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New revitalization and regeneration strategies are currently taking place as a scheme for reassessing urban spaces. This paper, as a result, navigates the theory of Urban Acupuncture (UA) as a quick and effective tool that can be adopted in large cities. Using Riyadh city as a case study, it discusses how this tool can be used to achieve maximum results with minimal effort in the most critical places. Riyadh city is the capital of Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the fastest-growing metropolitan cities in the Arab world. Through time, it has transformed into a city with leftover open spaces and an ever-increasing population. The study commences by exploring the term UA and its principles and similarly presents some of its successful international examples. It thereafter delves into the past and current situation in the city to show some of the challenges it faces. The study aims to develop a filtering framework for selecting a suitable sensitive spot that can be used to apply the concept of UA. A conclusion is made that as a small-scale space approach and a progressive concentrated urban renewal strategy.
Urban areas are currently experiencing rapid population growth rates. It has, therefore, become a necessity to use creative and innovative strategies to cope with the challenges that may occasion from this growth. Considering what the world is currently going through regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to pursue strategies that would quickly and efficiently address such emerging challenges (Casagrande, 2020). From the foregoing, the traditional strategic urban development plans whose scope usually covers a macro scale might not provide a suitable path for addressing such challenges. This is because there is now a great demand for a much faster approach that may be used to address these challenges at a micro level, consequently creating a healthier environment particularly in the most needed areas (Lastra & Pojani, 2018). This paper, therefore, seeks to explore the use of UA as an effective and shortest way of promoting urban development in large cities. The intention is to reduce urban inflation in addition to restoring the green environment by dealing with leftover open spaces individually within the urban tissue. It also seeks to develop a comprehensive framework that would facilitate the application of UA as a tool for guiding the selection of the most urgent spots in the city fabric that need to be developed. A literature review is also undertaken to account for the difference between large- and small-scale urban renewal strategies and UA strategy in addition to defining the UA approach with its principles and strategies. The paper further presents the following two international examples drawn from Egypt and Indonesia to demonstrate the different strategies used.
Upgrading of a slum area in KampungJakarta, Indonesia(Nurdiansyah, 2018).Pedestrian Passage in Downtown Cairo, Egypt(Tang et al., 2015).Major Arab cities have experienced a rapid growth rate in recent years which has dramatically changed land use and old urban fabric. Riyadh is one of the cities that has rapidly expanded on account of industrialization and population increase. For instance, in 1862, it had 7500 people (Palgrave, 1868) and was projected in 2010 to reach 6,152,899 (Abderrahman, 2000). The city was for that reason selected to study and extract the filtration framework due to its fast-urban growth rate that is elicited by different development patterns. The study ends by presenting the conclusion and recommendations that cover the following:
Recommendation on UA approach implementation.Future urban development for Riyadh, and how UA can be used with the other urban development strategies.Proposed future studies to deal with the ongoing urban issues in cities.Figure1shows the structure of the research. The aim is to reach the desired filtration framework that applies UA theory.
This paper has examined the use of UA as an alternative tool for dealing with open spaces on a smaller scale. It also introduced the concept of evolutionary history and discussed how UA differs from other urban renewable strategies in addition to highlighting the applicable strategies and principles. The paper consequently examined the city of Riyadh as a case study for implementing UA and proposed a filtering selection framework that can be applied to select the suitable open spaces for adopting UA. The paper concludes thatas a small-scale space approach and a progressive concentrated urban renewal strategy,UAenhances a city’s potential rather than entirely relying on the urban planners’ vision. In this way, the city’s development remains healthier, effective, and sustainable.The selected international case studies further showed that the UA could be more effective on smaller-scale action projects where it can achieve a tremendous effect in a noticeably short time since it remains very flexible by encouraging ongoing planning and implementation.The research further concludes that the principles of UA should beexamined in future studies with a focus on more practical research being undertaken in different locations by engaging all stakeholders in the development process.
As a recommendation, sincethe city of Riyadh shows the highest rate of urban expansion, there is a need to adopt the strategic urban development plans and localise small-scale space interactions to create a balance between the newly planned district and the old ones through UA. It is moreover important to change the existing social and cultural norms by frequently engaging the people through awareness in creating a better environment as one of the important principles of UA. Finally, since the city of Riyadh has a mixture of newly planned and large old historical fabric, a different development approach should be adopted for each of the two regarding the urban fabric and socio-cultural composition of the residents.
Finally, considering the world is going through the COVID-19 pandemic and thatmost of the affected districts have the highest population density with no green lung or development projects, the concept of green roofs in buildings can, therefore, be a good approach to deal with the high-density district in Riyadh. This can be revitalized by selecting suitable spots that may be developed on a separate case-by-case basis.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.