Urban plazas and public open spaces play significant roles in the creation of livable cities. The aesthetic and morphological dimensions of public spaces are among the essential visual and physical characteristics that need to be understood for successful social use. A literature review revealed gaps in the theory of how the physical attributes, architectural features and morphological characteristics of the built environment enhance the aesthetic response and social interaction in designed public open spaces. This research sets out to articulate the relationship between physical, visual and morphological characteristics of the built environment of urban plazas and public open spaces that can create interactive social relations. By using a mixed-method approach involving both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research addresses both the subjective and objective attributes that can influence users’ aesthetic response and social use. The overall study was conducted in two stages. The use of photo-simulation in a preliminary study explored naturalistic inquiry to identify the most important aesthetically and socially preferred physical characteristics of designed urban open spaces from respondents’ viewpoint. Based on their detailed responses and existing research literature, a list of the salient physical and visual attributes of designed urban open spaces important to preference is developed. To objectively identify the relationship between the research constructs, eight designed urban open spaces of Dhaka, Bangladesh were selected and the main study involved 280 respondents. By using morphological (Space Syntax) and statistical analysis (ANOVA, Factor Analysis), this research seeks to examine the levels of association between aesthetic response, social use, physical attributes and morphological configurations of designed urban open spaces. The research concludes that the frequency of using urban open space is largely influenced by the morphological configuration of the urban structure. Aesthetic qualities are an additional, rather than a primary property of social interaction in the studied urban spaces. This study proposes a visualization model that illustrates the relationship between the research constructs for the future design of urban plazas and paved public open spaces. Abstrac
