Files
Abstract
This dissertation investigates how cartographic representations of the form and function of built environments can communicate the identity of peri-urban and rural towns and their strategic value in urban planning. Maps employed by urban planning efforts are typically tailored for large cities and often overlook the intricacies of small towns as human habitats, stunting their ability to develop sustainably, preserve their architectural heritage, and most importantly provide livable conditions for their growing populations. The research investigates towns in the Beqaa Valley, a stretch of agricultural landscape situated between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. The research proposes a mapping workflow of the built environment under three disciplinary methods. Carto-semiology, the study of cartographic models including maps, is deployed to synthesize how the built environment was represented in historic maps (500 A.D. – present), delineating the semantic gap between the urban condition and its cartographic representation. Urban morphology, the study of the built fabric and the processes and people shaping it, provides categorization methods of the built environment that are leveraged to distinguish between different built environment fabrics. Classification of remote sensing data, which is the process of categorizing images including satellite imagery, generates a digital map that communicates the distribution of these different built fabrics in Beqaa towns. Outcomes of this research distill 24 unique categories of built environment fabrics that can be mapped through remote sensing data by leveraging unique indices such as brightness levels, geometric characteristics (such as rectangular fit and compactness).