ABSTRACT
Transferring knowledge from scientific, philosophical and theoretical debates, Chapter Four focuses on the debate in the social sciences regarding time in urban space and the urban temporal condition. It reflects the most recent findings on spacetime, rhythm, refrain and territoriality situating these in the urban environment. The review begins by looking at constructs of time in society and space. This is followed by a discussion of tangible understandings of urban time both as a sense and as a process. Furthermore it discusses key paradigm shifts in the understanding of the urban temporal condition, including the acknowledgement of spacetime, and its sensorial and affective conditions. It ends with discussing the indissociable nature of the sense of time, rhythm, place and atmosphere.
The debate offers significant insights into the attributes of time and the aesthetics of temporality in urban places, and assists in the formation of a new conceptual framework of place temporality and Temporal Urban Design, which follows in the next chapters. Overall Chapter Four argues for a temporal turn in perspective within urban design research and practice.
