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Cultural sustainability, as a fourth dimension and independent aspect of sustainable development, has gained acceptance and has become an essential constituent of sustainable urban planning. The European Co-operation in Science and Technology (COST) integrated culture as a critical component and identified its three main roles: 'IN', FOR', 'AS' to achieve sustainable development goals. The new concept in urban design, namely the 'Third Place', seeks to include culture in integrated sustainability planning of urban spaces to support sociability and place attachment. Based on the (COST Action), the research aims to explore the three roles of culture in sustainable development (SD), and to develop a theoretical framework for cultural sustainability in the urban third place. The framework is applied to a selected urban third place (Briggate Street) in Leeds, UK, to test the validity of the extracted criteria and indicators. Visual surveys and interviews helped determine users' perceptions. The research concluded the critical role of cultural sustainability as part of the urban third place and the importance of the survey, which is clearly expressed in the cultural continuity s high results when compared to the lowest results of cultural vitality and behavioral shift of users. Finally, the research suggests a number of recommendations to improve the quality of urban third places and achieve cultural well-being while sustaining the cultural heritage of these places.

Folktales are increasingly recognized as potent enablers in evoking the 'genius loci' of cities and sustaining their cultural identity. 'The Thousand and One Nights' represents the most remarkable and memorable cross-cultural folktales, related to the Middle Eastern region in general, and the city of Baghdad in particular. Very limited research has been conducted on its impact on architecture and urban development. The current article aims to develop a conceptual framework for the notion of 'imageability', by which to explore the spatial characteristics and the physical and spiritual attributes of the depicted architecture and urban spaces of selected tales. Based on a conducted narrative-analysis approach, the article introduces an innovative theoretical-driven method to folktale interpretation and visualization. This method provides a new perspective in highlighting the perceptual and cognitive implications of the tales in defining the structure, identity and meaning of the urban context, thereby accentuating their potential role as ever-lasting resources that can revive the imageability of Baghdad city, maintain its essence, and sustain its cultural identity.

The article deals with a controversial issue, namely the effect of architecture and the built environment on human behaviour. Two debatable approaches dominated the architectural field in the past decades: determinism and possibilism. Both have proved inadequate in explaining human-environment relationships. Probabilism emerged as a tradeoff, providing an interface that accentuated the role of architecture in influencing human behaviour. The article presents a theoretical framework to explore the concept of probabilism, and the extent to which architectural intervention can affect the perceptual and cognitive behaviour of individuals. A psychophysical study is conducted on a selected environment (University of Baghdad campus) based on two approaches: the cognitive representation and mental mapping of individuals (the graphic recall), and the perceptual selectivity of environmental elements (the verbal recall). The findings assert the significant impact of the physical aspects (semblance and positioning attributes) of environmental stimuli, thereby accentuating the probabilistic approach to human behaviour.

The past decades have witnessed a growing interest in the knowledge acquisition of smart materials and their applications in different fields, especially in the field of architecture and building technology. Smart materials may not be relatively new, but researchers work to develop smart materials and compose a system that controls and guides the materials to create a living environment with more adaptive qualities and less negative impacts.The research aims to explore the qualities and advantages of smart material systems in the field of architecture, to better understand the impact smart material systems have on the design and construction processes, and to explore the way to create architecture with better adaptive characteristics, to ultimately reach the state of “adaptiveness”, providing the optimal environment for the users, reflected on the structural, climatic, and architectural performances. Keywords: Smart material, Smart system, Adaptive architecture, Adaptiveness, Passive system, Active system