CONSERVATION OF EKISTICS-BASED URBAN FORM: CONTROLLING AMALGAMATION OF TWIN CITY GROWTH PATTERN

This paper analyzes the amalgamation of two different urban forms in the context of twin cities and their conservation according to the contemporary approaches. Despite high interdependence and close connectedness of Islamabad and Rawalpindi as its twin city in Pakistan, their urban forms weave inverse physiognomies, which is vulnerable to amalgamate due to the conurbations process. Both city were conceptualized as “Dyna-metropolis” by Greek architect C.A Doxiadis based on ekistics determinant but deteriorated due to governance issues. The methodological approach for conservation outlines the criteria that protect the future controlled growth and quality to human life, which is not possible through a static form of the old city. Therefore, the adopted method examined Islamabad on two scales like micro (neighborhood-scale) and macro (city-scale) through analysing existing literatures, maps, photographs, case studies and questionnaires to identify the causes of diversion from original Ekistics variables such as modulus and dynapolis. This study argues that conservation is significant not only from the theoretical perspective but also because Islamabad is the first large-scale application of ekistics, designed as ‘city of future’. This study identified several challenges hindering urban development such as rapid urbanization, demand and supply gap of housing, Unaffordable land value, imbalance of ekistics elements and less mix use. The solutions are proposed through the revision of the ekistics logarithm scale for modulus and a new dimension to dynapolis. Finally, if the conservation method is not proposed at the right time, it will not only produce adverse effects on the physical morphology but also affects sensitivity to the science of human settlement.