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Abdelbaseer,
You need to think through carefully what you wish to mean by “beautiful,” a term that is very much out of fashion among the artiste/designers these days. Clearly, “beautiful”
in an aesthetic sense is different from “beautiful” in terms of robust urban life or distinctive sense of place. “Beautiful” is a key word in Christopher Alexander’s work but he associates it with such other possibilities as “healing,” “wholeness,” “environmental
vitality,” and so forth. In that regard, his work on Turkish carpet geometry as well as his NEW THEORY OF URBAN DESIGN (1987) and his four-volume THE NATURE OF ORDER (2002-05) are central texts. I would also recommend several chapters in Carmona’s PUBLIC PLACES,
URBAN SPACES (2nd edition), esp. the chapter on visual and perceptual dimensions of urban design. These chapters are very good overviews of work key to the question of “beautiful.”
It’s curious you make this request on the space syntax list serve, since “beautiful” directly is not really a dimension of space-syntax theory. I’m curious as to why you
mention it here?
Dr. David Seamon
Professor of Environment-Behavior & Place Studies
Department of Architecture
211 Seaton Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-2901
785-532-5953
http://ksu.academia.edu/DavidSeamon