| dc.description.abstract | Mawanella is a small suburb in Sri Lanka that has been developed as a transitional
town since the colonial period. The historical layers of the town were reflected as
traditional buildings on either side of the old Colombo-Kandy main road. The
development of road widening projects resulted in drastic changes to the existing
urban form and many old settlements were erased by uncontrollable development,
practiced during the last 20 years. The study explores how the gradual changes in
urban morphology impact on legibility of older neighbourhoods, considering
Mawanella as a model case. The literature review synthesised the parameters such
as the pattern of urban morphology, serial vision along the main artery and the
façade articulation to study the transformation of the city form. The methodology
was adopted to identify the aspects that contribute to the city’s identity, how the
urban morphology has been transformed over the last 20 years and how it impacts
city legibility through visual survey and a perception study. The research confirmed
that people were strongly attached with the old city elements and the unique
morphology of the old neighbourhood which visually and physically contributed to
achieve the city legibility though currently, it was unable to gain through the
modernised environment. The outcomes of the study were formed as an urban
design toolkit, to be used for future developments of older neighbourhoods. | en_US |
