Street Furniture Research Articles

Integration of sustainable street furniture in Tunisian urban public spaces

Abstract In order to develop the quality of urban spaces, street furniture seems to be the significant element that defines the city’s social attraction points. It stimulates outdoor spaces because of its location, buildings and sidewalk meet. This study explores the issues of design criteria that introduce sustainability into street furniture design in urban public space in Tunisia. This research is based on the role of street furniture and its importance in urban public spaces, and the possibility of supplementing a recycling design. This paper aims to explore the necessary criteria to design sustainable street furniture in order to present its importance in a way that helps to ameliorate the quality of living in urban areas and cities.

City Living: Nest-Site Selection Preferences in Urban Herring Gulls, Larus argentatus

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) are declining globally, but there are populations who are taking advantage of the new foraging and nesting opportunities afforded to them by urban landscapes. Nest-site selection (NSS) in urban environs is understudied, despite its critical role in supporting planning policy, biodiversity conservation and the management of human–wildlife conflict. The aim of this study was to assess the contribution of anthropogenic habitat features to NSS in urban populations of L. argentatus at different hierarchical levels in Fingal County, Ireland. We used generalised linear models with a logit function to investigate the relationship among nest sites, building features, street furniture (i.e., streetlights and refuse bins), landscape features, and presence of conspecifics at three different hierarchical levels, including the county, town, and colony levels. L. argentatus preferentially chose buildings that were closer to streetlights and food sources at the colony level, while avoiding streetlights when considered in isolation. Conspecific attraction at the county and colony levels indicated that individuals avoided neighbouring nest sites, yet this relationship was inverted at the town level, suggesting preference. Moreover, 75% of nests were within 30 m of each other (the average road width in the study area) when measured at the county level. Various relationships with different food sources were identified, suggesting within-population variation among preferences for nest sites. There appears to be a substantial population variation among preferences for nest sites, which does appear to be driven by the cross-scale decisions involved in nest-site selection.

Lost Symbols in the Historic City of Puebla in Mexico

Since its origin, the city of Puebla has had representative elements in its public spaces that have survived for a long time, they are ornamental and utilitarian objects which are landmarks of the city. Street furniture is a benchmark of identity too. All elements have legends, they are references that have given identity to streets and avenues. Natural elements also refer to a city’s identity, like trees. But the natural element that defined origin, trace and growth of the city is one of the least visible. In the sixties, the San Francisco River was piped, as a sign of the new modernity, and today it is a boulevard where thousands of cars pass. Thus, bridges and other types of elements that the population still remember, mainly the elderly, have been forgotten. In recent years, some initiatives have emerged to rescue the historical memory of daily life and the revaluation of repre­sentative objects of the city center, such as the Casa Analco Community Museum project, coordinated by the Faculty of Architecture of BUAP in collaboration with residents of the Analco neighborhood. This article discusses both the monuments, their relics, elements of nature that shape the city's identity, as well as the gradual loss of these symbols.

Situated, Yet Silent: Data Relations in Smart Street Furniture

ABSTRACT This article provides new evidence of the ways that smart cities materialize within specific sites and contexts through smart street furniture (SSF). Drawing on empirical data generated through mixed-method field research, the article examines the situated data relations that emerge in the context of the adoption of InLinkUK smart kiosks in Glasgow and Strawberry Energy smart benches in London. The concept of “silences” is proposed to analyze insufficiently articulated data relations resulting from gaps or absences in the use, design, and governance of this new type of urban furniture. The argument made is that data silences lead to failures to account for decisions and the deferral of responsibilities regarding the data aspects of these objects. It is suggested that an approach that focuses on “listening” to and “speaking” about data relations can enable dialogical forms of accountability, and realize the potential of SSF for citizens in local contexts.

Post-pandemic urban design: The equilibrium between social distancing and social interactions within the built environment

The previous arguments in respect to the COVID-19 pandemic tend to support the lockdown and closure policy in order to prevent widespread infection of the epidemic within urban spaces. Using semi-structured interviews, the present study identifies that there are some serious consequences by adopting this policy due to the indispensable social interactions and uncooperative attitude of the general public to the harsh isolation approaches. These negative impacts on people's psychological health are partly caused by the inflexible urban design of the built environment in the pre-pandemic period. To create a balance between social distancing and social interactions within urban spaces, the paper proposes a general framework of post-pandemic street furniture design. It provides an innovative approach using a grid-based method, which can be applied to other cities across the world in order to deal with the potential analogous pandemic perils in the future.

The impact of urban design and the built environment on road traffic crashes: A case study of Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Road traffic crashes are one of the biggest causes of unnatural deaths in developing countries. This study identifies urban design factors that can influence road traffic crashes. The factors are categorized under the dimensions of land use, street furniture, buildings, and landscape. Road crashes’ data was collected from 1122 Emergency Services of Punjab, Pakistan, while data regarding built environment factors were collected using field surveys. Kernel density estimation technique was used to identify crash hotspots. Multiple and Tobit regression models were used to determine the impact of these indicators on road traffic crashes. Results have shown that most collisions were along the main highways. Commercial, residential, and recreational land uses positively influenced traffic crashes. Informal stops, traffic sign visibility, road condition, footpath/setback encroachments, and green belt availability also affected accident density. The study highlights the need to consider urban form and design factors for road accident prevention and management.

Perception Based Evaluation of Pedestrianization at Liberty Market Lahore

Numerous individuals believe that non-motorized modes normally, walking, cycling, and biking, are less privileged to utilize public roads than motor vehicles. More often, pedestrians and cyclists are not facilitated to use the public road to avoid traffic delays. This highlights the biasness of transportation planning practices towards motorized travel and constant negligence in the planning of pedestrian infrastructure. Pedestrianization is adopted as a distinctive practice around the globe; it implies the expulsion of vehicular traffic from the avenues of urban regions as it holds significant social, affordable, and ecological advantages. But in Pakistan, there are no such instances of pedestrianization, especially in Lahore there are three models Liberty Market, Anarkali and Fortress Stadium. In Anarkali Market pedestrianization venture was a disappointment, while in Liberty Market pedestrianization task is a triumph. This study explores the factors contributing to the success of pedestrianization through literature review and detailed survey from shopkeepers and pedestrians of Liberty Market. It was gleaned out that landscaping, street furniture and overall ambience are not the only factors for the success of a pedestrianization, but security, parking facilities, adherence to law and maintenance of order plays a vital role as well.

Public Perspective toward Car-free Day Program as a Public Open Space: A Case Study in Klaten, Central Java

Public open spaces are the core component of sustainable urban development which can provide multiple advantages. There has been growing interest from policy-makers to implement car-free day (CFD) either in big cities or small cities to promote economic activity, public mental health, and wellbeing. Here, we conducted an exploratory study to describe the characteristic of CFD as an open space allocation and its characteristic as well as explores the perspective of urban residences regarding the utilization of road space as open space viewed from physical, social, and economical functions. Results indicate that circulation lines, public facilities as well as street furniture are well organized although there is a small issue regarding pedestrian space that was minimum. Respondents believe that public open spaces should consider prioritizing the comfort and active engagement support while they do not aware of the discovery aspect. The vast majority of respondents (32%) purposes are to have an exercise at CFD.

Colour Perception and Visitor Experiences of Urban Parks as Influenced by an Intense Colourful Urban Artefact: An In-situ Quasi-experiment

Purpose Colourful street furniture, fitness and playground equipment has become increasingly common in contemporary urban green spaces. The study aims to increase knowledge about their influence on human perception of urban park settings, and explore the perceived interaction between an orange-coloured urban artefact and the colour schemes of a public park. Design/Methodology/Approach This study consisted in first reviewing 794 park visitors through formal observations, and applying the semantic environmental description (SMB) on 102 individuals (park visitors). The analysis of the SMB dimensions used an analysis of variance with a 3x2 factorial design and the perceived colours measured with Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) colour charts. Findings The findings from the study show that placing intense colourful artefacts in various park environments can both increase and decrease experienced pleasantness and change the overall perceived characteristics of colour (colour contrast). Research Limitations The limitation of this study was that only a monochromatic coloured (orange) object with a specific structure and scale was used and that complementary colour combinations were not investigated. The experimental design did not allow a completely randomized design of the individuals in the study. Social/Practical Implications Given the results from the study, we propose that municipalities and landscape architecture offices involved in the planning, design and management of urban green spaces should pay just as much attention to the placement of urban artefacts in a public outdoor context as to the design of the artefacts themselves. Discussing these issues across the planning and management level can help increase consciousness of the impact of intensely colourful street furniture on park visitors colour perception and experiences. Original/Value The number of studies on this subject is very limited and performing this study is considered to contribute to the understanding of coloured urban artefacts in urban green spaces.

IOT INTEGRATED SMART STREET FURNITURE: A CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT COLLABORATION

This article discusses the design process and pilot program of a suite of IoT-integrated street furniture aimed to improve use and amenity of municipality assets in public open spaces in Sydney, Australia. Networked sensors were embedded in the furniture and linked to a web-based dashboard application enabling a digital twin of the asset to monitor and analyze how and when the furniture was used. The prototype and modifications to existing furniture designs provided additional utility for the local community through lighting, free wi-fi access, power outlets, USB charging, water, a weather station and bench space. Outcomes of the street-furniture installation revealed innovative protocols for design-development teams and asset managers to review product performance and efficiency. This article presents a collaborative government/industry/university project that has been recognized by The World Bank for intelligent neighborhood design practices and by the Planning Institute of Australia for its novel approach to community social infrastructure.

To Play and To Be Played: Exploring the Design of Urban Machines for Playful Placemaking

Within the paradigm of the smart and playable city, the urban landscape and street furniture have provided a fertile platform for pragmatic and hedonic goals of urban liveability through technology augmentation. Smart street furniture has grown from being a novelty to become a common sight in metropolitan cities, co-opted for improving the efficiency of services. However, as we consider technologies that are increasingly smarter, with human-like intelligence, we navigate towards uncharted waters when discussing the consequences of their integration with the urban landscape. The implications of a new genre of street furniture embedded with artificial intelligence, where the machine has autonomy and is an active player itself, are yet to be fully understood. In this article, we analyse the evolving design of public benches along the axes of smartness and disruption to understand their qualities as playful, urban machines in public spaces. We present a concept-driven speculative design case study, as an exploration of a smart, sensing, and disruptive urban machine for playful placemaking. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, we expand on the potential of urban machines to partake an increasingly active role as co-creators of play and playful placemaking in the cities of tomorrow.

High-density mobile LiDAR for measuring urban streetscape features

This study investigates the feasibility of utilizing high-density mobile Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to measure urban streetscape features. The results suggest that mobile LiDAR’s density allows for much smaller voxels than in the previous research and the ability to measure small urban streetscape features in 3D. This includes street trees, light/lampposts, street furniture, traffic and commercial signage, building window proportions, awnings, and enclosed courtyard restaurants. Moreover, mobile LiDAR facilitated measuring and categorizing these streetscape features in walkable, downtown-like streetscape environments. The ability to compartmentalize such streetscapes into smaller cubic foot voxels to be quantitatively measured and categorized could supplement or replace conventional audit-based streetscape measurement. This study introduces new methods—based on voxel data analysis—to compile accurate descriptive statistics of streetscape features and how they can be represented in 3D.

Penyusunan Masterplan Desa Berbasis Mandiri-Wisata pada Desa Batulicin Irigasi, Kalimantan Selatan

The village master plan is a document that can be a guide in determining the direction and development of a village. With all the potentials that exist, Batulicin Irigasi Village does not yet have a master plan that can be a guide and development scheme in managing village potentials and minimizing existing obstacles. Preparation of the Batulicin Irigasi Village master plan is a form of community service from the Faculty of Engineering ULM. This Village master plan aims to help residents in understanding the potential values of the village and directing its development in realizing the aspirations and expectations of the residents. The concept raised in the Batulicin Irigasi Village master plan is independent tourism village. The independent village concept is based on food independence, economic independence, energy independence, water independence, and disaster preparedness. The concept of a tourist village through the Batulicin Irigasi Village development strategy can be implemented in the form of plantation and livestock arrangement, street furniture signage, yard guidelines, UMKM product marketing, village water reserves, mixed-use building, criteria for supporting buildings, village branding, regional landscapes, and tourist packages. It is hoped that the final result of the Batulicin Irigasi Village master plan can bring great benefits to the development of the local area and the surrounding community.

Shaping the image of a city on the example of a development of parts of waterfront in Bydgoszcz - a relation of Rother’s Mills and Nordic Haven buildings

According to Alexander Wallis, the city's cultural values relate to its historic and architectural, symbolic and religious, artistic and prestigious values. They are represented by individual buildings, monuments, sculptures, street furniture and entire urban complexes - streets, squares, parks, engineering works, and finally entire districts and urban landscapes. [1] In Bydgoszcz these values are represented by the Mill Island. After years of neglect, together with its immediate surroundings it has been re-incorporated into the city's structure, becoming a full-fledged, attractive and highly prestigious social area. The article presents a history of creation, functions and mutual relations of revitalized historic Rother’s Mills complex and Nordic Haven - a modern residential and commercial development and also aims to analyze the impact these buildings had on the space and surroundings of the Mill Island. The two architectural ensembles, arranged in mutual spatial relations, shape the landscape of the downtown, river bank part of Bydgoszcz on different principles. These buildings, as part of a historical urban layout of the city, represent extremely different methods of developing its areas requiring special protection and attention.

Quality of Walkability in Peunayong, Banda Aceh


 
 
 
 Walking is an important element of accessibility because it can increase the livability of a city. Peunayong as a trade and service center as well as a heritage area has very diverse activities with high intensity. The density of activities in Peunayong causes high vehicle accessibility which causes congestion in the area, parking on site which narrows the space for pedestrians and vehicles. In addition, pedestrian facilities in Peunayong still do not facilitate pedestrians because of the mixing of various activities in one lane, such as circulation, parking, and trading. In creating a pedestrian-friendly, it is necessary to plan and design good pedestrian facilities, by paying attention to the characteristics of pedestrians and their district. Walkability is one of the concepts for a walkable area. The approach in this study is by adopting the walkability theory as a reference. The focus of this research is to determine the quality of walkability in Peunayong. The method of analysis uses descriptive analysis. Those that formed walkability which will become parameters in this study are Connected, Convenient, Comfort, Convivial, Conspicuous through pedestrian paths and crossings, circulation activity, block size, spatial enclosure and humanscale, open space and vegetation, street furniture and signage.
 
 
 

PENGARUH REVITALISASI TERHADAP POLA RUANG KOTA LAMA SEMARANG

The revitalization of the Old City of Semarang has had a significant impact on the physical condition of the area. Initially, the image of the Old City of Semarang as a historical tourist destination is an ancient area with poorly maintained conditions, experiencing flooding every year, and socio-economic problems. Revitalization is one of the efforts undertaken by the government to revive the Kota Lama Semarang area which is experiencing environmental degradation or degradation. Improvement of infrastructure conditions, widening pedestrian paths, and procurement of street furniture are the main focus of the revitalization program. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of revitalization on changes in spatial patterns that occur in the Kota Lama Semarang area. In order to achieve these objectives, research objectives are set, namely the identification of the revitalization process, analysis of changes in spatial patterns, and analysis of the impact of revitalization on changes in regional spatial patterns in the Old City of Semarang. In this study using quantitative methods through temporal spatial analysis, descriptive analysis and comparative descriptive analysis which aims to determine the relationship between the revitalization process and changes in spatial patterns in the Kota Lama Semarang area. The results showed that revitalization affects the changes in the spatial pattern of the Kota Lama Semarang in terms of spatial use, building characteristics, accessibility, land prices and settlement characteristics. Many things have happened due to revitalization, such as the emergence of new activities in the form of commercial areas, trade areas and changes in community activities in the Kota Lama Semarang area. Spatial use control is carried out to control changes in spatial patterns that occur so that it remains in accordance with the designation of the area of the Old City of Semarang

Young women’s site-specific fear of crime within urban public spaces in Seoul

ABSTRACT Many studies revealed that vegetation in parks evokes fear of crime for women in a certain environmental context, and it significantly inhibits the restorative qualities of urban green spaces. A quasi-experimental on-site study was conducted at two privately owned public spaces in a central business district of Seoul, to investigate what aspects of sites trigger women’s fear of crime and why. Female participants visited two contrasting sites (N = 30) – one with dense trees and one with an open lawn – at both day and night and indicated perceived fear intensity on interactive maps with four levels (0–3). In total, 540 overlaid grid cells were encoded using the presence of physical attributes, such as vegetation, street furniture, lighting, security camera, artwork, borders of buildings, and roads. A generalized linear model estimated the effects of the physical attributes to determine whether they were positively or negatively associated with assessed fear intensity. Insufficient lighting and absence of people after working hours at the wooded site induced a large increase in perceived fear intensity from daytime. In geographically mapping fear of crime, participants showed the highest level of fear for violence and sex crimes in the alley enclosed with woods.

Designing with Users: A Participatory Design as a Community Engagement Program in the City Zoo

This article discusses a participatory design project that aims at creating a collaborative design among architectural students, visitors, and zoo management in designing street furniture and selfie spots in city zoos. Participatory design is used in the design process to get the users’ and designers’ interpretation of the space, improve design outcomes, and increase the community awareness of their surroundings. As part of the Universitas Indonesia Community Engagement Program, the zoo design project fosters a collaborative design between the university and zoo community and supports the educational, conservational, and recreational goals of Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta. Designing street furniture and selfie spots can hopefully be parts of improving the quality of public space in the zoo. Students and lecturers who usually have limited opportunity to collaborate now have a chance to interact with visitors and the zoo management during the research and design stages while visitors actively collaborate in informing their needs and perception of the space. The zoo management also provides information on their goals and missions so that students can develop and convert the education, conservation, and recreation goals of the zoo into designs. In conclusion, the participatory design approach applied in the zoo design not only allows students to deal with real-life issues in design but also enhances space quality through community participation.

Real-time localisation system for GPS-denied open areas using smart street furniture

Wifi-based localisation systems have gained significant interest with many researchers proposing different localisation techniques using publicly available datasets. However, these datasets are limited because they only contain Wifi fingerprints collected and labelled by users, and they are restricted to indoor locations.We have generated the first Wifi-based localisation datasets for a GPS-denied open area. We selected a busy open area at Murdoch University to generate the datasets using so-called “smart bins”, which are rubbish bins that we enabled to work as access points. The data gathered consists of two different datasets. In the first, four users generated labelled WiFi fingerprints for all available Reference Points using four different smartphones. The second dataset includes 2450865 auto-generated rows received from more than 1000 devices.We have developed a light-weight algorithm to label the second dataset from the first and we proposed a localisation approach that converts the second dataset from asynchronous format to synchronous, applies feature engineering and a deep learning classifier. Finally, we have demonstrated via simulations that by using this approach we achieve higher prediction accuracy, with up to 19% average improvement, compared with using only the fingerprint dataset.

Crowdsourced Geospatial Infrastructure for Coastal Management and Planning for Emerging Post COVID-19 Tourism Demand

In recent years, the use of crowdsourcing has positively transformed the way geographic information is collected, stored and analyzed. Many countries have promoted and funded research into the potential of using crowdsourcing in various fields of governance. This paper focuses on developing a methodology for fast, low-cost and reliable coastal management for touristic purposes in Greece. In particular, a group of a professional surveyor have developed the methodology and trained two volunteers to collect a variety of data points of interest about a public coastal zone, such as the area size of free and unused public space, rocky areas, parking spaces (organized or not), land use types, build up and green areas, municipal lighting, pedestrian crossing points, beach umbrellas, path routes, street furniture, etc. A pilot case study was compiled for a part of the Athenian Riviera to check the methodology. Derived conclusions point out that the developed methodology may be successfully used for managing the 16,000 km length of the coastal zone of Greece for touristic purposes. Considerations for further improvements to the methodology are given.