Activities In Urban Spaces Research Articles

Method for Observing pHysical Activity and Wellbeing (MOHAWk): validation of an observation tool to assess physical activity and other wellbeing behaviours in urban spaces

ABSTRACT Direct observation of behaviour offers an unobtrusive method of assessing physical activity in urban spaces, which reduces biases associated with self-report. However, there are no existing observation tools that: (1) assess other behaviours that are important for people’s wellbeing beyond physical activity; (2) are suitable for urban spaces that typically have lower numbers of users (e.g. amenity green spaces) or that people pass through (e.g. green corridors); and (3) have been validated in Europe. MOHAWk (Method for Observing pHysical Activity and Wellbeing) is a new observation tool for assessing three levels of physical activity (Sedentary, Walking, Vigorous) and two other evidence-based wellbeing behaviours (Connect: social interactions; Take Notice: taking notice of the environment) in urban spaces. Across three studies, we provide evidence that MOHAWk is reliable and valid from 156 hours of observation by six observers in five urban spaces in the UK. MOHAWk can be used in policy or practice (e.g. by local authorities or developers), or in more formal institutional based research projects. This new tool is an inexpensive and easy-to-use method of generating wellbeing impact evidence in relation to the urban physical or social environment. A manual providing detailed instruction on how to use MOHAWk is provided.

The Role of Urban Morphology Design on Enhancing Physical Activity and Public Health.

Along with environmental pollution, urban planning has been connected to public health. The research indicates that the quality of built environments plays an important role in reducing mental disorders and overall health. The structure and shape of the city are considered as one of the factors influencing happiness and health in urban communities and the type of the daily activities of citizens. The aim of this study was to promote physical activity in the main structure of the city via urban design in a way that the main form and morphology of the city can encourage citizens to move around and have physical activity within the city. Functional, physical, cultural-social, and perceptual-visual features are regarded as the most important and effective criteria in increasing physical activities in urban spaces, based on literature review. The environmental quality of urban spaces and their role in the physical activities of citizens in urban spaces were assessed by using the questionnaire tool and analytical network process (ANP) of structural equation modeling. Further, the space syntax method was utilized to evaluate the role of the spatial integration of urban spaces on improving physical activities. Based on the results, consideration of functional diversity, spatial flexibility and integration, security, and the aesthetic and visual quality of urban spaces plays an important role in improving the physical health of citizens in urban spaces. Further, more physical activities, including motivation for walking and the sense of public health and happiness, were observed in the streets having higher linkage and space syntax indexes with their surrounding texture.

De-colonizing public spaces in Malaysia: dating in Kuala Lumpur

This article discusses places and practices of young heterosexual Malaysian Muslims dating in non-private urban spaces. It is based on research conducted in Kuala Lumpur in two consecutive summers 2016 and 2017. Malaysian law (Khalwat law) does not allow for two unrelated people (where at least one of them is Muslim) of opposite sexes to be within ‘suspicious proximity’ of one another in public. This law significantly influences behaviors and activities in urban spaces in KL. In addition to the legal framework, the beliefs of Malaysian Muslims significantly influence the way they perceive space and how they behave in the city. The article discusses the empirical theme, beginning with the participants’ narratives of their engagement with the dominant sexual and gender order in non-private spaces of KL. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews and observations, this article draws upon a qualitative research project and questions the analytical usefulness of the notion of public space (as a Western construct) in the context of an Islamic, post-colonial, tropical, global city.

The shape of theatre in the city: A theoretical and methodological approach for analyzing artistic activity in urban space

ABSTRACT This article explores the spatial and social relationship between theatre and the city through the case study of Acre, a mixed peripheral city in Israel. Despite the numerous studies dealing with artistic activity in the city, we still lack a clear, systematic method for understanding art’s role in urban space. This study attempts to overcome this lacuna by suggesting an analytical method for understanding the socio-spatial relations between theatre and the urban space in which it is practiced. The method is based on a juxtaposition of the city’s physical and social structure with the artistic activity of five theatre institutions, and uses super-positioning to combine two research methods: urban research and ethnographic fieldwork. By mapping the artistic activity, it gives shape to an abstract social phenomenon, therefore enabling its spatial analysis. The findings were analyzed according to four spatial categories: enclosure, centrality, axiality, and permeability. In the case study we explored, the artistic activity shape was limited by the city’s physical and social structure and had little effect on its immediate urban surroundings. We nonetheless emphasize the applicability of this methodology to other cities and other fields of art that could produce different shapes and lead to different outcomes.

Editorial

Writing is an indispensable part of research culture, and publication is one way to disseminate ideas and to push forward the scientific discourse in the pursuit of new knowledge, from theoretical- to praxis- levels. Especially for young scholars, writing and publishing in academic journals shall become a natural habit, not just for chasing credit points or impact factors, but for strengthening the true desire in finding new knowledge, ethically and scientifically.
 There are four different categories of articles in this issue. First category is on the correlation between ecological-environmental aspects and tourism in rural-traditional contexts, where the writers have shown their critical position towards cultural & natural conservation. Second category is on architectural styles and typology which are more descriptive. Third category is related to the climatic comfort and simulation. And the fourth category is on human activities in urban space.
 The article by Anna Pudianti and Vincentia Reni Vitasurya is looking into the ecological footprints in relation to village tourism in Yogyakarta from the anthropological perspective. Similar interest to village tourism and cultural-environmental conservation in Nias is shared by Anugerah Septiaman Harefa. Likewise, Rachmat Budihardjo is looking into the impact of tourism to the typological adaptation of the traditional architecture in Bali.
 Dessy Anggaini and Dwita Hadi Rahmi wrote about “Indisch-style” based on typological inventory in Yogyakarta. Anneke Clauvinia Patriajaya and Yohanes Karyadi Kusliansjah are lamenting on the transformation of urban street character in Surabaya. Tine Abrianti and Purnama Salura wrote the sacred poetic of religious architecture in Jakarta.
 Rivena Elbes and Ai Siti Munawaroh article is on thermal comfort study on a library building in Lampung. Leonardus Murialdo Fransiskus Purwanto presented his analysis on heat transfer by a thermal simulation software.
 Finally, Raden Rangga Ilham Irfandian and Herman Wilianto presented their study on lifestyle aspect in urban public space in Bandung.
 This journal edition demonstrates the diversity of interests and approaches among young scholars. Although the level of criticality and the level of theoretical discourse can still be improved further, but these articles have shown a good promise for a higher level of scholarly pursuits.

Quantification of the influence of thermal comfort and life patterns on outdoor space activities

Urban spaces offer considerable social, health, environmental, and economic benefits to cities and citizens. As a result, attracting more people to urban outdoor spaces is a goal of sustainable urban planning. This study conducted field surveys in a park in Tianjin, in northern China, to study the impacts of thermal comfort and life patterns on the intensity of activity in urban spaces. Analysis of the data found that subjects who engaged in intense activity were less sensitive to cold than to heat. The attendance of people with children exhibited a very high rate of decrease as the thermal environment became unfavorable. When the thermal environment changed from cold to hot, people in the park adapted by moving from open to shaded spaces. This study revealed that different activities followed distinctive patterns. Intense activity occurred mainly in the afternoon, attending to children occurred primarily in the morning, and low-intensity activity happened all day, but its occurrence decreased at noon. By incorporating the impact of thermal comfort and life patterns, this study developed a mixed-influence model to analyze the hourly usage rate in the park. The findings of this study are useful for designers seeking to create sustainable and attractive open spaces.

Assessment of sustainability of the built environment in Latin American neighbourhoods: five cases in southern Chile.

This article aims to show the results of the evaluation of the sustainable potential of the built environment in five neighborhoods in Southern Chile, to deal with the complex agenda of urban transformations in intermediate cities. Five neighborhoods in Isla Teja district, in the city of Valdivia, are evaluated in this research. The methodology considers five dimensions widely discussed in scientific literature: Accessibility, Connectivity, Density, Diversity and Vitality. The results show that certain neighborhoods have greater degree of adaptability in their morphology to generate diversity of uses, which in turn promote greater sustainability of the urban form. Mixed-use development and graded densities in urban blocks show best response to promote social life and collective activity in urban space. The article concludes with respect to future challenges to promote the development of more sustainable urban conditions in Latin American cities.

위치기반 빅데이터를 활용한 서울시 활동인구 유형 및 유형별 지역 특성 분석

As the 24-hour society arrives, human activities in daytime and nighttime urban spaces are changing drastically, and the need for new urban management policies is steadily increasing. This study analyzes the types and characteristics of Seoul’s human dynamics using location-based big data and the results are summarized as follows. First, the pattern of human dynamics in Seoul repeats itself every 7 days. Second, the types of human dynamics in Seoul can be classified into five types, and each of type has its own unique time-series and local characteristics. Third, the degree of match between human dynamics and zoning system in urban planning legislation was highest in ‘Type 1’ residence pattern and low in other types. The following implications can be drawn from these results. First, This paper examined the methodology of analyzing the regional characteristics of Seoul through the human dynamics and obtained meaningful results. Second, This paper can derive reliable and objective pattern analysis results using Big data that reflect the overall population characteristics. Third, the scale of night-time activity in the urban space of Seoul was understood, and its distribution, patterns and characteristics identified.

Pedagogie patriotyzmu

The author of this paper argues that the discourse of patriotism in public space in Poland is dominated by right-wing and ultra-right-wing circles. The content of these narratives usually takes the form of a closed, martyrological-national patriotism. Despite this hegemony, in opposition to it, subordinate groups produce narratives of critical and open patriotism. Using various subversive strategies, they try to free themselves from this domination. The main goal of the article is to identify the content of these discordant discourses, their forms and the ways in which they are made. The units of analysis will be selected popular culture texts and cultural practices (hip-hop and rock lyrics, graffiti, murals, banners, performative activities in urban space).

Towards Recognising Individual Behaviours from Pervasive Mobile Datasets in Urban Spaces

Mobile phone network data, routinely collected by its providers, possess very valuable encoded information about human behaviors. Intensive tourist activities in urban spaces bring smartness via mobile phone fingerprints into the understanding of an urban ecosystem. Due to the diverse processes that govern mobile communication, mining the geolocations of individuals seems to be non-trivial, tedious, and even irregular, which can lead to an incomplete trajectory. Enriching trajectories with infrastructural facilities is another challenge. We provide a unified approach, comprised of both informal and formal elements, to obtain a common framework, which maps pervasive datasets into a collection of individual patterns in urban spaces, to obtain context-enhanced trajectory reconstructions. Through the algorithmization of the approach, we acquire a study that provides new insights on individual and anonymized tourist behaviors. In order to obtain individual behaviors, it is necessary to carry out an arduous extraction process. We propose a multi-agent system architecture and predefined message streams, which are transported on a message-broker platform. We also propose all of the basic algorithms that compose the prototype of the entire multi-agent system. All algorithms were formally analyzed due to termination and time complexity. System evaluation, together with a few basic experiments, was also carried out. The performance evaluation results authenticate system feasibility, credibility, and vitality. Those factors prove its effectiveness and the possibility to build the target system, whilst supporting every urban ecosystem. The system would also strongly influence municipal services to understand urban context and operate more effectively in order to support tourist activities to become safer and more comfortable.

Advances in Crowd Analysis for Urban Applications Through Urban Event Detection

The recent expansion of pervasive computing technology has contributed with novel means to pursue human activities in urban space. The urban dynamics unveiled by these means generate an enormous amount of data. These data are mainly endowed by portable and radio-frequency devices, transportation systems, video surveillance, satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, and social networking services. This has opened a new avenue of opportunities, to understand and predict urban dynamics in detail, and plan various real-time services and applications in response to that. Over the last decade, certain aspects of the crowd, e.g., mobility, sentimental, size estimation and behavioral, have been analyzed in detail and the outcomes have been reported. This paper mainly conducted an extensive survey on various data sources used for different urban applications, the state-of-the-art on urban data generation techniques and associated processing methods in order to demonstrate their merits and capabilities. Then, available open-access crowd data sets for urban event detection are provided along with relevant application programming interfaces. In addition, an outlook on a support system for urban application is provided which fuses data from all the available pervasive technology sources and finally, some open challenges and promising research directions are outlined.

Frentes marítimo-fluviales en ciudades españolas: nuevos espacios urbanos

En los últimos treinta años muchas ciudades españolas han abordado la renovación de sus frentes marítimos y fluviales, enfrentándose tanto a la obsolescencia de las actividades y usos que esos espacios acogían, como a la desconexión con los tejidos urbanos colindantes. Una selección de casos de estudio muestra la diversidad de estrategias que, con carácter general, logran la mejora a diferentes escalas de cuatro aspectos importantes: i) la conectividad territorial y entre tramas urbanas; ii) la redistribución de equipamientos en la ciudad; iii) la regeneración ambiental; y iv) una nueva articulación de las redes de espacios públicos urbanos y periurbanos. Los proyectos de renovación que han incluido los frentes marítimos y fluviales han supuesto no solo la transformación física del lugar, sino el cambio de percepción sobre estos espacios por parte de la población. La constatación de las preferencias y el uso social del espacio público en las áreas renovadas se analiza a través de las redes sociales, concretamente, a partir de los mapas de calor generados por el visor cartográfico Instasights.

Towards new learning environments—Collective civic actions as learning interventions in post‐Communist Belgrade

AbstractThis article focuses on the social dimension of well‐being, based on a critical analysis of the way it is conceptualised in late capitalism: As the dimensions of individual state of mind and body, something that evolves in the individual realm, stressing personal responsibility and achievement of well‐being as a solitary act. Then, the contemporary conceptualisation and approaches to policy making for well‐being are compared with the policy of adult and youth education and learning. The perspective of a strong individual orientation, detachment from the social, community and collective aspects and efforts seem to be a common denominator. Agency is considered not only as a possibility for individuals to create and change the environment, but also as a process of active co‐construction of social reality. This includes (re)connection with a community, very often through new ways of community learning, civic actions and civic activities. An analysis of how these perspectives converge in civic interventions in urban areas of Belgrade places togetherness at the core of the broader approach to well‐being and learning. This article presents several examples of civic activities in urban spaces whose learning character is interpreted within the concept of public pedagogy. The examples presented prevail in the post‐Communist countries because public spaces as zones of civic interventions can oppose the controlling authority and through the fight for human and civil rights represent the bottom line of togetherness and collective agency. Learning through collective civic actions thus provides new ways of understanding well‐being.

Using mobility data as proxy for measuring urban vitality

In this paper, we propose a computational approach to Jane Jacobs' concept of diversity and vitality, analyzing new forms of spatial data to obtain quantitative measurements of urban qualities frequently employed to evaluate places. We use smart card data collected from public transport to calculate a diversity value for each research unit. Diversity is composed of three dynamic attributes: intensity, variability, and consistency, each measuring different temporal variations of mobility flows. We then apply a regression model to establish the relationship between diversity and vitality, using Twitter data as a proxy for human activity in urban space. Final results (also validated using data sourced from OpenStreetMap) unveil which are the most vibrant areas in London.

High-performance Sonitopia (Sonic Utopia): Hyper intelligent Material-based Architectural Systems for Acoustic Energy Harvesting

The rate of energy consumption in all over the world, based on reliable statistics of international institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows significant increase in energy demand in recent years. Periodical recorded data shows a continuous increasing trend in energy consumption especially in developed countries as well as recently emerged developing economies such as China and India. While air pollution and water contamination as results of high consumption of fossil energy resources might be consider as menace to civic ideals such as livability, conviviality and people-oriented cities. In other hand, automobile dependency, cars oriented design and other noisy activities in urban spaces consider as threats to urban life. Thus contemporary urban design and planning concentrates on rethinking about ecology of sound, reorganizing the soundscape of neighborhoods, redesigning the sonic order of urban space. It seems that contemporary architecture and planning trends through soundscape mapping look for sonitopia (Sonic + Utopia) This paper is to propose some interactive hyper intelligent material-based architectural systems for acoustic energy harvesting. The proposed architectural design system may be result in high-performance architecture and planning strategies for future cities. The ultimate aim of research is to develop a comprehensive system for acoustic energy harvesting which cover the aim of noise reduction as well as being in harmony with architectural design. The research methodology is based on a literature review as well as experimental and quasi-experimental strategies according the paradigm of designedly ways of doing and knowing. While architectural design has solution-focused essence in problem-solving process, the proposed systems had better be hyper intelligent rather than predefined procedures. Therefore, the steps of the inference mechanism of the research include: 1- understanding sonic energy and noise potentials as energy resources, 2- recognition of transductor and other similar mechanisms, 3- developing an integrated, hyper intelligent and material-based system, 4- examining the productivity, performance and efficiency of proposed systems in commercial buildings and office departments of Tehran as case study. The results of the research show that high-performance Sonitopia concept might be helpful for adoption in contemporary architecture of developing countries such as Iran in order to better energy efficiency. It is intelligent energy systems (IES) enjoy electromechanical energy converters based on performance-oriented design in over-crowded architectural spaces. The results indicated significance of concentrating on smart, intelligent and recombinant materials in order to achieve higher performance and productivity.

Relevance of Walking and Informal Activities in Urban Space: A Case of Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania

The design discourse mostly in developing world cities tends to commit walking as the concern for transportation purpose. This notion tends to dismiss walking as an extended conception of urban space and take it for granted which allow elements of informal walking fields to emerge. This orients walking in the lines of a mere ‘street sidewalk’ rather than an important element in enhancing urban space in terms of environmental quality, access and use of urban space and everyday life realities. The empirical study in Dar es Salaam show that the gap in walking provision seem to be filled by the informal actors in urban space struggling to create the informal walking spheres in which trading, vending, meeting and recreating take place. Such observations draw a lesson that such informal developed urban activities along the streets and the urban space have not been disassociated from walking. The paper recognizes the essence of such integration of walking with other activities in urban space. It is thus concluded that urban design discourse have to conceive walking, including its contextual elements, as integral component in the field of urban public space that connect with other urban functions rather than isolate it from them.

Urban Picnic: Relations Among Actors

This paper attempts to reveal relations among actors at urban public spaces. We examined the relations by exploring activities of the urban society in picnic activity. In studying the relations among actors we use the actor - network theory Latour (2007). We conducted data collection strategy such as drifting from psychogeography Debord (1955, 1992) and bodily experience Pallasmaa (2012). The findings are the relations among actors within picnic activities in urban spaces shows a different kind of relations. The exploration of picnic activities on urban space shows us the relationships among users, events, spaces defines a variety of changes in the function of urban spaces.Keywords: urban space; urban picnic; relations; space ISSN: 2398-4287© 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

Interactive and Media Architecture – From Social Encounters to City Planning Strategies

The paper searches into the potential of media and interactive projects to support participation and generate social encounters in public spaces. Moreover, it proposes implementation of media and interactive projects into city planning processes. On the basis of theoretical approaches, case studies and interdisciplinary surveys the paper gives insight how interactive and media architecture can engage people in activities in urban spaces on many levels. It focuses on the art installations that with support of new technologies involve people to become co-creators of the art object, both directly in particular place of the city, as well as remotely, by means of mobile devices or internet. The impact of such participation may affect not only a clearly delimited place, but can be used to create connecting paths or change the perception and identity of the whole areas. The fundamental objectives of city planning programs are closely related – the goal of many urban renewal strategies is to establish creative connections between dispersed fragments of the city and stimulate the presence of people on the streets. This convergence of goals allows to perceive new interactive and media technologies as a new architectural tool that could be incorporated into the city planning processes. Indeed, interactive and media architecture conceived as temporary ‘micro-interventions’ can take a role of pilot projects to change the image of places intended for future transformation or applied for site-data analysis and collecting opinions making the whole process more creative and participatory. However, there is still a need for developing procedures allowing for more effective integration of media and interactive projects with the urban planning operational schemes.

Mapping the ‘End Austerity Now’ protest day in Central London using a 3D Twitter density grid

The mapping and spatial analysis of social media data can show the dynamics of activities in urban space, such as protest events. This work focuses on the spatial relationship between the density of geo-tagged tweets and a large anti-government protest in London on 20 June 2015. The tweets are aggregated to hexagonal grid cells to visualize activity density in different Central London areas. The results of the mapping illustrate very high densities at the beginning and endpoints of the protest (the Bank of England and Parliament Square). Additionally, there are high tweet densities in the West End and Bank than in other neighbouring areas.

A comparative study on the relationship between quality of space and urban space activities in the public open spaces

A comparative study on the relationship between quality of space and urban space activities in the public open spaces