Urban Open Public Spaces Research Articles

Empirical study of the mental representation of the image of the city (on the example of Kazan and Naberezhnye Chelny)

The purpose of the study is to identify the formed image of the territory in the perception of its inhabitants, using empirical research data for this. The main results of the study are that a comprehensive analysis of the mental representation of the urban space was carried out, on the basis of which the key elements of the image of the territory, the boundaries of the vernacular districts of the city, their urbanonymy were identified, as well as the significant role of urban open public spaces in the formation of the image of the territory. The authors come to the conclusion about the peculiarities of building images of cities, centered on symbolically significant elements and spaces that act as anchors for forming the image of a city in the perception of residents, attaching the population to the territory and constructing local identity.

Multi-stakeholder perspectives on approaches for addressing the incidence of urban public open space encroachment: The case of Freedom Square, Bloemfontein

Several studies have investigated the extinction of urban public open spaces in South Africa. However, a fixation by such studies on well-established primary cities has been noticed, whilst limited attention has been paid to emerging major cities. In addition, findings from these studies have resulted from the perspectives of either planning entities’ representatives or representatives of the communities associated with open space encroachment. This implies the absence of a systemic and multi-stakeholder engagement. This article contributes towards bridging these observed gaps through the elicitation of multi-stakeholder perspectives on the enablers of urban public open space encroachment in major cities, using a Mangaung Metropolitan exemplar. Adopting a qualitative case study research design, data were gathered using semi-structured interviews and focus-group interviews. Participants were purposively recruited from Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality planning department and community members residing in Freedom Square township, Bloemfontein. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Significant enablers identified include low levels of sustainability literacy, low levels of citizen participation in the planning process, and planners’ inability to manage extant value conflicts. The findings from this study contribute to a broader study that seeks to develop an urban open space planning and management framework for forestalling the incidence of encroachment in major cities. Accordingly, this study’s findings have practical implications for relevant planning stakeholders who are keen on curbing the incidence of urban open space encroachment in South African townships.

Visitors’ Perception and their Experience of Public Open Space of Bhadrakali Premises in Pokhara, Kaski, Nepal

The purpose of this study is to examine the users’ perception towards the existing management of public open space (POS) because urban public open space is the significant part of urban landscape. POSs are indispensable as it provides wellbeing, beautify the city and enhance quality of urban life so this case study is related to users’ perception about Bhadrakali premises as POS in Pokhara metropolitan city. Exploratory and prediction research design is followed and users’ experiences are analyzed on the basis of different groups of visitors inside the study area. It focuses on visitor’s perception towards attributes like condition of open space and the situation of infrastructure facilities there. The perception of visitor is scanned through filled up closed questionnaire form to express their perception with eight independent parameters such as accessibility, natural attraction, cultural heritage, safety, sanitation, parking facilities, internal layout and surrounding situation in the study area. The mapping process have been done with the help of ArcGIS. The statistical test revealed that there is a strong statistically significant association between the level of perception with the age, gender, caste, occupation and education status of visitors. The relationship between visitors and existing environment of Bhadrakali site play a significant role to understand visitor’s perception which supports in improving places according to their requirement. It is assumed that, positive perceptional indicators refer the popularity and well sophistication of public open space while negative indicators of visitors provide feedback for further space development and proper management of public open spaces.

Quantitative Evaluation of Spatial Differentiation for Public Open Spaces in Urban Built-Up Areas by Assessing SDG 11.7: A Case of Deqing County

Urban public open spaces refer to open space between architectural structures in a city or urban agglomeration that is open for urban residents to conduct public exchanges and hold various activities. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.7 in the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly states that the distribution characteristics of public open spaces are important indicators to measure the sustainable development of urban ecological society. In 2018, in order to implement the sustainable development agenda, China offered the example of Deqing to the world. Therefore, taking Deqing as an example, this paper uses geographic statistics and spatial analysis methods to quantitatively evaluate and visualize public open spaces in the built area in 2016 and analyzes the spatial pattern and relationship of the population. The results show that the public open spaces in the built-up area of Deqing have typical global and local spatial autocorrelation. The spatial pattern shows obvious differences in different parts of the built area and attributes of public open spaces. According to the results of correlation analysis, it can be seen that the decentralized characteristics of public open spaces have a significant relationship with the population agglomeration, and this correlation is also related to the types of public open spaces. The assessment results by SDG 11.7.1 indicate that the public open spaces in the built-up area of Deqing conform to the living needs of residents on the whole and have a humanized space design and good accessibility. However, the per capita public open spaces of towns and villages outside the built area are relatively low, and there is an imbalance in public open spaces. Therefore, more attention should be paid to constructing urban public open spaces fairly.

The effects of sounds and food odour on crowd behaviours in urban public open spaces

Few studies have investigated the integrated effects of sound and odour on people with the purpose of improving the use of urban spaces. Therefore, this study aimed to provide further insight into such effects from the perspective of crowd behaviour. A covert behavioural observation experiment was conducted in a typical urban commercial pedestrian street, using the smell of a bakery as the odour source, while reproducing typical urban sound sources of music and fan sound (along with a condition where no sound was played) with and without odour. The present results show that for crowd path, in the no-odour condition, playing music significantly attracted the crowd, while fan sound tended to make the crowd path farther away from the sensory sources. With the bakery odour, individuals approached the sensory sources closer when playing the sound, whether it was music or fan sound. With regard to crowd speed, music significantly reduced it and the greater the proximity to the sound source, the slower the crowd speed. Fan sound increased the crowd speed, which was significantly higher in the presence rather than absence of bakery odour, and the average speed decreased gradually as proximity to the sensory sources increased. Finally, with regard to the duration time of the crowd, it increased with music and decreased with fan sound. The bakery odour also significantly increased the duration time. However, the interaction effect between sound and odour on crowd speed and duration time was not significant.

An improved service quality measurement model for soundscape assessment in urban public open spaces

The well-known service quality measurement (SQM) models, Importance-Satisfaction (I-S) model and Improvement index (Ii) model, have been recently proved useful in the analysis of soundscape quality. By combining the concepts of soundscape and quality management, this paper proposes an improved SQM model for soundscape assessment in urban public open spaces. Instead of using the I-S model, the Preference-Satisfaction (P-S) model was developed for soundscape quality evaluation, which can simultaneously assess the importance, satisfaction and improvement direction of soundscape elements and provide more accurate and comprehensive information for guiding the soundscape management and improvement. The proposed methods were subsequently applied to case studies in eight ordinary urban public open spaces in Fujian Province, China, and provided detailed information about the soundscape quality of these surveyed open spaces as well as their improvement strategies. The results have demonstrated the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method. To the authors' knowledge, practical applications of quality management methods (or its variations) to urban soundscape study are still limited in the literature; therefore, the proposed method and findings of the current study could be valuable for both practical soundscape design and academic research.

Regional Differences and Influential Factors of Open Public Space in Chinese Cities Based on Big Earth Data

Urban open public spaces that provide multiple services for residents are essential for improving life quality and urban ecosystem function and promoting healthy development, the safety of human settlements and the sustainable development of urban cities. Based on Sustainable Development Goal 11.7 of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda, this study combines the big earth data with the Theil index, a coefficient of variation and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) to analyze the regional differences and spatial distribution of urban open public space in 2015 for China, and uses the geographical detector to identify key factors that affect the distribution of open public spaces. The results show that (1) open public space scales in provincial-level cities have an ‘East–Central–West’ low-lying land pattern in spatial distribution, where the eastern region has a relatively larger open public space scale. (2) In the prefecture-level cities, the open public space scale increases with an increase in city size and economic development level, and the differences in urban open public space reduce with an increase in city size and increase with a decrease in the economic development level. (3) Factors including economic development level, residents’ living standards, the urbanization level and the population size have sound explanatory powers in varying degrees on the scale of open public spaces; interactions between these factors have improved the explanatory power of the scale of urban open public space.

“SAFE!”: YOUTH PERCEPTION OF TAMAN PERBANDARAN TENGKU ANIS, KOTA BHARU

Social and cultural influences the community in many ways either directly or indirectly. Thus, this paper argues about the community perception focusing on the age of youth towards the Public Park in Kota Bharu regarding their expectation and their emotions upon this public park. Questionnaire regarding the youth’s perception about the relationship between the feelings and the Public Park utilization has been done as well as using observation and Semantic Differential Method. The result shows by the exploratory factor analysis based on eigenvalue cut off resulting four components regard to the facilities provided in Taman Perbandaran Tengku Anis with a total cumulative 72.324% while there are three components explained their feelings with total cumulative 72.923%. Consequently, the expectations and feelings of the youth as the users or visitors at this park is related to the component attractions of this park. Although this park can be considered as a successful urban public open space in terms of the physical environment designation that offered plenty of human activities onto it, the youth have their own on this public space.

The development of emotional indicators for the soundscape in urban open public spaces

Increasing urbanization has had a profound impact on the acoustic environment. Research on soundscapes in urban open spaces depends on users’ perceptions and feelings. By exploiting the semantic differential method, this study aims to investigate the emotions that constitute the perceptions and feelings of soundscapes in urban open public spaces. This research was carried out through a laboratory audio–visual experiment using photographs and binaural recordings of 16 urban open public locations across Harbin, China. A total of 48 participants were required to assess both the ‘perceived emotion’ and ‘felt emotion’ of the soundscape by questionnaire. A semantic differential analysis of the results shows that although the soundscapes in urban open spaces are rather complicated, it is still possible to identify five major factors of felt emotion and seven major factors of perceived emotion. Distinguishing between “felt emotion” from “perceived emotion” in soundscapes may bring about changes in evaluation and design, which will help planners better understand how to design a place to provide its users with their expected experience.

Cross-National Comparison of Soundscape in Urban Public Open Spaces between China and Croatia

There are similarities and differences between open public space soundscape evaluation in different countries, mainly due to the influence of cultural background. This paper systematically compares the effect of social-cultural context on soundscape of urban public open spaces in China and Croatia. Eleven well-known and typical squares were selected. A series of questionnaire surveys within the soundscape framework were carried out during the summer season, and gathered data were analyzed. Principal component analysis (PCA) resulted in two principal components, eventfulness and pleasantness, as notable soundscape factors. However, eventfulness is the major factor in China, and pleasantness is the major factor in Croatia. In terms of environmental satisfaction, natural condition is the major factor based on PCA. Urban condition is the second factor in China, however, it is the third factor in Croatia. It is interesting to note that the physical environment is the most important factor in Croatian inland and coastal places, which is different compared to Chinese places. Visit purpose is the dominant factor associated with sound and environmental satisfaction. Natural sound and children have mainly positive correlations to sound and environmental satisfaction in China, whereas sounds of human activities have mainly negative correlations to sound and environmental satisfaction in Croatia.

Research on sharing and integration of public open space in Shenzhen Bay Street, Nanshan district, Shenzhen

Due to the shortage of land space resources and the uneven distribution of urban space resources under the current development model, the existing urban public open space is distributed discretely in urban space, lacking systematic integration and full-cycle guidance and control and management which highlights lacking publicity. The existing urban public space can not meet the needs of public life of citizens, while the building public open space attached to the building plots that has not been utilized effectively possesses great potential for development and utilization. In recent years, the Shenzhen Bay Street complex in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen has become one of the few practical cases of the joint development design and integrated construction of urban public open space and building public open space in China. The systematic study from it can provide valuable reference for the integrated development and guidance and control of public open space in Chinese cities.

Research and Enlightenment to China on Identification and Evaluation of Architecture Public Open Space in New York POPS Management and Control System

Architecture public open space is an indispensable part of urban public open space, and its construction is a long-term and sustainable process. Some mainland cities and regions in China began to pay attention to the role of building public open space in urban public space from the 1990s and relevant incentives were formulated when land was sold. However, due to the lack of a targeted and complete control system, especially the lack of identification criteria for architecture public open space, the construction, use and maintenance of architecture public open space are unsatisfactory. Based on the study of New York’s POPS management and control system, this paper summarizes the experience of identification and evaluation of architecture public open space in order to provide inspiration for the establishment of identification and evaluation system of building public open space in China.

Design of Open Public Spaces in the Context of World Trends in City Planning

The aim of the research is to put an accent on the interconnection of the social subject and the cultural significance of arrangement of the urban open public spaces in accordance with the demands and priorities of the society. The research methods include methods of historical and urban analysis, method of comparison and generalization method. The scientific novelty. The article highlights the priority trends in the arrangement of open public spaces of the city (the world experience and Ukrainian projects were studied). The author analyzes the ways of finding actual solutions where the competitive manner of selecting design concepts is determined as one of the most favorable manners that, in the historical context, presented to the world a lot of cult places. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research, the following areas of development of design concepts for the improvement of open public spaces of the city have been examined: multifunctionality (the pedestrian areas include spaces for recreation, playgrounds, sport grounds, picnic areas, and market areas); versatility (orientation on different categories of people and social groups); cheapening and easing of the space management systems (such places are designed for a long-term perspective, include the permeable coating, rainwater drainage systems); environmentally friendly solutions (application of natural materials, energy saving technologies in lighting, landscaping); improvement of the climatic comfort (availability of canopies, tents, fountains, artificial water basins, light surfaces of the paving that reflect the light and prevent from overheat); pithiness (clearness of composite solutions, simplicity of forms); accessibility (absence of social competition).

Emergence and Evolution of the Urban Public Open Spaces of Ankara within the Urban Development History: 1923 to Present

Public open space (POS) in Ankara reflects both the negative and positive aspects of urban change. Evolving public space development strategies in Ankara played a fundamental role in the protection, promotion, and enhancement of POS from 1923 to 2017. This study shows that while the POS development of the city was addressed as an integrative and comprehensive structure in the entire city by the Lörcher (1924–1925) and Jansen (1932) plans, the subsequent approaches to POS were more superficial, piecemeal, and simplistic.

Classification of soundscapes of urban public open spaces

It is increasingly acknowledged by landscape architects and urban planners that the soundscape contributes significantly to the perception of urban public open spaces. Describing and classifying this impact, however, remains a challenge. This article presents a hierarchical method for classification that distinguishes between backgrounded and foregrounded, disruptive and supportive, and finally calming and stimulating soundscapes. This four-class classification is applied to a growing collection of immersive audio-visual recordings of sound environments from around the world that could be explored using virtual reality playback. To validate the proposed methodology, an experiment involving 40 participants and 50 soundscape stimuli collected in urban public open spaces worldwide was conducted. The experiment showed that (1) the virtual reality headset reproduction based on affordable spatial audio with 360-degree video recordings was perceived as ecologically valid in terms of realism and immersion; (2) the proposed classification method results in well-separated classes; (3) membership to these classes could be explained by physical parameters, both regarding sound and vision. Moreover, models based on a limited number of acoustical indicators were constructed that could correctly classify a soundscape in each of the four proposed categories, with an accuracy exceeding 88% on an independent dataset.

Reconnecting Hong Kong in Time and Space

As a high-density compact city, Hong Kong carries the baggage of this, with a chronic shortage of easily accessible urban public open spaces. On the one hand, it leaves the stressful urban localities with no place for instant contact with nature; on the other hand, with a lasting impression of a ‘shopping paradise’ to the tourists, the micro-regeneration of urban public open spaces inevitably becomes tailored to the needs of shopping ‘pilgrims’. Such changes jeopardize the uniqueness and cultural identity of Hong Kong, and there is a crying need to preserve cultural heritage in the already very crowded urban public spaces. Along with the industrial restructuring and spatial regeneration strategies proposed in the newly released Greater Bay Area Development Plan, more public space is potentially relieved in the urban core of Hong Kong. The authors argue that this is a great opportunity for Hong Kong to create a truly integrated urban trail system, which not only connects the underprivileged high-density dwellers to the green and blue spaces, but also offers an interconnected experience of routes that celebrate the cultural authenticity of Hong Kong.

Going beyond Quietness: Determining the Emotionally Restorative Effect of Acoustic Environments in Urban Open Public Spaces.

The capacity of natural settings to promote psychological restoration has attracted increasing research attention, especially with regards to the visual dimension. However, there is a need to extend these studies to urban settings, such as squares, parks or gardens, due to the global trend towards urbanisation, and to integrate the dimension of sound into landscape. Such was the main aim of this study, in which 53 participants assessed four public spaces in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain) as part of the CITI-SENSE Project (137 observations were used for analysis). A smartphone application was used to simultaneously collect objective and subjective data. The results show that at the end of the urban environmental experience, there was a statistically significant reduction in negative emotions and perceived stress, and a slight increase in positive emotions. Emotional restoration was mainly associated with prior emotional states, but also with global environmental comfort and acoustic comfort. The soundscape characteristics that contributed to greater emotional restoration and a reduction in perceived stress were pleasantness, calm, fun and naturalness. Therefore, in agreement with previous research, the findings of the present study indicate that besides contributing to the quietness of the urban environment, the urban soundscape can promote psychological restoration in users of these spaces.

Accessibility of Public Open Space for Children with Disabilities (Case study: Gajah Wong Park and Denggung Park, D.I. Yogyakarta)

A group of children experience disability in segregation conditions, namely the status of individuals who have difficultie / are denied access to public services. Many of them are marginalized and it is difficult to access existing facilities in the city. The aim of the study was to find out what application of accessibility services tended to have been implemented and which was still less applied in urban public open space planning. In terms of efforts to achieve the right of equality and fulfillment of services in the public open space for children with disabilities. The method used in this study is qualitative and this research is descriptive. by collecting data related to elephant wong parks and denggung parks. then the data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman analysis method, namely the analysis method with 3 stages. 1) data reduction 2) data display 3) conclution. The results of this study indicate that the application of accessibility services in terms of four criteria, namely: ease, usability, safety, and independence. Ease is still a priority in the design of public open space and independence is still a part that has not been well considered, so that public open space cannot be used independently for persons with disabilities. Keyword: Accessibility, Open Space, Disabled child

Impact of Rapid Urbanization and Changing Housing Patterns on Urban Open Public Spaces of Amman, Jordan: A GIS and RS Perspective

Rapid urbanization and population growth of the Amman Area were combined with land resource degradation when the city was heading for mounting urbanization from the early 1950s. The deterioration of natural resources and green areas, was coupled with the creation of different urban public open spaces in the city. The transformation from large single-family houses to dense residential apartments was associated with social and behavioral changes among the inhabitants living in the dense apartments. Consequently, a large private sector has been developed to provide public and social spaces. Photo-interpretation and satellite images were used to map and characterize land use/cover changes have been occurred in the Amman area between 1953 and 2017. Maximum Likelihood Classification method was employed to identify land use/cover changes between 1986 and 20017, and GIS was utilized also to map examples of the recently emerged socio-economic open spaces. Excessive urban development in the last two decades, and the adoption of neo-liberal privatization policies by the government, enhanced social stratification and residential segregation. So, instead of encouraging outdoor activity and social interaction among all groups of Amman residents, the freedom of accessibility to major open spaces has been restricted within the same urban fabric, thus, the “two Ammans” paradigm, a “tale of two cities”, has been recently acknowledged.

SOCIALIZATION AND TRAINING FOR PRODUCTIVE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET FOR HOUSEHOLD MOTHER IN MERUYA SELATAN VILLAGE (JAKARTA BARAT, INDONESIA)

The community services are aimed to socialize knowledge of the importance of household budgets for productive mothers or productive family in the South Meruya urban area. This community activity takes the title of Socialization and Training of Household Productive Budget Creation for mothers is organized by community members around the Meruya urban village community and open child-friendly public spaces (RPTRA) officials. Community Participating in socialization and training in order to manage family finances by applying household budget as a reference to managing family income and expenditure. The problem that often happens in a family is greater expenditure than their income. This training is needed to help people in managing their finances. Implementation of this training used presentation technique, discussion if there are any questions. The result of this socialization shows that the participants were enthusiastic in the training because they need to apply the budget in their household.