Effect of people on placemaking and affective atmospheres in city streets

Abstract

Monitoring the changes in people’s presences in public spcaes can play a vital role in enhancing placemaking research. This study investigated Herrengasse Street in Graz, Austria, and Oxford Street in London, the UK, using a systematic review, real scene interpretations, and expert advice to check the casual and deductive arguments. A six-step conceptual framework was then developed to prioritize the changes brought by the size of people’s presences in the city streets, which involved the identification of the perceptual qualities, the influence of the socio-morphological characteristics, and the effect of the affective atmospheres on the street environment situations. It was found that measuring the changes in people’s presences was essential when seeking to reconstruct affective atmospheres. However, future research is needed to investigate the shape of people’s presence or absence in public spaces, with a specific focus on the effects of the lockdown and physical distancing on post-pandemic placemaking and the associated affective atmospheres.