Sustaining sense of place of Kandy, Sri Lanka: the role of commercial spaces

Abstract

Developing a historically important city while retaining the essence of that place is a crucial issue confronted by architects, urban designers and planners worldwide. It should neither be a repetition of elements nor total disregard of conservational norms: if that city is an urbanized living city, many facets such as public services, commercial activities and conservation issues require consideration. Understanding the sense of place is considered as the means of ensuring healthy and sustainable development in a historical city. Sense of place is always related to human interaction with places and is reflected in commercial spaces, which have the potential of creating an identity to a city. Therefore the objective of this research is to explore the sense of place in commercial spaces of a living historical city