Dr  Mohamed Nabyl Chenaf

 Chair of Architecture & Interior Design departments American University in Dubai 

Title of presentation :The meaning of the built environment – across-cultural study

The present paper is an attempt to analyze the way people perceive the city of Dubai (UAE). Emphasis will be put on the fact that the rapid growth of Dubai as well as the ever increasing concern with the quality of the built environment in general and architecture in par tic u lar s eem  to c onf lic t with t he ide a of  “ Ment al M app ing”  whic h contributes considerably to understanding the city and thus nurturing a certain feeling of belonging, the latter, highly needed for the establishment of a social life.  Dubai is undoubtedly full of architectural icons, metaphors and landmarks, which add a semantic value to the place; however, it doesn't seem  to addre s  the s yntactic aspect, which is desperately needed for an easy reading of the city. It seems that architecture engaged in such a race for excellence that the urban space had to be reformulated every time a new building is bursting off the ground. One can argue that no matter how rich one 's  v oc abu lar y is ,  gram m ar is still needed to make meaningful statements.  Much in the same way, to a certain extent, urban design should negotiate a compromise between buildings in terms of mass, size, style, materials, colors, etc.     Social life can be injected through physical spaces only if the latter have meanings.  Therefore, it appears that it is high time planners and architects learned to deal with the world of semiotics. E.T. Hall ( 1966) ,  argues 

that: “ we m us t be ginseeingman as an interlocutor with h is  environment” . Apple yard ( 196 9) expl ins  the predictive  advantage, which he considered, could be gained from the understanding of buildings as a powerful tool for architects and planners  to ga in “ control over that elusiv e communication medium, the urban  environment” . T a yl or ( 1 973) also  suggests  that  a  building  is  a cultural  and

historical product, which has  to  do with “ values  and system s  of  signification whic h the designer  must address  him s elf  to” .  For that purpose, a study has been undertaken to investigate the way people in Dubai read, describe and visualize the city. An attempt is made to identify the actual architectural and urban “meaningfuls paces ”  in the c it y. Arandom  sample of  people f rom  different age categories, gender and nationalities was chosen for the questionnaire and informal interviews. Other research techniques were used such as participant and non-participant observation as well as analyses of graphic and written documents.