1. Introduction
Walking is the oldest form of urban transport, and until the advent of major transformations in transport technology in the nineteenth century, most cities were structured in ways that supported walkability (Newman and Kenworthy 1999). As individual private car transport became widespread during the twentieth century, public transport and urban walkability became less apparent as major priorities of transport planning and urban design. As concern for future urban sustainability increases, walking is again being recognised as an important mode of urban transport. Much of the renewed attention on urban walkability is associated with concerns that car dependent cities will not be sustainable in the future, due to energy costs, …show more content…
The consensus qualitative definition of the urban design qualities will be briefly described here, followed by a table showing the significant physical features of each quality.
Imageability is the quality of a place that makes it distinct, recognizable and memorable. A place has high imageability when specific physical elements and their arrangement capture attention, evoke feelings and create a lasting impression.
Enclosure refers to the degree to which streets and other public spaces are visually defined by buildings, walls, trees and other vertical elements. Spaces where the height of vertical elements is proportionally related to the width of the space between them have a room-like quality.
Human scale refers to a size, texture, and articulation of physical elements that match the size and proportions of humans and, equally important, correspond to the speed at which humans walk.
Transparency refers to the degree to which people can see or perceive what lies beyond the edge of a street and, the degree to which people can see or perceive human activity beyond the edge of a …show more content…
A graph was plotted with Enclosure and Safety as two variables, these were studied across the three identified streets and responses by the people were plotted on the graph on a range of 1 to 10, 10 being the most enclosed and the most safe. It was observed that as the feeling of enclosure experienced by the people increased the level of safety felt by them while walking on the street also increased. Though as the feeling of enclosure was plotted to be above 7, the feeling of safety decreased drastically. This could be related to the fact that the streets having buildings too close to each other and very less sunlight entering the street, tend to make people uncomfortable and claustrophobic while walking on these
Walking is the oldest form of urban transport, and until the advent of major transformations in transport technology in the nineteenth century, most cities were structured in ways that supported walkability (Newman and Kenworthy 1999). As individual private car transport became widespread during the twentieth century, public transport and urban walkability became less apparent as major priorities of transport planning and urban design. As concern for future urban sustainability increases, walking is again being recognised as an important mode of urban transport. Much of the renewed attention on urban walkability is associated with concerns that car dependent cities will not be sustainable in the future, due to energy costs, …show more content…
The consensus qualitative definition of the urban design qualities will be briefly described here, followed by a table showing the significant physical features of each quality.
Imageability is the quality of a place that makes it distinct, recognizable and memorable. A place has high imageability when specific physical elements and their arrangement capture attention, evoke feelings and create a lasting impression.
Enclosure refers to the degree to which streets and other public spaces are visually defined by buildings, walls, trees and other vertical elements. Spaces where the height of vertical elements is proportionally related to the width of the space between them have a room-like quality.
Human scale refers to a size, texture, and articulation of physical elements that match the size and proportions of humans and, equally important, correspond to the speed at which humans walk.
Transparency refers to the degree to which people can see or perceive what lies beyond the edge of a street and, the degree to which people can see or perceive human activity beyond the edge of a …show more content…
A graph was plotted with Enclosure and Safety as two variables, these were studied across the three identified streets and responses by the people were plotted on the graph on a range of 1 to 10, 10 being the most enclosed and the most safe. It was observed that as the feeling of enclosure experienced by the people increased the level of safety felt by them while walking on the street also increased. Though as the feeling of enclosure was plotted to be above 7, the feeling of safety decreased drastically. This could be related to the fact that the streets having buildings too close to each other and very less sunlight entering the street, tend to make people uncomfortable and claustrophobic while walking on these