Anar Valiyev: Urban planning not just about constructing buildings or infrastructure

Urban planning is not simply about constructing buildings or creating infrastructure, Anar Valiyev, Associate Professor at ADA University and an urban planning specialist, said during an event held within the framework of World Urban Forum 13 in Baku.

According to Report, he said urban planning is a comprehensive approach that brings together many different fields within architectural science.

"When we speak about architecture, we very often imagine it as a simple process of ‘building something' - as if once a building is erected, the issue is resolved. However, over the past 20–30 years, research in urban planning has moved beyond narrow boundaries and evolved into a field intersecting with various disciplines, including sociology, political science, political analysis, and anthropology. More recently, the links between urbanism and neuroscience have also begun to be studied more deeply. It is now clear that the impact of buildings and the urban environment on human psychology is a serious scientific subject. For a long time, we underestimated how spaces affect people"s emotional state - factors such as noise, mobility convenience, and conditions for walking," he said.