Reshaping social housing spaces as vibrant places Case study: Msaken el Magzar, Mansoura, Egypt

Developing a relationship to shape the integration of placemaking practices in social housing spaces is the main issue of this paper; where social housing is meant to be based on fulfilling the human needs of people in their places, while placemaking represents the suitable diverse, variable, and multi-scaled approach to root the social housing patterns in the urban context. This paper aims to extract a draft code to measure the applicability of placemaking characteristics of great places in social housing spaces to reach reasonable criteria for successful social housing places and to investigate the ability of these criteria to apply a new layer of socio-urban studies that deepen the relationship between man and urbanism yet enhances their impact on the environment. Through following qualitative and quantitative methods to deduct a formula to shape the relationship between social housing and placemaking, analyzing human needs theories to deduct social housing dimensions, integrating placemaking principles, and qualities to draft a code for social housing great places, and investigating the application of this code on the case of Msaken El Magzar in Mansoura, Egypt. Based on this, the research concludes with a proposed draft code of 3 levels 1) basic measurements of social housing dimensions and placemaking characteristics, 2) secondary requirements, and finally 3) standard indicators. The research suggests that this draft code should be investigated and activated through a set of questions to experts, shareholders, stakeholders, and, parties involved in the process of establishing and remaking successful places of social housing spaces.