Dimension 01 of 10
Who a place is for — its communities, people and ways of life.
Editorial summary Awaiting the founder’s approval
The social dimension asks who a place belongs to and how it is lived. It attends to community structures, demographics and lifestyles (Reza 2025): the networks, routines and forms of collective life through which people inhabit, share and contest space.
In New Contextualist writing the social dimension is bound to equity. Design ‘must protect the “right to the city,”’ ensuring that no project strips away people’s access to space, belonging or shared resources (Reza and Nitu 2025). The same essay identifies social fragmentation (gentrification, high-rise isolation and the privatisation of public space) as one of the crises that contemporary practice has failed to address (Reza and Nitu 2025).
Analytical diagram
Editorial diagram Connections
Interpretation Relations proposed by the editors
Livelihoods and affordability decide who can remain in a place, and so whom it is for. Example drawn from Reza and Nitu 2025.
Governance determines whose needs are recognised and who keeps access to shared space. Example drawn from Reza and Nitu 2025.
Collective memory binds communities to places; losing a place can mean losing part of a shared origin. Example drawn from Reza 2025.
Shared practices, rituals and everyday routines are how communities sustain their culture in space.
Streets, courtyards and public spaces can gather people, or keep them apart. Example drawn from Reza and Nitu 2025.
Relevant publications
Mohammad Habib Reza, Upama Das Nitu Context BD
Mohammad Habib Reza The Daily Star
Mohammad Habib Reza The Business Standard
Md Samiur Rahman Bhuiyan Workshop ‘Exploring New Contextualism: An Approach to Architecture and Urban Design’
Mohammad Habib Reza Re-Imagining Bengal: Architecture, Built Environment and Cultural Heritage
Nandini Awal, Mohammad Habib Reza WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment
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