Abstract:
Urban and human settlement development in developing countries was a frontier of the twentieth century architecture, from where new thinking and practices which exceed modern movement emerged. Dwelt environment, a new research subject, was proposed from this field. Dwelt environment is important as a basis for lives of people yet how this should be comprehended, created or conserved is not necessarily clarified. By pushing ahead the idea of dwelt environment, this study aims to find a possible image of emerging architecture of our times. This paper first defines dwelt environment based on human–environment relationships and shows way to apprehend dwelt environment through participant observations. Secondly, this paper derives a method for local dwelt environment design from reflections of the practices of a local tutoring school foundation project, in which the author joined with the dwellers in the historic area of Colombo. Dwelt environment of the area is apprehended as a system consisting of local places, network of local places and “Viśvāsaya විශ්වාසය/Nambikkai நம்பிக்கக/ relationships of trust”. The author presents a method of dwelt environment design, which controls the transition process of dwelt environment through the interaction between architecture planning activities on the site and the dwellers as “Field Design”.
