ANALYSING THE URBAN QUALITY OF UPPER BAZAAR:A KEY PUBLIC REALM IN HAMIRPUR, HIMACHAL PRADESH, INDIA

This paper presents the qualitative analysis of ‘Upper Bazaar’, a key public realm of Hamirpur, a small hill town in the state Himachal Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on primary visual surveys, which were undertaken to determine the present-day building and land-use distribution, condition of the building stock, condition of open / un-built spaces, type and quality of open spaces, presence / absence of trees and, the temporal activity pattern of the chosen study area. A questionnaire-based, random survey was also conducted to get the users’ feedback on their experiences of the public realm as well as to know their aspirations from the place.