Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect CrossMark ELSEVIER Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 170 (2015) 709 - 717 Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences AcE-Bs2014Seoul Asian Conference on Environment-Behaviour Studies Chung-Ang University, Seoul, S. Korea, 25-27 August 2014 " Environmental Settings in the Era of Urban Regeneration" The Notion of Place, Place Meaning and Identity in Urban Regeneration Norsidah Ujanga,*, Khalilah Zakariyab a Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia b Department of Landscape Architecture, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Urban regeneration within traditional settings has transformed places and constructed meanings embedded in the existing social and cultural settings. Thus, the social and emotional meanings, attached to or evoked by the elements of the urban environment were at least as important, often more so than the structural and the physical aspects of people imagery. This paper reviews the definitions and concept of place in establishing a conceptual framework for urban regeneration in light of the sense of place and environmental psychology (place attachment) principles. The reviews highlight the importance of place-based approach and principles in the era of urban regeneration and its implication on the continuity of place meaning and identity in the Asian context. This paper advocates the importance of the psychological dimension of place in regenerating urban setting for psychological well-being of the inhabitants. C 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies (cE-Bs), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. Keywords: Place; identity; meaning; attachment 1. Introduction A space is more properly conceived as abstract geometries (distance, direction, size, shape, volume) detached from material form and cultural interpretation (Gieryn, 2000 from Hillier and Hanson 1984). To imbue the space with meaning, individuals, groups or societies changed spaces into places (Relph, 1976). * Corresponding author. Tel : +60389464071 :; Fax : +603 8948 0017. E-mail address: norsidah@upm.edu.my. 1877-0428 C 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies (cE-Bs), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.073
710 Norsidah Ujang and Khalilah Zakariya / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 170 (2015) 709 - 717 In parallel with Relph, Tuan (1977) argued that places were essentially "centers of meaning constructed out of lived experience" that through time would be perceived as significant to the lives of the people. There is growing evidence that urban regeneration within traditional settings has diminished the place meanings of transformed and or newly constructed places. According to Arefi (1999), in addition to the commodification of place, the roots of placelessness lie deep in globalization (Aleya, 2012) that generates standardized and inauthentic urban landscapes. The lack of connectivity of the physical landscapes with place meanings cut across broader physical, cultural and emotional context. In this regards, Relph (1976) described placelessness as