Re-Imagining the Streets as Public Spaces; Implications of Urban Design and Human Behaviour_ A Case of Ahmedabad City (original) (raw)
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Designing Indian streets as social public spaces : contextual design and planning in Bangalore
2014
Streets in India have traditionally been the public spaces around which social life has revolved. They constitute the urban public realm where people congregate, celebrate and interact. The hypothesis that forms the basis of this thesis is that there is a need to understand and design these urban streets as living corridors through which one perceives and understands the city, and the places where one has daily social encounters. Using Bangalore as a case study, this thesis analyzes spatial and social forces that shape street experience and culture at the scale of the city, the locality, and the street itself. By performing a reconnaissance study and an analysis of the street patterns in fifteen localities within the city, along with a detailed spatial analysis and interpretation of four different types of streets, I shed new light on the social life of different types of streets, and suggest ways in which the stimuli for these social lives can be understood and used to formulate de...
Urban Streets as an Armature of the Public Open Space
1986
There has already been much written about the streets in many different ways, such as in planning, sociology, traffic engineering and in architecture, which refers at some point to an aspect of the street. The range of material is therefore very wide, but much of this deals with a particular field of comment, such as streetscape, social experience and social behaviour. I want to discuss the streets from an urban design point of view and then see how this might relate to social experience, for a better understanding of our urban environment. Broadly speaking the thesis is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter deals with the concept of the street; I will be defining the street, explaining its complexity, referring to the "bits" which have to function such as doors providing entry and windows, daylight, but which also combined with other "bits" such as decorations to form the facade and therefore the character of the streetscape. Modern technology has surely ad...
Journal of Sustainable Development, 2021
Without a structured physical layout and a system of street connections inside cities, successful urban development has never been possible. Streets have played an important role in cities from ancient times, connecting areas, people, and things, promoting business, social interaction, and transportation. Cities' cultural, social, economic, and political functions have been partially defined by streets, plazas, and well-designed public areas. They were-and still are-the first feature to distinguish a place's status, from a haphazard and unplanned settlement to a well-established town or metropolis. In many parts of the world, people are reclaiming their streets as public places. Streets are being redesigned to allow communities to use them to their full potential and as a form of social engagement. However, despite its great importance, not many studies attempted to explore the characteristics and roles of streets and public places, especially within the Macedonian context. The purpose of this study is to explore the sense of comfort and safety of people while being in urban streets and public places. Moreover, in view of the main research objective, besides the characteristics of the urban streets, the demographic variables, such as gender and age were examined as to their relevance for their perceptions. The research results have indicated that the characteristics of the urban streets have impact on participant's perception and feelings, while in terms of demographic variables, only age has a significant role in the perception of the public space of Skopje from every aspect, but not in the sense of comfort and safety while walking in urban streets and public spaces.
Investigation Of Lost Character of Street Space by Differentiating it from Mere Road
Journal of development and social sciences, 2022
Streets are the most important part of the urban environment. Streets, in the past, were the places of informal meetings, kids' play, social gatherings, and processions. Streets have evolved into massive engineering roads that celebrate 20th-century technological development. Considering streets as roads has ruined this very space's socio-cultural importance and real character by giving priority to cars over human beings. The objective of the research is to differentiate the rich street space from the. Through the qualitative method, this study differentiates the use and feel of streets and roads separately. Learning from old street patterns, particularly in medieval Islamic cities, reinforced the socio-cultural aspects of the street. It is concluded that all stakeholders should work together to introduce a new model for balancing people, socio-cultural character, and vehicular traffic. This may prove to be the best solution to bring back the lost character of street space.
The Problem (Streetscapes: The Future of the Street)
This essay is an introduction to an issue of Seminar India which I coedited with Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay, about the future of the street as a social, political and architectural space in Indian cities. See: http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/636.htm
Rethinking Urban Public Space: Physical and Functional Analysis through Visual Surveys
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2020
Pedestrian-friendly, liveable, sociable human scale and fun urban environment are the qualities for good cities. Human activities will happen in urban public places if cities can offer choices for people. Increasing the use of the spaces in an urban environment through human activities can turn urban spaces into becoming “places” that is crucial to create good cities. Urban spaces should cater the functional, social, and leisure needs of people. It has positively related to a sense of community that contributes to the identity and image of the city. Therefore, urban street planning and design need to emphasis more on crucial aspects such as the physical, social, cultural, economics and pedestrians to create an urban street environment that is attractive as a destination for economic and social activities. This paper aims to propose and discuss optimal design solutions for a better urban street environment in Ipoh old town, Perak. The objectives are 1) to identify nodes and linkages,...
Sustainability Agri Food Environmental Research, 2022
Walkable streets in any urban setting are the epitome of public realm for social, cultural and economic interactions. These not only enable face to face meaningful interactions, but also promote informal activities. Streets have culturally been the living room for the community where people have an innate association with different parts of a street-be it in form of informal markets or tea breaks during the long office days or celebration of many festivals that are part of Indian culture. However, with rapid urbanization resulting in increasing migratory patterns and number of private vehicle ownership, streets are losing their essence as a public place as authorities are adopting a vehicle centric approach in their design. Today streets, with their haphazard design are neither functional nor are they liveable. Furthermore, increased traffic and reduced walkability results in greater environmental damage, rendering streets unsustainable. Since aspects of functionality, liveability and sustainability of streets are interrelated and interdependent, this study explores the different factors, their inter-linkages and disparities as acknowledged through existing literature review and observation mapping through a pilot street stretch that evaluates the above mentioned aspects through content analysis of existing legislations and descriptive analysis of the interviews conducted. This pilot study helped identify the factors of compatible and conflicting land-uses, the primary, ancillary and resulting activities as well as their intensities, perception of safety and comfort need to be considered while designing street sections to make them functional, liveable and sustainable.
Decoding Advanced Streetscapes: Case Study of Delhi
Streets or Right of Ways, cover almost 25% of city area as per Master Plan of Delhi. Yet most of the master plans, development regulations give much more importance to zoning and built mass than streets. Streets are merely understood as connecting corridors and not primary spaces. For something that covers more than 1/4th of city area, not giving an in-depth focus to them in city development plans is a big miss. Daily human activities such as sleeping, working at office, recreation is given importance, but time spent in commuting is usually neglected. Negative experiences while commuting on streets contribute to an overall decline in inclination of commuter to achieve desired goals. As per research conducted by ford sponsored agency, commuting is considered more stressful than most activities such as planning holidays, being at work, moving a house, dealing with money matters etc. With changing technology, requirements of streets and commuters is also visibly changing. To design & foresee streets of future, it is important to identify and integrate both physical & social dimensions of street. Delhi like any other city has a hierarchical network of streets ranging from neighborhood pathways to national highways. Delhi is a city of contrasts that on one hand was home to several settlements of bygone eras that are still being actively used, along with new developments with varied shades of street patterns. Paper aims to understand the physical and social dimensions of street by exploring various street sections of Delhi from a commuting experience perspective. It also tries to evaluate certain design considerations that can help in achieving better street spaces. Paper also tries to analyze the street strategies that are applicable with changing technological advances with respect to Delhi.
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Urban Design in
2004
This thesis aims to set out an urban design framework, based on pedestrian experiences and pedestrian spaces, in order to take up streets to design or enhance them as pedestrian friendly urban public places. This could also be considered as a model of approach, which assumes a normative manner. Pedestrian urban places are surveyed, then analyses are drawn that will lead to design. In that framework, the study first summarizes theoretical concepts of urbanity, urban quality and pedestrian experiences, which are necessary for examining these places. Then, it puts out how an urban place is examined with respect to the three main headings, which constitute the components of urban places: urban form, urban image and urban activity. iv The study area, 7th Street in Bahçelievler, has become a secondary centre with its vitality and the diversity of activities attracting many people from other districts
An exploration of streets as social spaces as informative for urban planning and design
Challenges of Modern Technology, 2016
Public open spaces can positively contribute to people’s quality of life. With the world’s growing urban population, especially in developing countries, quality public spaces are becoming increasingly important. Streets are considered important public spaces for people-environment interactions. Streets play an important social role in communities’ lives and can contribute to a sense of community. Using people-environment interaction as theoretical framework, the study used a qualitative approach to explore social dynamics in a multi-modal street (Helen Joseph Street) in a South Africa metropolitan city (Pretoria). Aspects of ethnography was applied using observations and semi-structured interviews to generate data from 32 participants about social dynamics in the street. Themes that emerged from the content analysis of the data include: the multi-functional role of the street, serving an economic, cultural, social, political and functional role; the generation of vigorous social int...