Theoretical review of aesthetic principles in architecture to enhance urban quality of life
By Mohammad Samarzadeh Vajdeh Far
Today, built environments play a central role in human life, with people spending most of their time indoors. The changing nature of work and extended hours make architectural design quality vital to physical and psychological health. Aesthetics, emphasising visual and sensory dimensions, can significantly enhance urban quality of life. This study conducts a theoretical review and analysis of renowned architects’ perspectives to identify five core aesthetic components: lighting design, geometric proportions, spatial flow, material texture, and connection to nature. Integrating these components can increase satisfaction, reduce stress, and promote well-being. Practical recommendations for applying aesthetic principles in urban building design are offered. Aesthetics, an ancient discipline, varies across cultures, eras, and geographies; no single formula exists. Historical and cultural differences in aesthetic elements show the impossibility of a fixed, universal standard.
Architecture has long addressed physical comfort; recent research also highlights the benefits of natural lighting, ventilation, and contact with nature, supported by standards such as WELL. Balanced proportions, natural materials, and human centred approaches improve satisfaction and performance. This study systematically identifies and analyses aesthetic factors in urban office design, drawing from global architectural examples to reveal that aesthetics, unlike mathematics, is shaped by context.
A literature review situates aesthetics from Baumgarten’s “science of sensory cognition” through Platonic, Hegelian, and modern interpretations, noting the interplay of sensory perception, harmony, and complexity. Cultural and geographical contexts strongly influence aesthetic values. Examining works of architects from diverse traditions shows varied expressions: Finnish human centred naturalism, Arabic curves and forms, Japanese minimalism, Modernism’s precision, postmodern symbolism, and sustainable architecture’s ecological and cultural integration.
The methodological approach uses content analysis of scholarly literature, following Miles and Huberman’s (1994) three stage model: initial coding, thematic categorisation, and conceptual pattern extraction. Keywords guiding the research were Architecture, Aesthetics, Urbanisation, and Urban Planning. From over 100 screened articles, 36 peer reviewed sources were selected for depth and relevance.
Findings indicate that human centred design, spatial dynamism, proportion, harmony with nature, and material authenticity are core principles. Cultural fusion, simplicity, precise geometry, urban memory, symbolic forms, bold colour, and sustainability also contribute to architectural beauty. Nature remains a fundamental source of aesthetic inspiration, as do historical references, though interpretations vary greatly across contexts.
The review of prominent architects’ works illustrates how aesthetic features align with style and cultural influence. These range from Aalto’s human centred Modernism to Tange’s blend of Japanese tradition with modernism, Zumthor’s material detail, and Barragán’s use of colour and spiritual simplicity. Each approach reflects a distinct negotiation between global design ideals and local identity.
The study concludes that while certain principles recur—light and shadow, material authenticity, cultural integration—there is no timeless, universally applicable formula for aesthetics. Instead, aesthetic value emerges from the interplay between creative intent, historical moment, cultural and geographical context, and contemporary technology. To foster well being and enhance urban quality of life, architects must study society, culture, geography, and technology, integrating this understanding with creativity. As with water taking the shape of its container, aesthetics adapts to its vessel—history, culture, and materials—requiring continual study and awareness of present conditions.
On memorability of place and installation
By İpek Özer and Senem Kaymaz
Installation art can be defined as the arrangement and placement of some objects in a space. Location of the objects, the reasons to locate them to that specific place and the relationship between existing other objects are some of the important issues to consider when it comes to installation art. Artists consider a lot of things while creating an installation so it can be said that the creation process is a complex work. Besides, aims and wishes of the artists are very important parts of this process and one of them is to create an artwork that can leave a long-lasting effect on visitors’ memories. People experience many things every day, however, not every single experience can be remembered afterwards. Some stay longer in the memory while other might be forgotten easily. Since every experience is personal and related to physical environment, perception and feelings; the degree of memorability is different for everyone, too. At this point some questions arise such as: ‘Can a temporary installation remain memorable for visitors?’ or ‘Which features of installations and place affect visitors?’. Main goal of this study is to understand the memorability of installations and place with the guidance of these questions. In this study, memorability can be understood as long-term recall and emotional impact in the context of installation art and exhibition space. Memorability of an installation and place can change according to various factors such as placements of the object, atmosphere of the place, topic or physical features of the installation. Following a literature review, five parameters that might influence memorability were defined. These parameters are: “being site-specific”, “presentation of the art and how it materialises”, “content of the art and its emotional impact on the viewer”, “degree of the viewer’s involvement”, and “collective experience”.
This study focuses on an installation named “Brain Forest Quipu” and it was exhibited between the dates of 11 October 2022 and 16 April 2023 in the Turbine Hall which is a part of the Tate Modern Museum in London. The installation was created by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña in collaboration with local Latin American communities and the work takes its name from “quipu”, which is a record and communication system used by the Quechua people living in the Andean mountains. Quipus contain long textile part, ropes, natural materials and nodes. Vicuña works on this tradition and quipus for a long time, and it is possible to see some different knotting techniques in her other works as well. Her purpose is to express the importance of forests and natural environments and to increase the awareness about how these natural environments disappear by time.
The method used in this study consists of two steps. In the first step, five parameters that were mentioned before are defined as a result of the literature review about memorability of installations and place. The second step involves the analysis of visitor comments on social media. Social media comments were searched and examined to understand the thoughts and impressions of visitors who experienced this installation and place. Only English comments which were containing information about how people think, feel, and experience this exhibition were gathered and other comments were not considered in this study. Therefore, 23 visitor comments were collected, and they were analysed while using content analysis method. For the data analysis, MAXQDA 2020 Analytics Pro, a software suitable for qualitative data analysis, was used. Words focusing on the descriptions of visitors about the installation and place were grouped under the description category, while words that express the emotional responses and the impressions were included in the interpretation category.
Finally, it can be said that installation had an impact on the visitors because of its topic and the representation. However, it is significant to express that this study has some limitations, such as a small number of comments, lack of demographic information about visitors and bias about only presenting digitally active visitors. Nevertheless, social media usage as a data pool might be seen as an opportunity. Future memory studies can adopt the perspective of using social media data with the integration of other traditional and scientific methods like survey, interview, eye tracking and galvanic skin response. Also, curators and architects can benefit from such studies while designing exhibition space. Some important data might be obtained from visitors while using the methods mentioned above in the process of artwork selection, to understand the suitability of circulation or which exhibition techniques to use for more effective and influential exhibitions. A triangulation of social media usage, traditional, and scientific methods can increase the amount of data and render more layered results. This point of view encourages and opens more space to interdisciplinary research.
Divriği’s architectural plasticity: Study in Seljuk innovation and cross-cultural analogy
By Nagehan Yağmur Şimşek Sönmez
The Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği (in Turkey), commissioned in the early 1220s by the Mengücekid ruler Ahmed Şah with the hospital endowed by his consort Turan Melek, constitute a rare contiguous mosque-hospital ensemble under joint male-female patronage and a landmark of Anatolian Seljuk architectural ambition. Although the precise construction chronology is undocumented, the scale and historical circumstances suggest a five- to six-year campaign under the chief architect Hürremşah of Ahlat, whose cosmopolitan workshop likely integrated craftsmen from Central Asia, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, and Iran, producing a synthesis legible in the project’s exceptional stone-carving program and methodical spatial organisation. The mosque adopts a courtyard-less, multi-aisled scheme associated with Danişmendid regions, articulated as a 5 × 5 field of bays whose module dimensions are elastically calibrated; support diameters grade outward to accommodate span differentials, and vault typologies vary across the grid to sustain visual interest while reinforcing a hierarchy oriented toward the mihrab. Four principal portals concentrate the complex’s celebrated plasticity: instead of relying on deep recesses and muqarnas canopies, the portals generate depth and shadow through sweeping moulding profiles that construct a chiaroscuro-rich surface. The North Portal, monumental in scale and animated by a high-relief vegetal “cosmic tree” exemplifies the ensemble’s capacity to mobilise “plastic dynamism,” a perceptual condition in which profiled edges and relief gradations script light into gradients, producing the illusion of swelling, recession, and flow as daylight and viewpoint change; the frequent analogy to the Baroque, therefore, is explicitly morphological rather than genealogical. The Darüşşifa Portal similarly composes depth through equal-height concentric arches and bundled colonnettes, planimetrically reminiscent of Gothic concentrics, yet distinct in its refusal of recession and its integration of figural relief at a threshold calibrated to the hospital’s didactic and therapeutic functions. By contrast, the West Portal appears to be a later, more mechanical, planar-geometric completion of lower craftsmanship, while the small, classically Seljuk East (Şah) opening, unique in its localised use of muqarnas, likely records a different phase and set of hands. Within, the interior’s measured restraint counterbalances the portals’ exuberance: two-way pointed arches tie octagonal piers; a widened, pyramidal-domed bay marks the mihrab axis; and the mihrab niche itself reiterates the portals’ plastic logic in a three-dimensional rod-interlace whose analogues across Armenian, Syrian, and Gothic contexts underscore the workshop’s eclectic intelligence. The wooden minbar, attributed to Ahmed of Tiflis, departs from stone-plastic bravura to showcase hexagon-based geometric composition with rumi infill, aligning with Islamic proportional geometries. The hospital, typologically a covered-courtyard, four-iwan variant with a lanterned dome and upper-level cells, operated historically as both clinical and educational institution; unfinished masonry and partially completed carving across the complex register interrupted campaigns and subsequent interventions, preserving constructional phasing as part of the monument’s message. Read as a whole, Divriği demonstrates how a medieval Anatolian project achieved exceptional experiential intensity through local techniques: profilation (articulated moulding profiles), high-relief vegetal invention, calibrated spans and supports, while inviting, but not requiring, cross-cultural analogy. The selective use of figural imagery at the hospital threshold and heraldic birds at the west portal exemplifies program-sensitive decorum rather than a simplistic Islamic/pagan dichotomy. At the same time, the consistent motif discipline at major portals coupled with incomplete programs elsewhere points to a master-led conception executed by multiple hands over shifting tempos. Methodologically, the study proceeds by close architectural reading: plan, structure, relief depth, material treatment, and degrees of completion. This is supplemented by heuristic comparisons to “Gothic” and “Baroque” as broad perceptual paradigms (structural linearity and depth versus surface vitality and movement) to clarify Divriği’s independent solutions to shared aims of depth, movement, and surface animation. In conclusion, Divriği stands as a benchmark for understanding how structure, ornament, and program co-produce meaning in Anatolia: a courtyard-less, multi-aisled mosque that stages a controlled crescendo toward the mihrab; thresholds that convert architecture into sculpture through light-shaped plasticity; context-aware iconography; and a material record of incompletion and repair that renders the making of the monument legible. Cross-cultural analogies remain instructive insofar as they illuminate morphological behaviours without implying genealogical descent, foregrounding the project’s distinctive Anatolian stone-carving grammar and masterful workshop organisation as the sources of its unparalleled sculptural ambition.
Ornamentation as a tool of social architecture
By Csenge Faur
This study examines the architectural tool of ornamentation within the framework of social architecture, exploring its effects on strengthening architectural identity and supporting social integration. The research responds to the growing demand for design approaches that support integration in social contexts, where architecture plays a key role in shaping community relations, cultural expression, and attachment to place. While the topic of ornamentation is often examined from an aesthetic or stylistic perspective, this study proposes a reinterpretation of it as a communicative tool that can meaningfully contribute to the acceptance and long-term functioning of social institutions. The study highlights that the integration of a building into its local environment and the integration of its user group into the surrounding community are interdependent processes, both influenced by architectural identity. Ornamentation, as an expressive layer mediating between structure and symbol, becomes a key tool in facilitating this dual integration.
The theoretical background places ornamentation in relation to the concept of architectural identity, arguing that identity in architecture is created through the interaction of material, form, and meaning in a historical, social, and cultural context. The historical overview focuses on the period of Hungarian Art Nouveau, in which ornamentation played a role not only as a decorative element, but also as a consciously applied tool for shaping identity. Identifying the social and cultural roots, in this period folk culture and art originating from local traditions, played a fundamentally determining role in the search for identity. Through projects related to the Bárczy program and social housing of the early 20th century, the study demonstrates that ornamentation was consciously used to express cultural belonging and familiarity. These historical examples show that well-developed design and decoration were not alien to social functions, but carried symbolic and integrative meanings that supported the movement of rural populations to urban environments.
Contemporary examples, such as the Ca L’Anita Social and Cultural Centre and community-based projects in Latin America, demonstrate the renewed importance of ornamentation in social architecture. In these projects, patterns, materials, and colours on facades function as communicative elements that connect local identity with modern expression. The use of ornamentation—whether perforated surfaces, patterned cladding, or reinterpretations of traditional motifs—demonstrates its ability to create visual and social continuity between past and present, the individual and the collective, and the social groups involved. These cases illustrate how the conscious use of ornamentation supports both aesthetics and social interaction through the shaping of identity.
The research methodology combines secondary and primary qualitative approaches. The first phase included a literature review, historical analysis and case studies to identify well-functioning models of social and architectural integration. The second phase consisted of design-based research and participatory processes carried out in collaboration with social institutions and communities. Methods such as observation, interviews and co-design workshops were used to understand how users relate to architectural identity and to test decoration as a means of communication. These practices showed that involving participants in the interpretation of motifs and materials deepens the attachment to place and promotes collective ownership of the built environment.
The results show a close relationship between architectural identity, decoration, and social integration. Decoration, as a means of communication, strengthens the connection between people and place by embedding cultural references in architectural form. Design experiments have confirmed that reinterpreting local materials and patterns can evoke familiarity, connection, and attachment—key factors in maintaining the social acceptance and functionality of public spaces. Participatory design has adapted and expanded these effects, demonstrating that ornamentation can function as a shared language through which users and architects co-create meaning. Architecture, especially architecture with social function, should not only be a response to spatial needs, but also a more complex response to multiple social needs.
The study interprets these findings as evidence of the continued relevance of ornamentation in contemporary social architecture. Rather than being a nostalgic or decorative gesture, when consciously applied, it becomes a medium that transforms cultural identity into a spatial experience. It can mediate between tradition and modernity, articulate belonging, and shape the buildings of social institutions into integral elements of community life and settlement structure. The design-based experiments illustrate how participatory methods and context-sensitive ornamentation can renew the dialogue between architecture and society. Reinterpreting ornamentation within the discourse of social architecture offers a progressive and inclusive approach to design. By integrating aesthetic, social, and cultural dimensions, ornamentation can enhance architectural identity, strengthen social bonds, and support long-term integration processes. It offers an opportunity to rethink how architectural expression contributes to social cohesion and how design can become a tool for collective meaning-making. Through both historical reflection and contemporary practice, the research confirms that decoration is an enduring mediator between material and community, form and identity, architecture and society.