Socially Restorative Urbanism: Principles and Practice for Socio-Spatial Urban Design

This paper outlines the principles and means for practical application of a socio-spatial framework for urban design called Socially Restorative Urbanism. It offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between urban spatial structure and social process, focused on integration of social, spatial and material dimensions of urban realm. In this respect it aligns with and contributes towards a growing body of theoretical discourse concerned with the delivery of socially responsive urban environments. Socially Restorative Urbanism is, however, distinguishable through formative research based on experiential dimensions of urban realm, the advocating of inclusive participatory practices in processes of change in urban settings and an emphasis towards the importance of small-scale human-environment interactions to the social benefit of urban settings. The paper outlines core aspects of research underpinning development of Socially Restorative Urbanism: Experiential Landscape; experiemic process and MYTO (mine, yours, ours, theirs); and the international IAPS symposium New-aging Cities. We then move on to explain how this background has influenced development of integrated human-environment concepts that enable the Socially Restorative Urbanism ethos to translate into practical application focused on social dimensions of urban streetscapes: transitional edges and microenvironments. We conclude with a forward-facing agenda for further development of Socially Restorative Urbanism by means of the Socio-spatial Urbanism Unit (SsUU).