation history, 2. Abstraction of possibility and problem of concrete and micro local dwelt environment based on the understanding of dwelt environment formation history, and 3. Co-design and co-creation of a new dwelt environment which copes with the possibilities and problems of local dweller, is the final objective of this study. This paper especially has relation to the phase 3 of the above mentioned three phases. Based on the experience on practices of local tutoring school foundation project in Colombo, this paper janalyzes dwelt environment as a complex system consisting of places, network of places and "縁 En" with attention to human activities, kconsiders transition process of dwelt environment through design activities, and lfinally presents an idea on Dwelt Environment Model as a tool for management of transition process of dwelt environment.