THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH _
The theoretical framework concerning the relationship between human beings and space is guided by the concepts developed by Malard [1992] in her thesis, in which she sought subjective approaches to space through phenomenology, unveiling its existential relationships. It is not intended to discuss phenomenology here but accept its contribution as a background to the approach to this subject.
Malard’s work is based on Heidegger’s concepts and presents the idea that existence has a spatial dimension. In this way there is an inseparable relationship between the human and space and one cannot be understood without the other. They are considered a single unit and spatiality belongs to the very essence of man, since the body is the parameter that permits the spatial level to be established. [Malard 1992]
Here the space [the site] is seen as part of human life and culture. This inquiry maintains that space cannot be comprehended only geometrically (in regard to its physical dimensions), it adopts the concept of experienced or lived-space presented by Malard, [1992] to be able to address a more subjective level of the relationship between a specific site and its inhabitants.
Accepting the body as the subject of space, Malard [1992] describes lived-space and explains that the relation between space and body is linked to the perception [feelings, sensations] of one’s experience in a space. The space seen as lived-space is the one experienced by human beings, in which sensations and perceptions appear in relation to actions developed in space, and connected to a previous knowledge, a past and/or a culture. [Malard 1992, 14] These concepts are important for this inquiry because it searches for human perceptions of a certain space, once existent but now only accessible through its recreation in the minds of certain people. The comprehensions of these spaces are discussed in the following section.