Common space as a tool for social sustainability

In the contemporary human community relations, great attention is paid to social sustainability due to its ties with the local identity and social culture. That is, the common spaces are considered as the social arena that creates a high opportunity for people to bond and interact. In light of this, this study aims at highlighting the importance of such spaces through a case study of the apartment building in Amman, and its impact on social sustainability. Several issues were addressed in order to develop insight into this relation, namely, social equity, social capital, civic engagement, community stability, place attachment, and safety and security. A mixed-method approach was adopted in this research that entailed spatial analysis of layouts of 65 apartments' building, an on-line survey of 197 residents of apartments' buildings, and face-to-face interviews with 30 architects and developers. The results of this study bring to notice that apartment building in Amman is deficient in indoor common spaces in terms of functionality and that the few indoor common spaces that are found are mainly limited to circulation paths with no hierarchical system. This finding underlines a crucial need for formulation of design guidelines for multi-family housing with the consideration of social sustainability as an integral part in the infrastructure. These design guidelines, once formulated and enacted, will guarantee provision of indoor common space qualitatively as a hub for a wide range of activities.