Toward a Socially Active Residential Vicinity in The Contemporary Residential Architecture

During the past few decades , the urban boundaries of many Arab cities expanded, and their residential areas expanded due to increasing in the population density and the expansion of economic activity, in addition to prevailing building system, and decreasing in the supply of the suitable lands for constructions and its high price, all this led to the spread of multy-storey residential buildings in attached and closely patterns, even it becomes the prevailing and approved system of construction system, without regarding the requirements of social human needs, in the design of external spaces, which in turn results in loosing the social relations among the inhabitants. Paper’s hypothesis: The pattern and style of surrounding spaces design in residential buildings of contemporary architecture without taking into account of the social factor, is one of the most important reasons for the shortcomings of the social vitality of these areas. This paper is based on studying these spaces in social function by extrapolating the performance of few models and analyzing them in order to reach an interactive and dynamic relationship between a human and his residential environment ,and community, within the borders of an apartment building and surrounding external spaces. During the past few decades , the urban boundaries of many Arab cities expanded, and their residential areas expanded due to increasing in the population density and the expansion of economic activity, in addition to prevailing building system, and decreasing in the supply of the suitable lands for constructions and its high price, all this led to the spread of multy-storey residential buildings in attached and closely patterns, even it becomes the prevailing and approved system of construction system, without regarding the requirements of social human needs, in the design of external spaces, which in turn results in loosing the social relations among the inhabitants. Paper’s hypothesis: The pattern and style of surrounding spaces design in residential buildings of contemporary architecture without taking into account of the social factor, is one of the most important reasons for the shortcomings of the social vitality of these areas. This paper is based on studying these spaces in social function by extrapolating the performance of few models and analyzing them in order to reach an interactive and dynamic relationship between a human and his residential environment ,and community, within the borders of an apartment building and surrounding external spaces.