Urban Design Research Research Articles

Multimodal Hong Kong: Documenting soundscape and smellscape at places of intangible cultural heritage

The sensory cultural heritage creates identity and cohesion in a community. The Multimodal Hong Kong (MMHK) started in January 2023 and aims to build a database of soundscape and smellscape at culturally significant sites. This paper will introduce the project and its objectives, present results from a pilot survey, and describe the development of a field work methodology. Data collection methods include Ambisonics audio, 360 video, and 'smellprints', together with on-site observations based on the Soundscape Indices survey protocol and the Dravnieks-McGinley-Zarzo 'smell atlas'. Currently having data from 20 sites, MMHK aims to reach 100 within the project's duration, as well as conduct outreach such as sensory walks, interviews, and workshops with stakeholders. The overall goal is to produce in-depth knowledge of how information, via multiple sensory modalities, constitute the perceived quality of places, and thence, how an intangible cultural heritage emerges in Hong Kong. This knowledge will enable future research and applications in urban spatial design, experiencescape, and virtual tourism.

Nonlinear and threshold effects of the built environment, road vehicles and air pollution on urban vitality

The impact of factors such as the built environment, road vehicles, and air quality on urban vitality attracts increasing interest in urban planning and design research. However, tacit assumptions of linear relationships between these factors have been embedded in most studies, leading to biased estimations of their effects on urban vitality. This study addresses the gap by using machine learning models and SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to investigate the non-linear and threshold effects of the built environment, road vehicles and air pollution on urban vitality, using Manhattan as a study case. Urban vitality was represented by pedestrian presence in 29,540 street-view images. Results showed that Extreme Gradient Boosting outperformed Ordinary Least Squares, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting Decision Trees in urban vitality estimation. It reveals that while the built environment variables explained a significant portion (77.5 %) of the variance in urban vitality, road vehicles (such as bicycles, buses, cars and motorbikes) and ozone concentrations accounted for 15.18 % and 1.46 %, respectively. The built environment and road vehicle factors exhibit positive nonlinear relationships with urban vitality. Meanwhile, ozone concentration demonstrated a negative threshold effect on urban vitality with a threshold at 27.5 ppb. This study advances our understanding of the threshold effect mechanism of the factors on urban vitality, offering insights into fostering sustainable urban environment.

Decoding Near Synonyms in Pedestrianization Research: A Numerical Analysis and Summative Approach

Pedestrianization is a significant discourse focus within urban planning and design research. However, the need for more clarity from the inconsistent use of near-synonym concepts or terms necessitates attention. This review article addresses this issue through a comprehensive analysis of synonym proliferation in pedestrian research, culminating in developing a robust “near synonymous toolkit” and “synonym selection framework”. Employing a linear snowball sampling technique, numerical analysis, and a qualitative content analysis-based summative approach, we examined sixteen peer-reviewed articles from 11 scientific journals. Through systematic classification based on consistency and variability, the summative review identifies three primary groups of near synonyms: dominant and widely utilized conceptual or terminological near synonymy in pedestrianization in the urban planning and design literature, near synonyms directly associated with a pedestrian, pedestrianize, and those indirectly linked to another conceptual or terminological synonymy. Further analysis delves into the nature of near-synonym concepts or terms, revealing three discernible patterns: the use of distinct, precise concepts or terms with near-synonym meanings, similar concepts or terms conveying divergent meanings, and the juxtaposition of unrelated vocabulary lacking semantic resemblance. These insights illuminate semantic relationships within the studied vocabulary, underscoring the importance of addressing inconsistency for clarity, precision, and coherence in scientific discourse. By offering practical guidance through the proposed framework, this study empowers academic researchers to navigate synonym selection adeptly, thereby enhancing the caliber of scholarly writing in urban planning and design.

Indoor view-based visibility analysis using UAV and TLS point clouds with Line-of-Sight correction

Visibility analysis is a crucial geographic information processing method, used to assess the observable spatial range from a particular location under specific conditions. It has broad applications, such as urban planning, landscape design and environmental research. Laser scanning provides detailed and accurate 3D data for visibility analysis, called point cloud. However, certain deficiencies still exist in current point cloud-based visibility analysis methods. Few methods are developed from indoor perspective and the influence of point cloud void is rarely considered. Firstly, indoor viewpoints are generated based on the windows extracted from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point cloud and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) point cloud is used to provide 3D representation of the environment around the viewpoint. Then, a half-sphere viewshed is created for each indoor viewpoint to analyze the visible spatial range. In this step, a novel line-of-sight correction method is proposed based on the semantic information from UAV point cloud, to correct the biased observation distance resulted from point cloud voids. Lastly, the volume of visible space is calculated based on the corrected viewshed image, to evaluate the visibility of each indoor viewpoint. Our method is validated on two datasets. The results indicate that our method enables more accurate simulation of visible space compared with previous studies by considering the effect of point cloud void. The proposed method can support the urban design from the perspective of indoor visual perception and accurate calculation of other visual factors in visual quality evaluation.

A Review of The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Research Methods

This book review critically examines <em>The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Research Methods</em>, edited by Hesam Kamalipour, Patricia Aelbrecht, and Nastaran Peimani (2023, 1st edition). The book offers an extensive exploration of urban design research, organized under five thematic parts: “agency,” “affordance,” “place,” “informality,” and “performance.” Each part delves into the complexities and nuances of urban design research, integrating a diverse range of methodologies and case studies from different perspectives. This review explores the book’s comprehensive approach, noting its efforts to combine theoretical frameworks with methodological insights and its inclusion of a wide range of topics while highlighting the book’s strengths in addressing current issues in urban design research. The review maintains a critical approach, providing a balanced overview of the book’s contribution to urban design literature.

Multi-sensory evaluation of urban design in creating obesity encouraging environments: The experience of town centres in Auckland, New Zealand

This article presents a multi-sensory study on pedestrian activities in the public realm of two town centers in Auckland, New Zealand. We utilize mixed-method and multi-sensory evaluation methods, combined with sensory experience and activity mapping, to explore the effects of the obesity encouraging environment of town centers on the activity concentrations of pedestrians. We further discuss the influences of urban design and land use diversity on generating obesity encouraging environments of town centers. The article aims to provide a basis to initiate discussion around the importance of understanding the multiple-sensory experience of public space beyond merely sight sense which traditionally dominates urban design discipline. Furthermore, this article demonstrates the role and quality of sensory experience in shaping obesogenic behaviors within the built environment of two town centres; with a diversity of type and quality of land uses. It also highlights that the mere provision of urban morphology or built form factors linked with walking activities is not a precursor for healthier communities. Thus, the impacts of urban design and quality uses of the built environment on the multiple senses of the users should be considered in urban design research and practices.

A multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between sustainable built environment and user perception: a bibliometric analysis

The study of the relationship between sustainable built environment and user perception has often taken a single perspective, displaying neither a holistic view of the relationship nor a systematic and refined grasp of the research content previously. This has resulted in a biased understanding of the two research objects and their respective measurement methods and made it difficult to develop synergies. In this context, this paper summarises the current research hotspots and trends in the relationship between sustainable built environment and user perception through CiteSpace quantitative analyses such as keyword co-occurrence networks, emergent word detection, and disciplinary re-clustering, and takes a multidisciplinary perspective to focus on relevant research in public health, environmental science, and architecture and urban design, such as the progress of research between sustainable built environment and users in physical activity, environmental cognition, and image perception. The results show that in the environmental science field, environmental cognition is the core, based on the study of users’ direct perception of sustainable built environment and its externalisation in the expression of behaviours. The public health field and the architecture and urban design field are dominated by the study of perceptual outcomes. There is a trend towards big data as a measurement tool for research subjects in all fields with a multidisciplinary perspective and the inclusion of more disciplines can produce more meaningful research results. The study provides a framework for research into the relationship between the two from a broader perspective and provides guidance for future multidisciplinary research, with implications for the construction of high-quality human-centred urban spatial environments.

R을 활용한 생태적 도시환경디자인 국외 연구동향 분석

This study aims to draw implications for future domestic ecological urban environment design research by analyzing trends in ecological urban environment design and international academic research, and bibliographic information analysis and keyword network analysis were conducted using the R program. As a result of the research, empirical research focused on problem solving was the main focus, the topic was changing to the ecological service system of the city, and the paradigm shift of ecological urban environment design, such as the need for cooperative research between countries, was identified. And based on this result, the direction of future follow-up research was prospected.

Exploring the Role of AI in Urban Design Research: A Comparative Analysis of Analogical and Machine Learning Approaches

Exploring the Role of AI in Urban Design Research: A Comparative Analysis of Analogical and Machine Learning Approaches

Social Media Data in Urban Design and Landscape Research: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Social media data have been widely used in natural sciences and social sciences in the past 5 years, benefiting from the rapid development of deep learning frameworks and Web 2.0. Its advantages have gradually emerged in urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture design, sustainable tourism, and other disciplines. This study aims to obtain an overview of social media data in urban design and landscape research through literature reviews and bibliometric visualization as a comprehensive review article. The dataset consists of 1220 articles and reviews works from SSCI, SCIE, and A&HCI, based on the Web of Science core collection, respectively. The research progress and main development directions of location-based social media, text mining, and image vision are introduced. Moreover, we introduce Citespace, a computer-network-based bibliometric visualization, and discuss the timeline trends, hot burst keywords, and research articles with high co-citation scores based on Citespace. The Citespace bibliometric visualization tool facilitates is used to outline future trends in research. The literature review shows that the deep learning framework has great research potential for text emotional analysis, image classification, object detection, image segmentation, and the expression classification of social media data. The intersection of text, images, and metadata provides attractive opportunities as well.

Developing Process for Selecting Research Techniques in Urban Planning and Urban Design with a PRISMA-Compliant Review

Choosing the proper research methods can pose a challenge for novice urban planners and designers. This study aimed to develop a more effective process for assisting urban planners and designers in selecting appropriate research techniques. The study used bibliometrics, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and storytelling techniques as examples of urban planning and urban design research techniques. The results of this study provide techniques and procedures that can help urban planners and designers to conduct research reviews and follow the previous documented works published in the field. By utilizing suggested techniques and procedures, conclusive conclusions in urban planning and design research can be formed on the basis of compelling evidence. This study recommends developing a further innovative research methodology based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses by improving documentation and dissemination of research reviews.

Using Flickr Data to Understand Image of Urban Public Spaces with a Deep Learning Model: A Case Study of the Haihe River in Tianjin

Understanding public perceptions of images of urban public spaces can guide efforts to improve urban vitality and spatial diversity. The rise of social media data and breakthroughs in deep learning frameworks for computer vision provide new opportunities for studying public perceptions in public spaces. While social media research methods already exist for extracting geo-information on public preferences and emotion analysis findings from geodata, this paper aims at deep learning analysis by building a VGG-16 image classification method that enhanced the research content of images without geo-information. In this study, 1940 Flickr images of the Haihe River in Tianjin were identified in multiple scenes with deep learning. The regularized VGG-16 architecture showed high accuracies of 81.75% for the TOP-1 and 96.75% for the TOP-5 and Grad-CAM visualization modules for the interpretation of classification results. The result of the present work indicate that images of the Haihe River are dominated by skyscrapers, bridges, promenades, and urban canals. After using kernel density to visualize the spatial distribution of Flickr images with geodata, it was found that there are three vitality areas in Haihe River. However, the kernel density result also shows that judging spatial visualization based solely on geodata is incomplete. The spatial distribution can be used as an assistant function in the case of the under-representation of geodata. Collectively, the field of how to apply computer vision to urban design research was explored and extended in this trial study.

Commentary: beauty in urban design - oppression or emancipation?

In this commentary, I respond to Cozzolino’s (URBAN Des Int 27(1):43–52, 2022) recent paper titled ‘On the spontaneous beauty of cities: neither design nor chaos’ published in URBAN DESIGN International. In the last few years, the concept of beauty has been used widely in urban planning and design. Cozzolino’s notable contribution is a call for more diverse processes of creating grown/spontaneous order in planning and designing cities. He proposes this as a definition of beauty that can enable people to better express themselves. Here, I use debates from cultural studies to situate the notion of beauty within a broader critical context. Reasons why urban design research must take into consideration the ways in which beauty disproportionately affects different groups of people (particularly marginalised groups) are then explained. The aim is to highlight the potential discriminatory consequences of seemingly apolitical approaches taken to create beauty. This is in line with broader movements of the decolonisation of knowledge.

Notes on Developing Research Review in Urban Planning and Urban Design Based on PRISMA Statement

The point of view expressed in this article is theoretically grounded in the PRISMA statement, which is a tool for critically evaluating academic papers in public health. Bibliometrics analysis, systematic review, meta-analysis, and storytelling techniques (BSMS) were used to identify relevant studies and create a process for documented urban planning and design research. To promote the construction of new facts based on compelling evidence reported in earlier literature reviews, academics in urban planning and urban design are encouraged to build their own suitable review procedures to support the formation of conclusions based on compelling evidence. Providing a strategic approach and practice process is one of the significant contributions of this knowledge research.

Developing Urban Design Research with VINEX

During the mid-1990s and the first two decades of the 2000s, the Netherlands underwent a super zoning programme called VINEX to redevelop peripheral areas. The initial objective is to change to an urban landscape design project for high-density housing, favouring places that tend to be elitist. This research looks first at the evolution of VINEX on urban landscape design and then at how the recent NR development programme has sought to correct housing speculation. Finally, by comparing the objectives of VINEX and the NR programme, this research aims to highlight how land reclamation can also be achieved through new policies of green landscape and social inclusion and not only through land consumption, a peculiar characteristic of Dutch planning.

Integrated Approach to Explore Multidimensional Urban Morphology of Informal Settlements: The Case Studies of Lahore, Pakistan

The understanding of urban morphology as a means of exploring the materiality of urban areas has been an emerging practice amongst academics, but the reach of the methods in urban-design research has been limited. This research presents the integration of GIS application and fieldwork analysis as the main methods to support the interpretation of urban morphology as methodical, exploratory, and multidimensional. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, commonly known as the KS test, is also conducted to illustrate a contrast among the settlements. The study focuses on various dimensions of informal settlements by drawing on three case studies of informal settlements in Lahore, Pakistan. The results show heterogeneity in the urban form in terms of land-use diversity, building density, connectivity, open-space ratio, and infrastructural quality within the case-study areas. The analysis displays the context sensitivity and diversity within these settlements that provide a better understanding of how informal settlement works in relation to urban morphology. This research has the characteristics to contribute to other urban-form studies through the coherent application of the procedures to various sites. The output of mixed-use techniques exercised in this study lends itself to integration with other systematic processes related to urban areas’ design, research, and planning.

Effects of Gehl’s urban design guidelines on walkability: A virtual reality experiment in Singaporean public housing estates

Walkability has become an important theme of urban design research and practice. Evidence suggests that environmental attractiveness can have a significant impact on the amount of walking activities that take place, but relatively little research exists on which environmental features linked to attractiveness increase walkability. Using a virtual reality experiment, the present study examined the effects on walkability of three key features, as defined by Jan Gehl, an influential urban planning practitioner and theorist: liveliness, high-quality façades and low buildings. A virtual reality simulation allowed isolating the effects of these features, while avoiding confounding factors, such as the presence of shops, which has been difficult to do in past field studies. Our study confirmed that the combination of features recommended by Gehl promoted walking activity in the study’s context. Further exploratory analyses suggested that improved façade quality was positively linked to walking activity, and that building height and liveliness had negligible effects. Our findings contribute to the existing understanding of walkability, which may benefit urban planning practice and models of walkability. Further research is necessary to confirm our results regarding the effects of specific features on walking activity in different contexts.

The Role of Attachment in Creating Sustainable Sense of Place for Traditional Streets in Alor Setar, Malaysia

In urban design research, it is vital to search the role of place attachment as an element that places significant meanings that include physical characteristics, activity and meaning that contribute to the sense of place. In urban studies, most of the study leads to the importance of physical characteristics and activities towards the sense of place; however, research on place attachment roles as part of the sense of place has not been sufficiently done. This paper aims to search the role of place attachment in creating a sustainable sense of place in two main traditional streets in Alor Setar, Jalan Tunku Yaakub in Pekan Cina (JTY) and Jalan Kampung Perak (JKP). Field survey and Semi-structured interviews were conducted as a data collection method, and all the content were analysed to accomplish a thorough interpretation of the findings. The findings show that users attached to the traditional street in Alor Setar, Kedah, dominate and influence the place's identity. The street view is vital in daily engagement attached whereas, the mobile users of the streets are primarily attached in terms of functionality. In addition, the meaning and history also influence the user's attachment to the place. In conclusion, the roles of place attachment on traditional streets attributes should be considered to sustain the sense of place for the future development in Alor Setar.

Contextualised Convivialities in Superdiverse Neighbourhoods – Methodological Approaches Informed by Urban Design

ABSTRACT This paper positions questions of conviviality as situational as well as relational, and describes and reflects on methods which give due precedence to different spatial scales, materialities and timeframes. In this urban design research project our central question focused on the affordances and value of different local outdoor public spaces for supporting conviviality in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood in Sheffield UK. This neighbourhood had become known for tensions, played out in outdoor public spaces, resulting in part from social dynamics between more recent arrivals and relatively settled communities. We built trust by embedding responsiveness and shared benefit as key ethical commitments in our practice alongside learning about spatial and temporal dimensions of encounter across difference. Building on our urban design professional skills relating to place enquiry and understanding, we tested walking, photography, drawing, making and mapping methods including collaborating with local groups. These allowed us to develop theoretical understandings of conviviality as a pluralistic construct, fundamentally informed, shaped and responsive to the complexities of context – including socio-economic place-based histories, physical environments and ongoing social negotiations.

Questing a walkable city: a case of urban neighbourhood walkability environment in Bangladesh

PurposeWhat makes neighbourhood environment more walkable is an important question for urban planning and design research. The purpose of this paper is to explore this question through a case study of urban sidewalks in different contexts of urban neighbourhoods in Rajshahi city of Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachUsing participatory observation, Google street view and photography techniques, it examines the quality of the street facilities by demonstrating physical attributes of sidewalks and by analysing how various obstructions on them characterize neighbourhood walkability environment.FindingsThe findings suggest that the unusable sidewalks in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, are a production of inadequate and inappropriate planning and design that unable to capitalize the functionality of sidewalks as a means of walking. It further argues that the urban planners and designers of streets have paid little attention to the diverse requirements of sidewalks in accordance with spatial and socio-economic categories of urban neighbourhoods.Originality/valueThis study adds insights about the urban sidewalks planning and design in the context of a developing country. It provides an empirical evidence about the constraints and potentials of making a walkable city.