Scale is used to be one of the fundamental aspects in design, as well as in science and politics. Since the cognition of design is operated on different frame and grain of the given physical entities, different levels of scale selected in design process is utilized as a tool to manage the different levels of complexity involved in design processes. From another perspective, scale and scalar definition of any imagination and intervention in spatial design does also imply certain approaches to urbanism. That means it is possible to define different schools and approaches in architectural and urban design based on their consciously determined level of scale in operation.

In the context of urban design, which covers a wide spectrum of scale in practice (from the level of building complex to urban fabric), the concept of scale unavoidably gets a critical position to characterize the idiosyncratic nature of design thinking in urbanism. Especially considering the fact that spatial design is a complex act of human mind requiring a certain level of abstraction for the sake of efficiency, scale can be taken as kind of cognitive tool for an effective operation of designer in action. Regarding the wide scale scope of urbanism, we can consider designing in urban

v

context a kind of multi-scale operation of creative human mind. Despite the common consensus on that point, the question of how designers think through different levels of scale synchronically and relationally is yet to be explained by further studies in design thinking