Abstract
The residential built form, including open space, provides the physical environment for social interaction. Understanding urban open space, including semi-public and public domains, through the lens of physical accessibility and visual permeability can potentially facilitate the building of a sense of community contributing to a better quality of life. Using an inner-city suburb in Perth, Western Australia as a case study, this research explores the importance of physical accessibility patterns and visual permeability for socialising in semi-public and public domains, such as the front yard and the residential streets. It argues that maintaining a balance between public and private inter-relationship in inner city residential neighbourhoods is important for creating and maintaining a sense of community.
Highlights
A major aspect of social sustainability is the ability to foster resilient communities through the development of a sense of community and encouragement of social interactions
Bay’s [109,113] work on residential semi-open spaces is rare and in this vein, the current study focuses on the front yard as a built form type in inner-city neighbourhoods which fosters mixed activities and acts as an interactive zone for private and public interactions
There are no proper guidelines on understanding the typological categorisation of this semi-private-public space in the planning scheme. This built form type has tremendous quality to foster social interaction and the current study aims at filling in the gap in knowledge around the front yard
Summary
A major aspect of social sustainability is the ability to foster resilient communities through the development of a sense of community and encouragement of social interactions. The main assumption is that a well-designed physical environment can stimulate social mixing as well as easy contact between people. Studies of such social interactions, are rare. Many urban planning guidelines for urban design since the 1990s have aimed at optimal density, mix of use and better access to local facilities [26], but have not focused on the importance of how the built environment is perceived [22]. Whilst differences in residential density influence the establishment of social networks and relationships, physical factors such as public space location, urban form types and physical forms are important design elements which shape neighbourhoods, the way people relate to them [22] and the presence of a sense of community [27,28]. The house fronts contribute to the physical appearance of residential streets and are the interface between the public and private spaces providing distinctive neighbourhood identities
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