The Great Asian Streets Symposium (GASS) was established in 2001. The first and second symposium under GASS was held on January 18-19, 2001 and July 25-26, 2002 respectively at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. As a discussion platform, the refereed symposium aims for urban researchers and professionals committed to the study of streets and public spaces in Asian region, when most available literature on public spaces is currently published by European and American sources, and there is a dire lack of resources from Asian perspectives.

The success of the 2nd GASS in 2002 brought in significant number of diverse participants and high quality papers. From this response we believe that there is a potential for GASS to be developed as a public forum of Asian urban design for urban scholars and practitioners, where the term "Great Asian Street" becomes a metaphor of public space, public sphere and public forum of Asian urban studies.

The 3rd Great Asian Streets Symposium 2004 is triggered by this new agenda. While the research on "street" is still very much emphasized, we are extending the theme to "Street, Urban Space and Representation" as the focus topic of the 3rd GASS in 2004. The first session "Asian Streets: Theory and Practice" continues from the 1st and 2nd GASS. It invites papers from academics who have been working on historical, social and morphological aspects of street studies, as well as practitioners who focus on cutting-edge planning and urban design of Asian streets and public spaces. The new session "Urban Space and Representation" covers a variety of traditional and new representational approaches, which are essential to the practice and research in architecture, urban design and city planning. It is especially interesting to see how emerging technologies and other media construct the way we observe, analyze and design the street, urban space and city.

The 3rd GASS is scheduled on December 6-7, 2004 at Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore.