ABSTRACT
The developing tendency of the Chinese urban planning and design system is towards pragmatism. The generic principles of urban design developed in the west certainly are beneficial for Chinese urban spaces since they are based on the understanding of basic human behaviour and psychological experience. They perhaps serve to demonstrate that it is possible, indeed arguably essential to the delivery of urban social sustainability, to relate human psychological and social functioning to the spatial and material organisation of urban settings. Additionally, in consideration of how these theoretical principles might be made applicable, they are often given the form of language-like vocabularies and grammatical frameworks, which allow them to be structured meaningfully into practical delivery systems. In its essence, typomorphology is a similar kind of framework and as such may at least provide a bridge from which to begin to explore connections between aspects of human functioning as they relate to cultural identity and the Chinese urban development context.
