Overlooking the Visibility of Mosques: From a Norm to a Harm on Developed Urbanism in Nablus City

Abstract

Addressing issues of existing Islamic cities is paramount to the establishment of possible modern imprints of Islamic
architecture. The visibility of mosques has been identified as a dilemma in the context of Nablus City, where
topography raises the urban impacts of vertical growth on space perception. This paper aims to investigate the
transition of visibility from historic mosques in the old city and aims to measure the visibility of contemporary mosques
in existing urbanism. Computational tools like DecodingSpaces and Ladybug plugins are used to operate Isovist and
View Percentage analysis of the context of investigated mosques. Findings showed that the horizontal distances, the
lengths and heights of buildings’ façade, and the topography, altered the values of mosques visibility. The results of
the study bring insights and suggest recommendations to the practice of urban planners, designers, and contributors
to the planning of contemporary Islamic architecture.