Urban analysis work

20.016 URBAN ANALYSIS

EXPERIMENTS 1 2 3 4 5

Pedestrian route choice Location and revenue Observational analysis of public spaces Cognitive map analysis Big aggregate data

20.016 URBAN ANALYSIS

ASSIGNMENT 1: PEDESTRAIN ROUTE CHOICE Chiew Jia En, Chong Zhuo Wen, Jessie Tang, Liliani Saputri, Stephanie Loh Qi Jia

CONTENT Introduction

3

Literature review

4

Research hypothesis

5

Survey sites (Meridian LRT)

6

Survey instrument

7

Generating alternative paths

9

Analysis

10

Results

12

Design recommendations

16

Conclusion

18

INTRODUCTION This experiment aims to investigate how and how much pedestrian paths in Punggol are affected by comfort that they deviate from their shortest route.

621B 1B 621A 195 195C

CENTRAL AL CHRISTIA CURCHH

199C 199

624A 622C

624B 622 2

EDGEFIELD

199D 9D

624C

622D

PRISCH

P199

199B

197B 197

P624 193

622A 622

197A 97A

192

199A

623A 623C

196D

1 7 197

191

198

190 DP LA I

P 188

182 189 176A 176A

FI

196B

ED

P180 P101

175D 75D 101C

102

175C 75C

GO

176D

175B 75B

G REENDALE SEC SCH

NS

175A

DP LA I

174D

LE

106C 6C

FI

173

M ERIDIAN LRT

ED

GE

107A 07A 106B 06B

107B 7B

105A 105

173A 3A 174C

P107 174B

106A 173B 73B

NG

L

107D

FIE

LD

110A 0A 113 13

117 7

174A 4A

GO

106

118

IN

PU

G REENDALE PRI SCH

LE

108

S

P174

107C 7C 112

DA

104B

PLA

111 1

GE

104A

P175

FIE

106D 06D

P105

105D

L

173C 73C 173D

114

172B 2B B

110 110B B 109D 09D

P119 116 MP IN ES

P172

110C

171B 1B B

EXP

RE SSW

110D

172D

109B AY

P171

109A A

PLA

P

171A

126B 26B

DA

LE

P188E

IN

M EH TOH SCH GE

187B 7B

P126

ED

188A

126A 126C

RIVERD ALE PR CHH

185D P185

187A

PUNGGOL PLAZA

CORAL EDGE LRT

125 126D

P13 128A 186D

186

185A A

130 13

185 185C

127 129 1 9

186A

132 128B

128D

186 186C 186B 186

138 13 184 84C

100M

150M

200M

133 128C 28C

184 184B 50M

Initially, we wanted to find out how far would pedestrians choose one path instead of another due to safety reasons.

However, it was challenging to measure and quantify this element as it is a result of many other factors such as criminal activity, lighting level, speed of cars that are not the most direct elements that makes up the physical features of the area’s environment.

128

185B

SCALE 1:50000M

Since there is always an option of going through the covered void deck to get to most places, we wanted to test how much pedestrians would deviate from the shortest path in favor of shade. This constitute to part of the comfort element that we want to investigate. The other elements of comfort identified are simplicity of the route (number of turns) and number of crossings.

172C

172A

115 5

188B

188 88

109C

P109

S

TA

From the site map, there is an LRT station at approximately 400m - 600m intervals. Pedestrians only have to cross service roads around their block in order to transit to the LRT. Bus stops across the roads can be accessed by crossing the LRT station (as an overhead bridge) with lift connection.

Additionally, the area consists mainly of HDB flats with hawker centres located at the void decks near a LRT station.

LD

101B

105C 1 105B

CTR

185

1 6 176

NG

101A

L

184

176C

PU

L

GO

ED

102D

NG

186 6

176B

101D

103A

PU 187

183 83

GE

102A

102C

623B

181

178

NS

P196 196C 1 LE

196A

COVE LRT

102B

H ORI RIZON PR SCH

622B

N

Eventually, we opted for a set of secondary questions to source out other features that increases the attractiveness of a route so as to gauge the element’s significance.

LITERATURE REVIEW The papers offered several in-depth studies of pedestrian route choice and modelling methods, particularly with a few focusing on children and the aspect of unfamiliar routes (Ewing & Handy, 2009, Golledge). Many of the pedestrian route choices mentioned were based on physical factors of the environment with a few looking into the pedestrain perceptionrelated factors that attribute towards the characteristics of the environment.

Earlier on, as we found that it is extremely challenging to model the element of safety into our route choice model equation and collect of accurate data as well as it can be perceived very subjectively. One paper (Tirachini, 2015), however, illustrates the possibility of taking safety into consideration using what is known as “barrier effect“, which is a term that falls under the larger catagory of “severance“ in literature. Nevertheless, more background research has to be conducted to understand how the data collection and modelling of it can be done.

HYPOTHESIS 1. ROUTE COMPLEXITY (NUMBER OF TURNS)

3. NUMBER OF CROSSINGS

We define route complexity as the number of turns a pedestrian has to make in a route in order to reach their destination.

Pedestrians are likely to prefer routes with less crossings (service roads, zebra crossings and major vehicular roads) as there are time lapse involved in waiting for the appropriate time to cross.

Since Punggol has mostly uniform HDB flat block design, with little iconic destinations within the neighborhood, this led us to hypothesize that for the residents, walking through the blocks may be confusing. This hinders their sense of direction and thus they prefer routes with less turns as they are easier to recognize and remember.

2. AMOUNT OF SHADE Given that Singapore is hot and humid, especially during the day, we were curious as to whether pedestrians will choose a more sheltered path (such as the void deck, sheltered walkway or even pavement lined with ample vegetation) for comfort.

We expect a portion of pedestrians, particularly during instances when the unsheltered pedestrian walkways along main roads offer the shortest route possible, to deviate from the shortest path for a shaded path.

Moreover, when they cross a vehicular road, they have to be more aware and alert about the incoming traffic conditions. This causes pedestrians to slow down or even stop for a significant period of time.

Hence, we want to determine the number of crossings constitute to the pedestrians’ perception of choosing the more comfortable route. We foresee that some pedestrians may avoid crossings and hence choose a longer alternative path.

4. SHORTEST DISTANCE Above all, we believe that pedestrians are most likely to prefer the shortest route. However, our research interest lies in investigating aforementioned pedestrian route choice factors.

SURVEY SITES (MERIDIAN LRT) 175D 75D

176C 76C 175C 75C

FIE

176 1 6

P175

Bus stop

LD

176D 76D

175B 75B 175A 06C 6C

Lift

174D

173 173A 3A

106B 06B

P107

ATM

106A

107C 7C 106 6

108 8

107D

PU

P1 NG

110A 0A

173B 73B

GO

LF

IEL

D

110 0

Sidewalk

Hawker centre

110B B

SURVEY INSTRUMENT

SURVEY INSTRUMENT

GENERATING ALTERNATIVE PATHS

We generated our alternative paths from the route attribute highlighted previously, aiming to find a more varied route to calculate in excel.

Thus, we selected paths, both with apparent

variations (e.g. alternative path 2, the is significantly more shaded than alternative path 1).

ANALYSIS Number of participants: 34

Minimum Route Length

50.29 m

Minimum Route Deviation 0 m

Maximum Route Length

1077.21m

Maximum Route Deviation 538.83 m

Median Route Length

299.06 m

Median Route Deviation

12.6 m

Average Route Length

358.27 m

Average Route Deviation

47.7 m

People VS Deviation

10 8 6 4 2 0

Frequency

Distance (m)

Number of people

Number of Peple

People VS Distance 20 15 10 5

Frequency

0 20

40

60

80

Deviation (m)

100

More

ANALYSIS Out of the 34 interviewees, we took 14 female and 14 male responses and plotted their distance and distance deviation. The average route distance for these males were 340.4m while the average route distance for females was 360.4m. There was a little difference of how gender affects the route choices.

8 6 4 2 0

Male VS Distance

Frequency

Number of males

Number of Females

Females VS Distance 8 6 4 2 0

Frequency

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Male VS Deviation

8 6 4 2

Frequency

0 20

40

60

80

Deviation (m)

100

More

Number of males

Number of females

Females VS Deviation 8 6 4 2

Frequency

0 20

40

60

80

Distance (m)

100

More

ANALYSIS Out of the 34 interviewees, we took 11 responses from the 2139 years old and 40-60 years old age group respectively and plotted their distance and distance deviation. We found that interviewees from the older group preferred shorter distances, with no one taking longer than 300m. On the other hand, a large number of younger group walked 400m and more. Additionally, most of the deviation for the older group were in the range of 0-20m while most of the younger group deviated more than 20m from their shortest paths.

21-39 years old b_distance

5 4 3 2 1 0

Frequency

Distance (m)

2 Frequency 40

60

80

Deviation (m)

100

More

Number of middle aged

Number of Young

3

20

-0.0099

Frequency

Distance (m)

Middle aged VS Deviation

4

0

b_distance

5 4 3 2 1 0

Young VS Deviation

1

-0.0065

Middle aged VS Distance Number of midde aged

Number of Young

Young VS Distance

40-60 years old

10 8 6 4 2 0

Frequency 20

40

60

80

Deviation (m)

100

More

RESULTS Benchmark Model

In line with our assumptions,distance is the most significant factor that affect the pedestrian route choice. This is followed by the number of crossings.

b_distance

0

b_turns

0

b_cover

0

b_crossing

0

LL_beta

-37.4

b_distance

-0.00308

b_distance

0

b_distance

0

b_distance

0

b_turns

0

b_turns

0.0081

b_turns

0

b_turns

0

b_cover

0

b_cover

0

b_cover

1.600

b_cover

0

b_crossing

0

b_crossing

0

b_crossing

0

b_crossing

-0.1226

LL_beta

-36.9

LL_beta

-37.4

LL_beta

-37.4

LL_beta

-37.3

Interestingly, route complexity (number of turns) and amount of shade are insignificant in affecting pedestrian route choices.

Full Model b_distance

-0.00308

b_turns

0.0081

b_cover

1.600

b_crossing

-0.1226

LL_beta

-36.2

From the figures generated by excel, we calculated that: - 39.8m of uncovered pedestrian street = 1 crossing - 15 turns = 1 crossing - 2.7m of uncovered pedestrian street = 1 turn

RESULTS Based on the sketches we provided, shade is ranked as the most important factor contributing towards their perception of the comfort element of a particular route.

In other survey question, interviewees regard safety as the most important factor regarding their route choice as unsafe vehicular roads pose a huge threat to pedestrians.

50 45 40 35

Linear and nonshaded

30 25

Series1

20 15 10 5 0 Linear and non-shaded

Shaded with crossing

Shaded with turn

Shaded with crossing

20 18 16

14 12 10

Series1

8

Shaded with turn

6

4 2 0 Comfort

Shortest Dist

Safety

RESULTS Rank

140

1. Safety from vehicles 2. Shortest time 3. Shortest distance 4. Simplicity of route 5. Eveness of pavement 6. Shade 7. Quality of pavement 8. Numebr fo crossings 9. Well-lit 10. Other people use it 11. Aesthetically pleasing 12. Along food places & Greenergy 13. Along amenities 14. Along schools 15. Quietness

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

LEGEND 1.

2.

3.

4.

Safety from vehicles Shade Simplicity of route Has greenery

5.

6.

7.

8.

Well-lit Other people use it Quietness Along amenities

9. Along food places 10. Along schools 11. Aesthetically pleasing 12. Shortest distance

13.

14.

15.

16.

Shortest time Number of crossings Quality of pavement Eveness of pavement

DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS We have noticed that many people simply walk straight to the hawker centre and return home. They look for the shortest path to take most of the time because there is simply nothing along the way for them to pause to look at or to enjoy. We suggest having smaller provision shops at strategic parts of punggol, e.g. at the two intersections marked below. These intersections are in between the LRTs and located at the front of the roads, which has high visibility. This could provide for a more enjoyable walk because people could detour to walk past provision shops before they go out to wait for the taxis.

We observed that the road indicated on the map contributes high pedestrian traffic to the nearby HDBs. The road itself allows for high pedestrian traffic since it is 2m wide. However during rainy periods, many pedestrians are stuck at the sheltered areas, unable to proceed. Out of the people observed, 40% took the sheltered path under the void deck while 30% choose to wait for the rain to stop. Hence we propose a sheltered walkway along this road.

*All our recommendations are derived from our survey findings.

DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS From our survey on comfort factors, we realised that apart from shortest distance and time, safety from vehicles is most important. We believe this is due to the design of the Punggol district where there are plenty of service roads around the HDB flats. In order to shortern their routes, many pedestrians choose to jay-walk across these potentially dangerous service roads. Although service roads are marked with a different tile from main roads, many vehicles still speed through them and this causes the area to be unsafe. Hence our group proposes to add afew speed bumps with zebra crossing from the main road to the HDBs as indicated below.

Another interesting point we found out was the eveness of the road conditions. We attribute this issue to the ongoing construction going on nearby. We realise the impact of constructions on the residents nearby, hence we propose that construction areas to be better concealed and alternative walking routes to be created in cases of construction.

CONCLUSION HYPOTHESIS 1. Pedestrians are likely to prefer routes that offer them shading (sheltered walkways, void decks and pavement with ample shading).

2. Pedestrians are likely to prefer simpler routes (number of turns).

3. Pedestrians are likely to prefer routes with less crossings (service roads, zebra crossings and major vehicular roads) as there are time lapse involved in waiting for the appropriate time to cross.

RESULTS 1. Covered walkway and simpler routes are not as important as we thought.

2. Pedestrians are likely to prefer routes with less crossings (service roads, zebra crossings and major vehicular roads) 3. Shortest route is significantly important for pedestrians.

AFTERTHOUGHTS The significance of covered walkway or shading elements in general is not as significance as we perviously thought it would be as most pedestrians walked only short distances. Such as, it did not mattered that much for them to walk an unsheltered route. Moreover, the covered walkway is not aesthetically appealing for the pedestrians as it is perceived to be repetitive and with no attractions throughout.

The shortest distance remain as a very important factor since pedestrains can get tired from walking and the number of crossings is quite significant as pedestrain often try to save time travelling.

In addition, the familiarity of the route and habits also affect how people choose the route.

For instances, as pedestrians, residents opt for routes with more turns by walking through void decks where they often cannot avoid not to turn around a column.

20.016 URBAN ANALYSIS

EXPERIMENT 2: LOCATION AND REVENUE

Chiew Jia En, Chong Zhuo Wen, Jessie Tang, Liliani Saputri, Stephanie Loh Qi Jia

INTRODUCTION “No matter how good its offering, merchandising, or customer service, every retail company still has to contend with three critical elements of success: location, location, and location”

V HOTEL

(Taneja, 1999, p136) JALAN BESAR

This experiment aims to investigate the effects of urban densities on the level of patronage at 16 Cheers convenience stores located in downtown Singapore.

Specifically, these urban densities are explored to understand how they shape the characteristics of the particular store location.

PRIME CENTRE

FORTUNE CENTRE

STAMFORD COURT

PRINSEP STREET

Besides collecting customer receipts, the team also engaged in observational analysis at selected Cheers stores. The team visited each of the selected store twice to calculate the average number of patrons and passersby within a 5 minute time frame to obtain a rough understanding of localised consumer behavior.

THE CENTRAL

PEOPLE’S PARK CENTRE BLISS HOTEL ENG HOON STREET

ROBINSON ROAD

KAMPONG TIONG BAHRU ROAD 0

250

500

750

1000

LAU PA SAT

ORCHID HOTEL

2500m

CONCOURSE SKYLINE

LITERATURE REVIEW Walter Christaller was the first researcher to model relationship of retail trade between towns with his contribution to the Central Place Theory in the 1930s. Since then, there has been large number of papers on retail location, where the research done has been focusing on two basic levels (Vandell and Carter, 1993): 1.

2.

analysis of the consumer store-choice process analysis of of choice of site(s), size, and store design characteristics that optimize performance.

On the analysis of consumer store-choice process, much attempt is done to model the uncertainty in consumer behaviour (Webber, 1972; Vandell and Carter, 1993). The most direct implication of this is the addressing of classic retail competition theory, which only takes into consideration single-purpose single-stop shopping trips (DiPasquale and Wheaton, 1995). The impacts of multipurposes shopping behaviour is particularly significant given the rise of shopping malls (clustering).

Also, the benefits brought by the retail clustering includes the propensity for consumers to multipurpose shop at centers that are more distance than the nearest center (Hanson, 1980; O’Kelly; 1981) despite the direct transport and inventory costs (Ghosh, 1986) and other opportunity costs involved in doing so.

While the ubiquity of the transportation and the mobility of the consumer (Eppli and Benjamin, 1994) results in the varying demand of an individual retail store within a retail center in comparison with the general drawing power of the centre as a whole (DiPasquale and Wheaton, 1995), there is little literature on urban attributes that explains the location choices of commercial establishments in dense urban environments (Sevtsuk, 2014) to address the condition.

RESEARCH QUESTION This experiment aims to investigate the effects of urban densities on the level of patronage at 16 Cheers convenience stores located in downtown Singapore. These urban densities are identified as below: 1.

Number of bus stops

2.

Number of MRT stations

3.

Number of household(HDB and private)

4.

Number of religiousplaces

Observational analysis was conducted from 21 Feb 2015 (Sat) from 1215 to 1515.

Selected Cheers store Bus stop MRT station 1km radius from Bugis MRT 0

125

250

375

500

1250m

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS 1.

STORES LOCATED AT AREAS WITH HIGHER ACCESS WILL HAVE HIGHER LEVEL OF PATRONAGE Locations with high accessibility (e.g. many bus stops and train stations) often have landuse intensity (e.g. large number of households, institutions, offices) and hence higher level of patronage.

2.

CONSUMERS ENGAGE IN MULTIPURPOSE SHOPPING While classical retail competition theory considers only single-purpose single-stop shopping trips (DiPasquale and Wheaton, 1995), this does not reflect actual consumer behaviour in reality. Given the varied nature of goods sold at convenience stores, consumers may engage in full search, directed search or casual search for the particular good they want to purchase (Bucklin, 1967). The Cheers stores are taken to be observer points in UNAToolbox.

3.

RETAIL STORES ENGAGE IN HETEROGENOUS CLUSTERING Retailers cluster to increase the overall location attractiveness as transportation and storage cost plays a part in consumer behaviour (Ghosh, 1986).

However, given that the location attributes around the retail cluster are not the same, the draw of any location to consumer is not equal.

4.

STORE PATRONAGE FLUCTUATE DUE TO NON-PRICE FACTORS Market structures theory informs that price changes made by a seller operating in an oligopolistic market (i.e. convenience store) have minimal impact as the market engages in mainly non-price competition practices. In the case of Cheers, the presence of construction work in near vicinity of the store and festive seasons will cause changes in patronage level.

5.

RETAIL IMAGE OF CHEERS IS CONSISTENT ACROSS ALL 16 STORES For simplicity of analysis, the team assumes that retail image (Eppli and Benjamin, 1994) and quality of service is consistent throughout all 16 stores.

CONCOURSE SKYLINE 0

VISITORS COUNT

750

1500

2250

3000

7500m

Count 1

Count 2

Selected Cheers Store

2

7

Bus Stop

Entered 0

0

MRT Station

Left

0

0

Visibility

Browse

0

0

Passed

28 December 2014

44055

21 February 2015

56860

Average Visitors/day

233

NUMBER OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS Office

302

Retail

62

Facility

46

NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS HDB

594

Landed

51

Condo

300

Total

945

*FACILITY 6214, 6215, 6216, 6217, 6218, 6219, 622, 623, 624 (Hospital and Social Assistance) 71 (Arts, Entertainment) 72 (Accommodation and Food Services) 812 (Personal and Laundry Services) 813 (Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations)

As the store is mainly servicing offices and a nearby, the number of passersby observed on a weekend is significantly lower than the extended daily average visitors calculated from the customer receipts. *The number of business establishments and households calculated were obtained from URA and SingStats data, considering a 200m radius from the particular Cheers store. The map on this page shows the 600m service network distribution from the store, generated from the UNAToolbox.

JALAN BESAR 0

VISITORS COUNT Passed

Count 1

Count 2

69

40

Entered 7

2

Left

6

2

Browse

0

0

750

1500

2250

3000

7500m Selected Cheers Store Bus Stop MRT Station Visibility

28 December 2014

52944

21 February 2015

67045

Average Visitors/day

256.3

NUMBER OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS Office

282

Retail

199

Facility

31

NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS HDB

568

Landed

87

Condo

171

*FACILITY 6214, 6215, 6216, 6217, 6218, 6219, 622, 623, 624 (Hospital and Social Assistance) 71 (Arts, Entertainment) 72 (Accommodation and Food Services) 812 (Personal and Laundry Services) 813 (Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations)

As the store is located near shopping centres (OG Albert Complex, Sim Lim Tower) and hotels, the number of passersby and patronage level (mainly shoppers and tourists) observed on a weekend afternoon is much higher than what is indicated by the extended daily average number of visitors *The number of business establishments and households calculated were obtained from URA and SingStats data, considering a 200m radius from the particular Cheers store. The map on this page shows the 600m service network distribution from the store, generated from the UNAToolbox.

PRIME CENTRE 0

VISITORS COUNT Passed

Count 1

Count 2

44

50

Entered 2

6

Left

3

10

Browse

0

5

750

1500

2250

3000

7500m Selected Cheers Store Bus Stop MRT Station Visibility

28 December 2014

19473

21 February 2015

59423

Average Visitors/day

726

NUMBER OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS Office

204

Retail

37

Facility

62

NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS HDB

0

Landed

4

Condo

464

*FACILITY 6214, 6215, 6216, 6217, 6218, 6219, 622, 623, 624 (Hospital and Social Assistance) 71 (Arts, Entertainment) 72 (Accommodation and Food Services) 812 (Personal and Laundry Services) 813 (Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations)

As the store is located near local landmarks (e.g. museums, hotels and education institutions) and is receives constant pedestrain flow generated by the cross junction in front of it, a large number of passersby is observed.

Also, given the store’s deep setback (wide sheltered corridor), part of the store spills onto it for consumers to browse at goods without entering the actual store space physically. *The number of business establishments and households calculated were obtained from URA and SingStats data, considering a 200m radius from the particular Cheers store. The map on this page shows the 600m service network distribution from the store, generated from the UNAToolbox.

DATA ANALYSIS OFFICE VS PATRONAGE

RETAIL VS PATRONAGE

There is a negative correlation between patronage and office density.

The team thinks that this might be because office workers are well supplied with supplies and need not get them from conveinience stores.

There is a negative correlation between patronage and retail density.

The team that this is because many F&B outlets locate themselves near such areas, causing competition against the Cheers stores.

FACILITY VS PATRONAGE

There is a positive correlation between patronage and the number of facilities in the area. The team thinks that these places do not provide sufficient food and drinks, hence causing visitors to visit Cheers stores.

Prime Centre

Jalan Besar

Concourse Skyline

Office

204

282

302

Retail

37

199

62

Facility

62

31

46

703

204

240

*The number of business establishments and households calculated were obtained from URA and SingStats data, considering a 200m radius from the particular Cheers store.

DATA ANALYSIS betweenness from bus stops to buildings vs patrons/day (tapouts)

betweenness from building to buildings vs patrons/day (area) 800

800

700

R² = 0.9941

600

600

500

500

patrons/day

patrons/day

700

400 Data

300

Trendline

200

R² = 0.6849

400

Data

300

Trendline

200

100

100

0 0

0

1000000 2000000 3000000 4000000 5000000 6000000 betweenness from buildings to other buildings with respect to the building area

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

betweenness from bus stops to buildings with respect to the bus tapouts

*Our assumption is area correspond with density (larger building area equate to more people).

The patronage of the cheer store in this data set seems to indicate that betweenness has a high linear correlation coefficient.

The team hypothesize that Cheers store is not an anchor store that attracts people hence betweenness is an important factor that affect the patronage of this store. betweenness from religious sites to buildings vs patrons/day (area) 800

Religious site as a factor in the betweeness level from building to building scores are really low correlation of 0.19 R^2 value.

The team had expected otherwise because the area is full of worship sites.

700

patrons/day

600 500

R² = 0.1974

400

Data

300

Trendline

200 100 0 0

10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 area of religious sites that are accessible in raidus 600m

*Only urban attributes within the 600m service network distribution from the store, generated from the UNAToolbox, is taken into consideration for this analysis.

DATA ANALYSIS gCentrality vs patrons/day (bus stops)

700

700

700

600

600

600

500

500

400 Data

300

Trendline

R² = 0.3674

400 Data

300

Trendline

patrons/day

800

500 R² = 0.1729 400

200

100

100

100

0

0

R² = 0.9933

0

0.02

0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 number of mrt exits in radius 600m

0.12

There is a negative correlation between the number of mrt exits and the patronage of the Cheers store. The team conjects that people coming from mrt station would have better alternative of in-house convenience stores.

700

700

600

600

500

500

R² = 0.1258

Trendline

patrons/day

800

300

6

0

1000

2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 number of bus tapouts in radius 600m

8000

gCentrality vs patrons/day (building area)

gCentrality vs patrons/day (business location)

Data

1 2 3 4 5 number of bus stops that are accessible in radius 600m

There is a positive correlation of the number of bus stops accessible in radius 600m from the Cheers store. The team conjects that higher accessibility equates to higher patronage.

800

400

Trendline

0 0

0.14

Data

300

200

200

patrons/day

gCentrality vs patrons/day (bus tapouts)

800

patrons/day

patrons/day

gCentrality vs patrons/day (mrt exits) 800

R² = 0.5233

400

Data

300

200

200

100

100

Trendline

0

0 460 470 480 490 500 510 520 530 540 number of business location that are accessible in radius 600m

There is a negative correlation of the number of business location accessible within 600m from the Cheers store. The team conjects that as the business points consist of many different type of businesses that can serves as a direct competition to the Cheers store.

0

10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 building areas that are accessible in radius 600m

70000

There is a positive correlation of the building’s area that are accessible from the Cheers store within 600m. The team conjects that larger building’s area, the higher density of people, hence the higher probability of people to access Cheers store.

*Only urban attributes within the 600m service network distribution from the store, generated from the UNAToolbox, is taken into consideration for this analysis.

DATA ANALYSIS gCentrality vs patrons/day (building area)

gCentrality vs patrons/day (bus stops)

800

800

700 600

R² = 0.1054

600 patrons/day

patrons/day

700

R² = 0.0156

500 400

Data

300

Trendline

200

500

100 0

400

0

Data

300

20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 building areas that are accessible in radius 600m

120000

Trendline gCentrality vs patrons/day (bus tapouts)

200

800 700

100

600 patrons/day

R² = 0.0097

0 0

2 4 6 8 number of bus stops that are accessible in radius 600m

10

700

0 0

300

Trendline

800

700

700

500 400

Data

300

Trendline

400

100

100

100

0

0 1500000

2000000

betweenness from bus stops to buildings with respect to the bus tapouts

Data

300

200

1000000

R² = 0.0002

500

200

500000

25000

600 R² = 0.0007

200

0

5000 10000 15000 20000 number bus tapouts in radius 600m

gCentrality vs patrons/day (business location)

800

patrons/day

Data

patrons/day

patrons/day

600

400

Trendline

100

600

R² = 0.004

Data

300

gCentrality vs patrons/day (mrt exit)

800

500

400

200

There is little correlation between any factors to the patronage of the 16 Cheers stores. The team therefore conjects that patronage is a combined result of many different factors that affect it, hence trying to use bivariate scatter plots might not be the best method to analyse and explain these data. betweenness from bus stops to buildings vs patrons/day (tapouts)

500

Trendline

0 0

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 number of mrt exit that are accessible in radius 600m

1.4

0

200 400 600 800 1000 1200 number of business location that are accessible in radius 600m

CONCLUSION ANALYSIS

OBSERVATIONS

1. Facility density leads to a greater increase in patrons compared to offices and retail outlets. The team suspects that such places do not cater food and drinks as well as the other two places, leading to higher patronage of conveinience stores.

This suggests that other physical factors are more influential and these factors are not accounted in the analysis above.

2. Based on our data set for the three selected Cheers stores, we conclude that for every bus stop in 600m, there will be a significant increase of 200 patrons for the store.

1.

Street width (for pedestrian)

2.

Presence of other convenience stores

In the larger data set of the 16 Cheers stores, betweeness and accessibility does not play a role in the success of the Cheers stores. These variables seem to be randomly related to store patronage even though the team had previously thought that higher betweeness and accessibility coefficient would lead to higher patronage.

The other factors the team hypothesizes that may be important include:

3.

Shortest path to attractive locations

4.

Walkability of street (crossings)

5.

Presence of landmark(s)

For example, the street width infront of the Jalan Basah store is very narrow compared to that of the Prime Centre despite being in a highly populated area. This causes the walkway to be use primarily as a transition space to greater retail attractions such as OG, Rocher Centre, and Sim Lim Tower as compared to the large walkways in front of the Prime Centre store that can function as a lingering space for pedestrians.

The Cheers store at the Concourse skyline did better than the one at Jalan Besar in terms of daily patronage despite having a lower betweeness value. The team suspects that the lack of accessibility has actually brought more sales to the Concourse Skyline store as this low accessibility also applies to residents and office workers in the vicinity. They may be less willing to cross the street to get ammenities that are more competitively priced.

The Prime Centre store experiences the highest number of daily sales because it is located at a cross junction and is fed by crossings in two directions. Moreover, it is surrounded by various landmarks such as institutions and hotels.

DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS 1. STREET LEVEL PROXIMITY From our site observations, only the Prime Centre store was situated at street level, while Jalan Besar was below street level and Concourse Skyline store was above street level. This led the team to conclude that street level proximity is important. Thus we would propose situation future cheers stores to be levelled along street level or move current stores to level with the street.

+2

2. LAND-USE DENSITY From the team’s betweenness analysis, we realised the higher the density of buildings around Cheers store, the higher the patronage.

Hence for Jalan Besar and Concourse Skyline, more buildings can be injected around these two areas, or move them to where there is a higher building land-use density.

-1

0

DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS 3. HIGHER VISIBILITY AT TRAFFIC JUNCTION From the team’s observed number of passerbys, the Jalan Besar store and Prime Centre store had similar results. However, when comparing the number of visitors who actually made a purchase, the Jalan Besar store is significantly lesser than that of Prime Centre store.

This could be due to the front facing direction of the shops. For the Prime Centre store, it faces the intersection, while the Jalan Besar store faces away from the intersection. Thus many passersby may be less inclined to walk into the Jalan Besar store as they are less aware of its entrance. To make the store frontage to be more apparent, it should be located facing the intersection as shown below.

4. ZEBRA CROSSING The team realised the Concourse Skyline is mainly located to exclusively serve the patrons from the Concourse and Concourse Skyline residents, with only two overhead bridges connecting to the area.

Hence, the team would like to propose the implementation of a zebra crossing at the following location for it to increase its patronage to visitors and tourists roaming in the busy street opposite the road.

ZEBRA CROS SING

20.016 Urban Analysis

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS Granary Square (London) / Rue des Barres (Paris)

Lou Zhi Ning, Chong Zhuo Wen, Ho Jia Jia Sharon, Neo Jun Hao Kevin Josiah, Chiew Jia En

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION

3

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

3

3. RESEARCH QUESTION

4

4. HYPOTHESIS

4

5. ON-SITE PROCESS

4

6. SITE BACKGROUND

5-8

7. ACTIVITY SYMBOLOGY

9

8. OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 1 : ACTIVITY

10 - 19

9. OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 2 : SHADOW ACTIVITY OBSERVATION

20

10. OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 3 : CIRCULATON NETWORK

21 - 22

11. ANALYTIC DISCUSSION

23 - 24

12. CONCLUSION

25

13. DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS 14. LESSONS FOR SINGAPORE

26 - 27 28

INTRODUCTION Public spaces are utilizied in various ways over time. Using observational analysis techniques, user behaviours and activities can be categorized and analysed to provide a clear picture of the impact of the space and the built environment around it. This experiment was conducted at Granary square (London) & Rue de Barres (Paris), both with different urban envrionments and socio-cultural contexts to provide interesting observational and analytical insights.

LITERATURE REVIEW Public spaces have very dynamic influences. They are able to create contact between people, create opportunities, distribute and contain information about the social environment and even attract more people and activities. However, what tends to attract people most appear to be not the space itself, but the sheer presence of other people in it.

While it is common to assume that the shape of public spaces is most critical in influencing its quality, other factors have proven to be more important. The quality of public spaces is dependent on the physical planning of public spaces, which then influences the functionality and experiential qualities which impact the extent and character of activities that occur. In the most successful public spaces, a new constituency is built, stimulating people into new habits.

The quality of a public space can also be determined by the frequency and manner specific activities (necessary, optional and social activities) are conducted. Consequently, the overall tabulation of all these activities would indicate the quality of the outdoor space.

Additionally, spatial usage in various weather conditions indicate the flexibility of the design that permits activities for it to occur.

Among the types of activities occurring in public spaces, sitting is one of the most widely studied phenomenon. The quality and quantity of seats, both formal and informal, affects the social comfort of the public space. It has also been observed that pedestrians would rather negotiate through the possible routes and meader within the sitting crowd than make a detour. These small spaces of main pedestrian flow offered the pedestrians the maximum choice to make the most route choices.

RESEARCH QUESTION To understand the design implications of public spaces as well as the influence of the larger spatial and socio-cultural context on the behavioral dynamics of users.

HYPOTHESIS Our first hypothesis was that based on the spring climate, people present in a public space would move towards spaces with greater amounts of direct sunlight. It was inspired by the usage of public space to enjoy positive aspects of the weather as illustrated by Jan Gehl. This might provide an indication of the physical limitations as well as potential flexibility of the spatial design of public spaces under various weather conditions.

Our second hypothesis was that the fragmentation of a large public space into a space with more defined route options, increases the likelihood of converging route choices. Resultantly this might create more incidental social interaction. This was based on Jan Gehl’s understanding that spatial sequences would make pedestrian movement more interesting and also influence walking routes.

Our third hypothesis was that the perceived level of activity in a open public space correlates with the extent of public sittable space. As suggested by William H. Whyte, popular plazas tend to have considerably more sitting space than less well-used ones.

ON-SITE PROCESS Three types of site analysis were conducted simultaneously. Activities on site were doucmented with observational paper sheets, marked with symbols denoting the behavious types evident in the space. A time-lapse camera was installed on site to validate our site observations. The surrounding context was also analysed to identify the possible key origins and destinations of users, to which our place of study caters to.

GRANARY SQUARE

(4 Stable Street, London N1C, United Kingdom)

Lying on the historic canalside heart of King’s Cross, Granary Square is the largest public space in the larger King’s Cross Central Development Master Plan. The other squares within the development includes Station Square, Pancras Square, Cubitt Square and North Square. It is designed by Townshend Landscape Architects and it opened in June 2012. Granary Square is served by King’s Cross St. Pancras Tube station and several bus routes (e.g. 46, 214, 390).

Granary Square is adjacent to the historically listed Granary building (designed by Lewis Cubitt in 1852 to store wheat and is recently restored by Stanton Williams Architects in 2011) which is now home for University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins (CSM). This privately own public space also faces the wide Canalside steps that sweeps down to the historic canal basin where it forms an ideal spot for watching boats slip by.

The Square incorporates 1,000 individually lit fountains (designed and built by The Fountain Workshop) choreographed with colour illumination at night and it can be controlled by visitors when they play the mobile version of snake. Additionally, the Square is filled with a myriad of activities, ranging from popular restaurants to hosting music festivals and floating cinema.

Fixed benches are found along the two lengths of the Square while the left edge of it is flanked by trees and bicycle parking lots. On the other hand, the right edge is occupied by food trucks and mobile furnitures for the diners while allowing the students of CSM as well as members of the public working or living in close vicinity to bath in glorious sunshine when the weather is great. Construction are found along Handyside Street and Canal Reach.

RUE DES BARRES

(Rue des Barres, 75004 Paris, France)

Located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, the pathway Rue des Barres dates back to 1250. It is named after former bars along the Seine. It begins in south at the 62 Rue de l’Hotel de Ville and ends in north at 14 Rue Francois-Miron.

The site receives little direct sunlight during the day as it is sheltered by the shadows of the adjacent buildings (predominantly business establishments) and medieval church, StGervais-et-St-Protais. In fact, the gentling sloping pathway used to be part of the church space and the steps observed on the site today is build only after the 1980s. The food and beverage establishments tend to spill over to the right edge of the pathway. A kindergarten, Creche Collective, is located beside the junction where Rue des Barres meets Rue de l’Hotel de Ville.

Rue des Barres is within short walking distance to institutions such as College Francois Couperin and Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye as well as cultural foundations and museums such as Cite International des Arts and Memorial de la Shoah.

The only major public space near Rue des Barres is a community playground and park along Rue des Ronnains d’Hyeres. The surrounding streetscape is lined with perimeter blocks with courtyards hidden from pedestrian view.

Rue des Barres is served by Pont Marie Metropolitain station.

ACTIVITY SYMBOLOGY To understand the density, distribution, and variety of users, the symbology of selected for observational analysis consists of the key basic behaviorial types of individuals, gender, age category and group size.

USER GROUP

BEHAVIORIAL TYPES

FEMALE CHILD

STANDING

1

WATCHING

8

SITTING

2

SMOKING

9

EATING

3

WORKING

W

TALKING

4

TEXTING

T

WALKING

5

DRINKING

D

READING

6

L

SLEEPING

7

LOOKING/WINDOW SHOPPING MISCELLANEOUS

M

FEMALE YOUTH

Y

FEMALE ADULT

A

FEMALE ELDERLY

E

MALE CHILD MALE YOUTH

Y

MALE ADULT

A

MALE ELDERLY

E

EXAMPLE: FEMALE YOUTH, TALKING , EATING 1 FEMALE YOUTH, TALKING + 1 FEMALE YOUTH, EATING + 1 MALE YOUTH, TALKING, SMOKING

Y34

Y4

Y3

Y49

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 1: ACTIVITY (GRANARY SQUARE)

CALLING

EATING

READING

SITTING

SLEEPING

SMOKING

STANDING

TALKING

WATCHING

TEXTING

WORKING

DESIGN FEATURES (GRANARY SQUARE) House W

GRA NARY

SQU ARE

Gr 24.6m 25.2m

Tow Path

Rising Bollard

24.3m

U and ge Re

n io

nt

a nC

a 's C

nal

nal

STATIC ACTIVITIES (GRANARY SQUARE) INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITIES HALF-HOURLY ACTIVITY TYPES HALF-HOURLY COMPARISON HALF-HOURLY

number of people standing. This could be explained by a good supply and variety of both primary and secondary seating spaces

(loose furniture, fixed benches, steps), coupled with ample daylight the main area of the square (around the fountain) receives, allowing people to sit around and sunbathe. There also seems to be a positive relationship between sitting and talking.

Though low in numbers, both smoking and texting (necessary activities) are present rather consistently throughout the period of the experiment. Most of the users engaged in these activities are spillovers from the Central Saint Martins just adjacent to the square.

For individual activities, the number of people sitting is most significant, followed by the number of people talking, and then by the

COMMENTS

In the comparison graph, the optional and social activities decreased tremendously as the sun begins to set from 1730hrs. This could be linked to the first hypotheses on people gravitating towards sunlight. Furthermore, we can also see a positive relationship between

optional and social activities. Given that majority of optional activities is contributed by sitting, we could also consider the possibility that sitting encourages more social activities.

DEMOGRAPHICS (GRANARY SQUARE) GENDER HALF-HOURLY

COMMENTS attributed to Central Saint Martins, where students are likely to spillover from during school hours. After 1730hrs, most lessons would probably have ended and students

would have left campus, which may explain the sudden decrease in youth. Likewise, adults may have originated from surrounding offices, or from King’s Cross and St

Pancras Station, and after 1730hrs most would have knocked off from work, resulting in a decrease in numbers.

From the age group bar charts, we can see two dominant age groups - youth and adults. There is a relatively consistent supply of youth before 1730hrs, which can be

TOTAL PEOPLE HALF-HOURLY

ALONE / IN GROUPS HALF-HOURLY

AGE GROUPS HALF-HOURLY

There were significantly more groups before 1730hrs than after, but the number of individuals decreased by only a slight amount.

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 1: ACTIVITY (RUE DES BARRES)

CALLING

DRINKING

EATING

LOOKING

PHOTOGRAPHY

PLAYING

SITTING

SMOKING

TALKING

STANDING

WORKING

R

U

E

D

E

L'

H

O

T

E

L

D

E

DESIGN FEATURES (RUE DES BARRES)

RU

S

BA

RR

ES

E

LO

A

T

E

N

U

IS

L'

O

-P

R

P

U

U

H

IL

U

D

IP

S

U

DE

P

R

R

E

RUE DES BARRES - STATIC ACTIVITIES INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITIES HALF-HOURLY

COMPARISON HALF-HOURLY

COMMENTS

ACTIVITY TYPES HALF-HOURLY

Sitting is not as significant an activity in Rue des Barres than in Granary Square. This could be explained by the supply and nature of seating available. In Rue des Barres, one type of seating would be steps and ledges along the sides of the street, which may not be very popular with adults and elderly given the low step height and the resulting necessity to bend down. The other would be loose furniture owned by the cafe or restaurant in the area - which means that one would need to be patronising these shops in order to sit. Although there seems to be ample seating space in Rue des Barres, the quality and nature of these seating options makes it unattractive or unavailable to most people.

Unlike what is seen in Granary Square, there seems to be a negative relationship between optional and social activities in Rue des Barres.

This is probably due to more activities contributing to optional activities instead of just sitting.

RUE DES BARRES - DEMOGRAPHICS GENDER HALF-HOURLY

TOTAL PEOPLE HALF-HOURLY

ALONE / IN GROUPS HALF-HOURLY

AGE GROUPS HALF-HOURLY

COMMENTS

Youth and adults are the two dominant age groups in Rue des Barres as well.

Females are significantly higher in numbers than males. It would seem that there is also a correlation between males and the number of

individuals, although there is insufficient data to prove it.

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 2 : SHADOW - ACTIVITY OBSERVATION

GRANARY SQUARE Within the observational time span of 3pm to 6pm, the user activity of the river side terrace steps was observed and documented at time intervals of 15 minutes. The first eight photographs of the entire observation is illustrated above.

The chronological series documents the increasing effect of shadow on the public space, it also shows the changes in user activities in reaction to the spread of direct sunlight. Users generally gravitate towards areas where direct sunlight is casted. This is especially so for users that stay for prolonged periods of time within the public space. This is also mentioned by Jan Gehl regarding the subject of enjoying positive aspects of the weather.

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 3 : CIRCULATION NETWORK (GRANARY SQUARE) 15:00- 18:00

EXISTING DESIGN FEATURES CREATE A NETWORK OF MORE DEFINED ROUTE CHOICES FOR USERS TO TAKE The circulation network was observed over a time period to understand the user dynamics on the site.

GRA

NARY

Tow Path

Through the observation, it was clear that users were guided by the design features on site to converge along more defined route choices which are the main circulation pathways existing between the fountains.

This results in people coincidently meeting acquaintances to chat even in the middle of main circulation routes.

SQU

ARE

The circulation network allows us to understand the overall density of traffic and the convergence nodes on the site. In the case of Granary Square, these are found to be at points before walking through the fountains.

N

OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS 3 : CIRCULATION NETWORK (RUE DES BARRES) EXISTING DESIGN FEATURES CREATE A NETWORK OF MORE DEFINED ROUTE CHOICES FOR USERS TO TAKE

E

A

U

E

DE

S

BA

RR

ES

L'

RU

In the case of Rue Des Barres, the circulation analysis indicates that a large proportion of circulation traffic takes the sloped part of the street. However there are particular points where individuals choose to take the stepped part of the street. This coincides with key design features of the street such as a change in direction of the steps, or the increase in the thread of a single step. People recognise patterns and take them as key landmarks where microdecisions have to be made. This results in the convergence of route choices that encourage resultant activity to occur.

CAF

ES

At Rue De Barres, a number of people have orientated themselves to stand in the middle of the octagonal plaza that has given them a static position where they can look at the passing traffic. This center is also taken as a node for turns for many of the paths.

SHO

PS/

The circulation pattern also relates with the shops along the street.

When the shops interest them, people like to step off the slopes onto the stepped aread to give them a better view into the shops.

R

U

E

D

U

P

O

N

T

LO

U

IS

The Rue Des Barre site is separated into 4 main parts 1.Stepped area along the stores ( browsing) 2.Slope in the middle of the road (Transit) 3. Larger steps to the left of the slope (Sitting) 4.Hexagonal terrace area (Standing)

V

IL

L

ANALYTIC DISCUSSION From the bar charts, there seems to be a correlation between sitting and talking, indicating possible a relationship between sitting and social activities. Seats encourage people to stay and inhabit a place longer, resulting in more encounters and the possibility of being engaged in social activities.

COMPARISON BETWEEN GRANARY SQUARE & RUE DES BARRES

GENERAL TRENDS

There are significantly less people engaged in static activities in Rue des Barres than in Granary Square.

SIZE & SHAPE In regards to the size and shape of the public space, Granary Square is larger than Rue des Barres, thus having a greater inherent capacity to ‘hold’ people.

Rue des Barres is also much narrower in shape than the wide Granary Square, acting more as a street for transition than a space for stationary activities.

The narrow quality of Rue des Barres not only limits spillovers from shops, but also social activities since they rely on the presence of people, and it does not have the capacity to hold as much people.

Another explanation could also be that people may find it rude to be standing in the middle of a narrow street engaged in a conversation with someone they met along the way, while in Granary Square, the circulation routes are relatively larger, allowing space for both static and transition activities to take place without obstructing one another.

FRAGMENTATION Furthermore in Rue des Barres, the spaces fragmented for static activities is much less than that of Granary Square, and are mostly limited to the steps on both sides of the street. These static activity spaces run in parallel with the main circulation route in the middle, possibly making those inhabiting these spaces feel more exposed and closer to bypassers, and perhaps too close for comfort. Hence, although they function as edge zones.

CONTEXT This could also be attributed to the establishments around the public spaces. A school and offices in Granary Sqaure would naturally have greater populations than a church and small shops in Rue de Barres in a normal day, leading to more spillovers in Granary Square than in Rue de Barres.

ACTIVITY TYPES The types of activities occuring in a public space can be used as a measure its quality.

There are three types of outdoor activities (Jan Gehl, 1987); necessary, optional and

Necessary Transition Activity

Optional

Social

Walking Sitting

social activities. Their occurrances are inclined towards different physical qualities.

Standing Eating Reading

Within these categories, the activities are further classified into the three types of outdoor activities defined by Jan Gehl: necessary, optional and social activities. The types of activities occuring in a public space can be used as a measure its quality. Their occurrances are inclined towards different physical qualities.

Sleeping Static

Smoking

Activity

Calling

Talking

Drinking

Watching

Working Looking into shops Taking photos

NECESSARY ACTIVITIES

Playing

These activities are more or less mandatory and hence less dependent on the quality

Texting

of physical environment. Walking and smoking, are regarded as necessary activities.

In Rue Des Barres and Central Saint Martins, people circulate through mainly to get from one place to another. This is to be differentiated from strolling, which is a leisure activity classified under the next category. Smoking is also regarded as necessary in the

Looking into shops is an activity site-specific to Rue des Barres, where there are shops lined along the street, while Granary Square does not have any.

context of an outdoor square as it is prohibited indoors.

Necessary OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES These activities occur by choice. They take place only when the physical condition encourages their occurance. Sitting, eating, reading, sleeping, drinking, working, window shopping, are activities identified as optional in the case of an outdoor public square.

There is a choice of conducting these activties indoors or simply else where, hence its occurance in a specific location is an indicator of the space being a desirable option for such activities.

Granary Square Rue Des Barres

65 0

Optional

Social

Percentage

232 137

135 41

30.3% 23.0%

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES These activites require a connection with others. Talking and people watching are social activities which rely on the presence of others. A decision is made to be in the space by one or more party at the same time and space, be it intentional or incidental, giving a hint of a desirable spatial quality.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, our hypothesis have been proven true, some of which only to a certain extent due to lack of data.

The observational analysis has shown that based on the spring climate, people present in a public space would move towards spaces with greater amounts of direct sunlight.

Converging route choices are also heavily influenced by the design features of the site, these influence the route options available to users and the likelihood of converging route choices.

It has also suggested that the perceived level of activity in a open public space correlates with the extent of public sittable space.

DESIGN RECOMMENDATION GRANARY SQUARE (INCREASE FUNCTIONAL FLEXIBILITY FOR DIFFERENT WEATHER) MOBILE PAVILIONS AS SHELTER Based on the spring weather, the activities on the site itself dies down after 6 pm. In order to have activities on site sustain beyond the evening hours, there could be small mobile pavilions for people to sit in. Also, these pavilions allows the space to be used even during downcast periods in the warmer seasons since the English weather is infamously unpredictable.

VARYING OPERATION HOURS OF WATER FEATURE According to Jan Gehl’s research, a good public space should be functionally flexible for different weather conditions and the activities that take place. While the reversibility of the fragmentation of Granary Square (the water feature is flat and hence the space can be used as a singular entity when they are switched off) is designed with such functional flexibility in mind, it is not operated sufficiently on a daily basis.

During the colder seasons, it is suggested that the LED-lit water features be operating only during the night, which will bring out their unique lighting effect. This is supported by the fact that the people using the space would rather face the campus or the road than the water features.

Furthermore the food trucks, along with the mobile furnitures, can station where the water features are presently located so as to attract the pedestrians along the way. The number of mobile furnitures in the Square should be increased as the number of people observed eating in the Square is more than those the mobile tables can fill.However, during the warmer seasons, these water features should operate all day long as people tend to play and cool themselves with it.

Mobile Picnic Pavilion (2011) at Tate Britain by Ministry of Alternative Transport

RUE DES BARRES (MAXIMIZING SITE DESIGN) REDUCING SENSE OF THRESHOLD Based on William H. Whyte’s writings, urban designers and architects tend to be to preoccupied with the shape of a site in determining whether it is a good public space. The narrowness of Rue des Barres makes is able to only accommodate limited spillover from the businesses which is very segmented as the boundary between the interior and exterior spaces of the eating establishment is very obvious.

The frontage of the business establishments should be increased through the design and use of transparent material. This will not only reduce the threshold between the interior and exterior spaces, but also encourage people to slow down when they are transiting along Rue des Barres. It has been observed in other streets, pedestrains are attracted to highly decorated window displays or those with large glass windows as they can peak at the activities happening inside.

OWNERSHIP OF QUADRANGLE The central quadrangle is observed to be a popular spot for the people to be standing there and engaging in short conservations. The permanent ownership of this part of Rue des Barres should be given back to the Church since it was originally part of it. Additionally, as the Church and its shop already sandwich the space, it make more sense for it to function as an extension of these two entities.

This space can be used to reach out to the community as there are not many public spaces nearby except for a playground. For instances, the Church can host its evening supper by having some mobile furnitures and perhaps an additional tent to make it more formal.

LESSONS FOR SINGAPORE It is not valid to study and compare the observation sites in Europe with those in Singapore (e.g. King’s Cross with void deck) as they are public spaces of very different scale and urban context. Nevertheless, some lessons can be extracted and applied to other public spaces in Singapore.

LACK OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS There is usually a lack of business establishments, both fixed or mobile, nearby large public spaces in Singapore.

If there is, it is usually one proprietor monopolising the local (e.g. within the perimeter of the public space) market. By allow mobile food vendors to operate within these vicinity, especially during weekends, coupled with the addition of mobile furnitures, it will make these spaces for suitable for leisure use.

FRAGMENTATION OF SPACE Alternatively, it is to fragment these large spaces into smaller ones for more variety of outdoor activities to occur (e.g. kite flying, frisbee etc.) and to draw different demographic into the space.

PARTICULAR REFERENCES TO VOID DECKS Daytime users are typically of the older age group. This reduces community public spaces into predominantly gathering space for the older demographic. It may perhaps deter the younger members of the community to utilise the space due to such association.

More facilities targeted at children can be installed in this spaces. This will bring different members of the community together when parents bring their children to the void deck, they may interact with the elderly. In addition, the current issue with the benches installed in void decks is that they lack flexibility to accommodate larger group of the community to come together as they are either standalone or fixed near the columns, making comfortable social interaction rather challenging. Residents have already been observed to adopt the use of mobile furnitures by bring those of their own down to the void deck to share with their fellow community members.

20.016 URBAN ANALYSIS

EXPERIMENT 4: COGNIT IVE M AP AN ALYSIS

Chiew Jia En, Chong Zhuo Wen, Jessie Tang, Liliani Saputri, Stephanie Loh Qi Jia

CONTENT INTRODUCTION LITERATURE REVIEW RESEARCH QUESTION HYPOTHESES SITE SELECTION SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT GEYLANG ROAD TIONG BAHRU MAXWELL COGNITIVE MAPPING GEYLAND ROAD TIONG BAHRU MAXWELL COMPARISON BETWEEN SITES ANALYTIC DISCUSSION LESSONS FROM STREET SURVEY CONCLUSION DESIGN RECOMMENDATION

INTRODUCTION & LITERATURE REVIEW INTRODUCTION

Cognitive map analysis provides a powerful tool to study how the human mind interpret the spatial environment through establishing locations, understanding distances between locations, comprehending directions and linking locations sequentially (Golledge and Garling, 2003). This experiment is conducted at (from top to bottom) Geylang Road, Tiong Bahru estate and Maxwell area where the strong presence of pedestrians makes them interesting locations to understand how people remember the built environment as they travel through it.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature on cognitive map analysis provides a wide overview, but simultaneously detailed insights into how the constructs of a specific built environment or how a specific group of the populace affect the way locations are perceived, recalled and mapped (Mohsenin & Sevtsuk, 2013 and Golledge, Gale et al., 1992).

The interdisciplinary nature of the study give rise to a lexicon of specific terminologies. In Cognitive Maps and Urban Travel (2003), Golledge and Garling examined and clarified common terms used in the study that are occasionally misused interchangeably (e.g. wayfinding and navigation). Cognitive mapping is defined as the process of encoding, storing, and manipulating experienced and sensed information that can be spatially referenced (Golledge and Garling, 2003). This mental acquisition of the spatial environment relies on person-toperson (egocentric referencing) and object-to-object (layout referencing) relations when the individual moves through a space (Sholl, 1996).

While the act of producing a cognitive sketch map can be done by the untrained, the methods of analyzing them systematically proves to hindered by the map’s subjectivity and intrinsic biasedness of the human mind and memory. Kevin Lynch’s work is perhaps one of the most influential research done to methodically examine cognitive maps on a large scale basis to establish the environmental image of American cities. Some of the most useful insights gathered about survey techniques and biases in survey execution includes underemphasis of urban patterns, neglection of elements related to automobile circulation, uneven representation of the populace among the research subjects and the distortion and fragmentation of sketch maps (Lynch, 1960).

The detailed research on street properties such as continuity of paths, street intersections and patterns sets a concrete framework in illustrating the role of street geometries in urban morphology and pattern (Mohsenin & Sevtsuk, 2013). However, beyond the complex composition of different physical elements (i.e. declarative knowledge) in the built environment, the capacity to integrate these features into patterns have proven to be an integral part of spatial knowledge acquisition (Golledge, Gale et al., 1992).

In addition, there were some discussions regarding the benefit of a complete cognitive map for the city.

Mohsenin and Sevtsuk mentioned that the completeness of memory of a place requires a threshold level which corresponds to its land use system.

RESEARCH QUESTION & HYPOTHESE RESEARCH QUESTION

The aim of this experiment is to investigate what physical elements in the built environment constitutes to a well-defined urban pattern through cognitive map analysis.

HYPOTHESES 1. People remember streets with higher number of business establishments.

The existence of business establishments increases the diversity of the built form and facade, making the space more memorable. More importantly, the business establishments function as destination points where people would specifically travel to.

2. People remember wider streets more easily than narrow streets (through measuring the of building to building width) as the former forms a clearer image of the environment.

This imagery of broad streets and their surroundings encodes deeper in people’s minds and it is interrelated to the frequency of use (e.g. a more widely used street is more likely to be widened to avoid congestion) (Mohsenin & Sevtsuk, 2013).

3. People remember well-defined street patterns than non-defined ones.

Street patterns can be be in a variety of configurations; ring, grid, linear or angular.

However, geometric patterns are usually more embedded in people’s mind as it is easier to orientate and navigate within them (Mohsenin & Sevtsuk, 2013).

4. People remember streets that have higher number of food establishments.

People have to regularly practice wayfinding to find and search for new food establishments (assumed to be important anchor points in the urban network), they would thus be more aware of the streets that have many food establishments.

5. People who drive have better memory of the spatial network than pedestrians.

Drivers have to navigate through the urban network on a larger scale and hence allowing them to build a more comprehensive understanding of the significant landmarks and activities in the area.

SITE SELECTION

GEYLANG ROAD

TIONG BAHRU

MAXWELL

The sites were specifically chosen to as they embody a range of spatial qualities that the aforementioned hypotheses aim to test out. The commonality among them is that they are primarily low-rise streets found within a larger high-rise, typologically diverse environment with unique street patterns. A significant proportion of the businesses establishments found within these sites are food and beverages outlets catering to varied consumer market. The demographic composition of the populace living, working and visiting these sites is deeply influenced by the specific type of businesses and activities found mainly exclusive to the site (e.g.

Geylang Road has brothels and workers dormitories, Tiong Bahru is full of ‘hipster’ cafes while Maxwell’s food stalls attract tourists and office workers from Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar respectively).

SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT: geylang road Geylang Road is a major one-way truck road linking Singapore’s Central Business District (CBD) with the eastern suburban areas. Both sides of this busy road is fronted by low-rise shophouses which are protected statutorily from urban redevelopment in order to preserve the local history and urban heritage. The conserved shophouses also lend a human scale to Sims Avenue and the high-rise adjoining HDB estates. During the day, business establishments such as provision shops, eateries and coffee shops, Internet cafes and clinics are in operation. Multiple illegal street vendors selling unregulated medications are observed peddling along the pavement or five-footway.

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Apart from the wide variety of gastronomic treats served in the area, Geylang also known for its long history of prostitution.

Geylang had over 50 lanes where prostitutes catering to a specific niche are found at one point in history. The common practice was for red lanterns to light up in the night in mansions discreetly announcing that they are brothels open for business. However, on the actual day of survey, the prostitutes were observed standing along the five-footway waiting for potential clients.

The closest MRT station serving the area is Aljunied.

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Aljunied MRT station Post office No Signboard Seafood Restaurant Coffee shop Illegal street vendor 5

SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT: tiong bahru Tiong Bahru is one of the oldest housing estate in Singapore with deep architectural, cultural and historic significance. The mature estate has a significant proportion of elderly residents.

However, with the recent redevelopment (construction of high-rise, upscale condominiums and HDB flats) there is an influx of new residents. Moreover, the whole image of the conserved part of the estate as a ‘hipster enclave’ further attracts throngs of visitors over the weekend. There is also a significant number of young expatriates living in the estate.

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The layout of the low-rising estate incorporated open spaces and emphasised on small neighbourhoods. The prewar and postwar flats circled a communal zone that includes a market and hawker centre, park, cafes, restaurants, and a Chinese temple.

In 2003, the prewar blocks were granted conservation status by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). The Tiong Bahru Market underwent a two-year redevelopment, with the new building following the Art Deco architecture of the estate that opened in 2006.

The nearest MRT station serving the area is Tiong Bahru.

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Tiong Bahru Plaza Condominium (U/C) Post office Tiong Bahru Market ‘Horseshoe‘ SIT block 5

SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT: Maxwell The Maxwell area is surrounded by complex environments.

Duxton Road and Duxton Hill area were once notorious for its opium and gambling dens. The shophouses in it were previously occupied by wealthy Chinese merchants. Currently, part of the area is protected under the Tanjong Pagar Conservation Area. The area also houses small offices and is a popular dining hotspot with trendy eateries serving a wide variety of cuisines.

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The quaint old restored shophouses on Ann Siang Road, Ann Siang Hill and Club Street are popular chill-out spaces for the young professional expatriates working in the vicinity. The vehicular streets rewakens at night as a heavily pedestrianized street. The nearby Maxwell Food Market is a favourite dining spot for tourists and locals of all generations.

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The Tanjong Pagar Plaza is a selfenclosed residential hub for the residents living in the housing blocks above. The Pinnacle @ Duxton is one of the new icons in the site’s hyper dense cityscape.

The nearest MRT station serving the area is Tanjong Pagar.

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Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum Maxwell Food Market Red Dot Design Museum Tanjong Pagar Plaza The Pinnacle @ Duxton 5

COGNITIVE MAPPING: geylang road We went down to the site on weekend afternoon and surveyed provision shopowners and second-hand mobile sellers as well as elderly men who have been around the area for decades. The younger provision shopkeepers who refused to do our survey were mostly foreigners who are unfamiliar with the area.

One of them explained to our group that she had close to little walking experience through the site area as she is frequently dropped off at the storefront.

Interestingly, many of the survey respondents tend to draw landmarks on the map even when it is not requested. This perhaps help them orient themselves on the sketch map. The frequently mentioned landmarks included the POSB branch between Lorong 25 and 25A, the post office at the cross section between Aljunied and Geylang Road, the No Signboard Seafood Restaurant as well as a string of red latterns between Lorong 22 and 24.

Other notable spots within the are are the coffeeshops between Lorong 8 and 20. They are marked with crosses on the sample survey map shown on the left. One of the respondent draw crosses on specific locations where the prostitutes can be found. Illegal gambling dens are found on Westerhout Road while illegal cigarettes and drugs are found along Taima Road and the X beside Lorong 23 respectively.

Some respondents also mentioned that the area behind Jln Suka used to be a soft-drink factory.

Additionally, a few respondents drew the vehicular traffic direction as they filled up the map even though they are non-drivers.

COGNITIVE MAPPING: geylang road d a ad d road junied Alljunied

BUSINESS DENSITY

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We speculate that this might have happened because most of our respondents are elderly shopkeepers whom have been staying/ working in the area for decades. Majority of them only recognized the unlicensed business establishments (gambling dens and illegal drugs peddlers) in the area.

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Number of times drawn

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As seen on the scatter-plot graph, there is very little correlation between the number of business establishments and number of times the streets are remembered.

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Street width

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Street width

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25

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R² = 0.4707

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10 Lorong 25A Geylang

Sims

As wider street allow people to see more of the built environment, they are more wellremembered.

A l j u ni ed

Place Sims

There is a positive correlation between the street width and number of times the streets are remembered.

8

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Number of times drawn

STREET WIDTH

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Number of Business Establishment

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COGNITIVE MAPPING: geylang road Aljunied road

STREET PATTERN

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Lorong

Lorong 21 Gey

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Lorong 26 Geylang

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Lorong 24 Geylang

Lorong 20 Geylang

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Number of times drawn

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There are no correlation between the number of food establishment with number of times the streets are remembered.

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A l j u ni ed

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Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

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FOOD DENSITY

This may be due to the fact that the food establishments in the area are well scattered.

Most of them are small eateries or traditional coffee shops selling similar kind of food.

Sims Av

Lorong

ylan

This happened largely because of the simple orthogonal grid pattern of the street that define the area. The sequential numbering of the street lanes also aids people in remembering elements in the built evironment.

However, the streets that do not strictly follow the orthogonal pattern or are not directly connected to the main street (e.g. street 6,7 and 10) are less memorable.

Sims

There is high correlation between the street pattern and number of times the streets are remembered. As it can be seen that almost all streets missing from the survey map are well remembered.

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Place Sims

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4 6 8 10 Number of Food Establishment

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COGNITIVE MAPPING: tiong bahru We interviewed pedestrians, shop owners and residents in the area on weekend afternoon. Half of the people we interviewed were elderly.

Many of them mentioned about the new condominium that is under construction along Kim Tian road which suggest that the development poses a significant change for the neighborhood due to its close proximity with the low-rise prewar and postwar flats.

The common landmarks identified by respondents included the post office along Lim Liak Street, the Tiong Bahru Market, the local community club and the SPD Ability Centre along Peng Nguan Street.

Also, they expressed a greater ease at being able to physically navigate through the site than to draw it on the paper.

The sample map shown on the left was done by a Mama-shop lady who would know what are the specific products sold other shops down the street from her and would recommend it her customers if her shop do not carry it.

Additionally, some respondents were able to accurately list out the housing blocks according to the direction there are located in the vicinity.

However, they were unable to translate this information onto the 2D sketches and hence were not able to draw the road network that exist between these blocks.

COGNITIVE MAPPING: tiong bahru BUSINESS DENSITY

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STREET WIDTH

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We found a correlation between the number of business establishments and the number of times the streets are remembered.

This could be because the businesses (e.g. wet market, low-cost clothing stores and grocery shops) in the area are catered towards tahe residents who are likely to be frequenting them on a regular basis to purchase their daily neccessities.

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Number of Business Establishment

We found a lack of correlation between the street width and the number of times they are remembered.

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As Tiong Bahru is a residential area, people may tend to remember activity spaces and destinations that fulfill the daily functions they require rather than the actual routes taken to get there. Interestingly, only 40% of the respondents remembered the central expressway compared to about 90% for street 7 and 10. This could possibly be due to the presence of small shops along street 7 and 10 catering to the everyday needs of the residents in the area compared to the less used expressway. 90% of the respondents do not drive so this could also account for the central expressway being less remembered.

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al Centr ssway Expre

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20 Street Width (m)

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COGNITIVE MAPPING: tiong bahru STREET PATTERN

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Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

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FOOD DENSITY

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We did not find a significant correlation between the food establishments and the number of streets remembered. This could be because many food establishments there are cafes that the elderly residents avoid them and they prefer to go to the food centre to eat or buy from the wet market to cook. Hence, the food establishments would not have a great impact on the elderly respondent’s memory of the street.

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4 2

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Tiong Bahru Rd

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Number of times drawn

Tiong Ba hru MRT

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There is a correlation between street patterns and the number times they are remembered.

Streets 1,4,7,8, and 10 were well remembered as they follow a grid pattern. The horseshoe route (6) and its secondary routes were harder to remember as they fall out of a regular pattern. We also observed that the respondents who did not record down the horseshoe route were mainly elderly people who probably had less experience with maps.

From our own observations, we realised that the horseshoe shape is not very distinct from a pedestrian’s perspective unlike the plan view when reading the map of the area. Also, the horseshoe route is surrounded by similar looking residential blocks which would be less interesting to the elderly due to their familarity to it.

Additionally, the new cafes attract many young people to the estate whereas the Tiong Bahru Market is primarily where the elderly residents would always go and hence the streets connecting it (4,7,8,10) are well remembered by them.

al Centr ssway Expre

1 0 0

2

4

6

8

Number of Food Establishment

COGNITIVE MAPPING: maxwell We went down to maxwell on weekend afternoon.

Most of the people in the area during the weekends are tourists and locals who do not come from the surrounding area. They visit Maxwell to eat at the famous food stalls. On the weekdays, however, the crowd is mainly replaced by throngs of office workers working in the vicinity.

The people we interviewed were aged between 20 to 50 years old. One interviewee who drew the map very well said he did not live nearby but drove here often for the food. This could possibly be because he had seen maps of the area so frequently that he was able to mark them out. People who said that they did not live nearby were mostly able to draw the major roads but unable to draw the inner secondary roads. People who were more familiar however, were able to mark out some greenery and shophouses nearby.

We think that people could not identify the smaller roads more easily because they do not come here on a daily basis and this area is not closely interwined with the residential areas. As a result, they were only able to identify main roads.

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40

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Number of Business Establishment

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R² = 0.5322 0 5322

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Street width

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Number of people

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Street Width (m) errace

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Street width

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Number of times drawn

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Business density pe er 100m 9 pts- 45 bu uss usinesses u 7pt- 35 bussiinesses 1.5pt- 7 bu ussinesses

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R² = 0.0198 R 0.01 0198 0198 98

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Number of times drawn

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STREET WIDTH

Based on the cognitive map, we can see a positive correlation between the street width and the number of times it is being remembered.

However, we also observed that the scatter plot is not a close fit as street 3 and 12 have relatively wide streets but are not as well remembered as the rest.

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Despite the chart showing a 0.0198 r-squared value, we noticed that street 12 which has the highest business density was in fact the least memorable. We believe this is has got to do with the fact that the existence high-rise buildings which which interferred and diverted people’s memory of the activities and business occuring on the ground floor.

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There is actually minimal correlation between the business density and the memorability of the street.

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BUSINESS DENSITY

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COGNITIVE MAPPING: maxwell

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Individual Food Places Food Centre Number of people

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Number of Food Establishment errace

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Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

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9

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0

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Cr os sS tre et

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ll R oad eR kin Ers

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Street pattern 0, non-conformity 1, conform

M

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Cook S

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ll Duxton Hi

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Mo ha mm ed Al iL an e

d oa il R Ne

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St oy

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er

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Number of times drawn

re

et

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all

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R² = 0.8065 0 8065

8

a ad

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Duxton Rd Dux

St

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2 12

Maxwell Food Centre is not only famous but hightly visible from the three-way intersection.

Hence, we predicted to find a positive corelation between the food establishments and the memorability of the streets.

9

G em m ill La ne

Am

nd

e

FOOD DENSITY

We did find that the street around Maxwell Food Centre is well remembered, but not around other food establishments.

e

re

St

Duxton Hill

10

An

Ba

ub

an

6

8

t

Cl

5

7

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rin

1

os

ha me

an

uth

e

Sa Sp

Cr

Mo

li L

Bri

Rd

Sm ith Str ee t

m

In fact, this is similar to our initial prediction as we find the radial street pattern acting as an important intersection connecting several major roads where pedestrains have to decide where to go from there.

oa

Te mp le Str ee t

Kr

The obvious radial street pattern (see streets 6, 9 and 11) that diverges from the central junction that is more well remembered and defined. These are major roads whereas the minor streets that branches out from them to form their own grid pattern are less remembered.

d

St

STREET PATTERN

Ch ina

COGNITIVE MAPPING: maxwell

8

10

comparison between sites District Geylang

Street Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Tiong Bahru

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

Maxwell

10 11 12 13 1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

10 11 12

Street Name Aljunied Rd Lor 25 Lor 25A Lor 27 Aljunied Rd Jl Suka Jl Molek Lor 24 Geylang Rd Tiong Bahru Rd Kim Tian Rd Kim Pong Rd Lim Siak St Kim Tian Rd Yong Shiak St Seng Poh Rd Eng Watt St Guan Chuan St Tiong Poh Rd Chay Yan St Peng Nguan St Central Expressway Banda St Erskine Rd Sago Lane Spring St Dickenson Hill Rd Neil Rd Duxton Rd Duxton Hill Tanjong Pagar Rd Murray St Maxwell Rd Kadayanallur St

Number of times drawn (%) 60 80 50 60 80 0 10 50 60 0

80 30 50 100 80 50 90 60 50 90 30 20 40 30 40 30 0 50 100 10 10 80 10 90 30

Street length (m)

No. of businesses

No of businesses per 100m

208 210 210.5 207 296.2 80.6 74.7 290.4 278.4 181 248.7 280 238.6 193.5 82.6 402.8 176.5 171.3 100.1 158.7 180 106.1 379.8 98 152 96.2 84.3 76.6 279 121.8 151.5 142.9 50.1 144.3 135

22 7 10 1 3 0 1 1 5 3 0 1 0 55 0 5 88 26 0 7 3 1 0 0 14 6 0 0 5 10 6 4 6 52 62

10.58 3.33 4.75 0.48 1.01 0.00 1.34 0.34 1.80 1.66 0.00 0.36 0.00 28.42 0.00 1.24 49.86 15.18 0.00 4.41 1.67 0.94 0.00 0.00 9.21 6.24 0.00 0.00 1.79 8.21 3.96 2.80 11.98 36.04 45.93

Valid Building to building street

Width of the street (m)

Street Pattern (1 = well defined)

Number of Food Establishment

Drive (1=drive)

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

20 10 12 10 25 7 7 8 20

1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1

2 2 6 7 1 2 0 2 11 6 4

3 2 3 2 3 0 0 2 3

4 0 4 1 7 6 0 0 4 0 0 1 1 7 1 0 1 4 7 8 6 6 4 2

0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 1 2 0 3 6 1 1 5 0 6 2

1

5

1

1 1

35 22

1 1

0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1

15+ 12 15 15 12 7 10 8+ 20 10+ 5 15+ 15 7 7+ 20 10 22 15

1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0

0

0

analytical discussion 1. People remember streets with higher number of business establishments.

We find no correlation recorded across 3 sites.

This can be attributed to the fact that Geylang Road and Maxwell area there are less residential districts. As a commercialized area near the Downtown Core, the type of goods or services provided by the business establishments in their vicinity are not a necessity unlike most of those in Tiong Bahru. The significantly higher correlation recorded for Tiong Bahru indicates that beyond the cafes driving the hype regarding the estate, it is still a largely residential neighborhood environment. The residents regularly patronize shops catering to the provisions of their daily wants and needs.

Based on our survey experience, people remember specific business establishments (posb atm, post office). Hence, it might not be about the density of the business establishment that make people remember the street but it is about the reputation of the business establishment.

2. People remember wider streets more easily than narrow streets (through measuring the building to building width) as the former forms a clearer image of the environment.

There is positive correlation recorded for Geylang Road and Maxwell, but not Tiong Bahru. Again, the primarily different role of the site resulted in this variance.

Both the Geylang Road and Maxwell area have at least one major vehicular crossing running through it. This connects the site with the surrounding areas, feeding the site with constant source of pedestrian crowd. On the other hand, the main traffic in Tiong Bahru is not the major road where it mostly caters for vehicular traffic, but the pedestrian routes running within the housing blocks. The site is valued for its ‘smallness’ and the ‘hipster cafes’ (anchor points) survive on this to sell not just their products and services, but the overall cosy atmosphere of the quaint estate. y

10

10

9

9

9

10

R² = 0.0809

6 5

9

4 3

8

1 0

7

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Number of Business Establishment

6 10

5

R² = 0.3278

9 8

4 3 2

7 6 5 4 3

Number of times drawn

2

R² = 0.0757

Number of times drawn

Number of times drawn

8

Number of times drawn

10

7

6 5

R² = 0.008

4 3 2

0 0

2

4 6 8 10 Number of Food Establishment

10

5

9 8

4 3

7 6

R² = 0.0165

5 4 3 2 1

0 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1

0 0

10

Number of Business Establishment

0 20

30

40

50

60

9

Number of Business Establishment

10

20

30

40

7 6 R² = 0.0198

5 4 3 2 1 0 0

10

20

30

40

Number of Business Establishment

50

30

40

10 9

Street Width (m)

8 Number of times drawn

Number of business establishments (clockwise from top-left): All sites, Geylang Road, Tiong Bahru, Maxwell

0

10

Street width (clockwise from top-left): All sites, Geylang Road, Tiong Bahru, Maxwell

R² = 0.5322

8 Number of times drawn

10

20 Street Width (m)

0 0

12

6

1

1

7

R² = 0.2388

2

2

8

1

7

Number of times drawn

Number of times drawn

8

g

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0

5

10

15

Street Width (m)

20

25

analytic discussion 3. People remember well-defined street patterns than non-defined oes.

4. People remember streets that have higher number of food establishment.

Across all sites, a positive correlation is recorded. The Maxwell area shows the highest correlation because of its radial street pattern can be easily understood/seen from the major intersection (i.e. center point).

Additionally, as secondary routes are less defined, this explains why people could not remember them most of the time.

This hypothesis unfounded possibly due to the fact that Singapore is a renowned food haven and famous food stalls are generally spread across the entire entire. With food of different price and cuisines available almost everywhere, people do not have to bother remembering particular streets just for the search of good food.

In Geylang Road, there was a high correlation recorded because of the clear grid pattern and direct, clear numbering of the street lanes makes it easily remembered. In both Maxwell and Geylang Road, is was obvious that people remembered the well-defined streets clearly and the nondefined streets less clearly. However, in Tiong Bahru, results showed lower correlation. This could perhaps be due to other factors such as activities in the site that could possibly play a more significant in influencing people’s memory of the street.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that some survey respondents were able to clearly point out specific food stalls that attracts many crowd into the site. As a result, it can be inferred that the reputation and popularity of the outlet itself is more important than the density of the outlets along that street. In these cases, people have so many choices that they prioritise one quality stall over a large number of other choices.

9

8 Number of times drawn

R² = 0.338

R² = 0.8805

6

8

5 4 3 2

6

1 0 0

5

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

4

10 9

3

8

2 1

9

9

7

7

R² = 0.2273

6

Number of times drawn

7

Number of times drawn

Number of times drawn

8

10

10

9

7

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

2

2

4

4 6 8 10 Number of Food Establishment

12

10 9 8

3

7 6 5 R² = 0.2187

4 3 2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

1

0

2

4

6

8

10

0

12

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Number of Food Establishment

Number of Food Establishment 10

10

9

R² = 0.8065

9 8

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Street Pattern (well defined street=1)

1

1.2

Number of food establishments (clockwise from top-left): All sites, Geylang Road, Tiong Bahru, Maxwell

Number of times drawn

Number of times drawn

8

Street pattern (clockwise from top-left): All sites, Geylang Road, Tiong Bahru, Maxwell

3

0

0

0

1.2

R² = 0.008

4

5

1

1

0

5

0

2

0

6

R² = 0.0077

4 3

7

1

6

2

5

8

Number of times drawn

10

Number of times drawn

10

7 6 5 R² = 0.0004

4 3 2 1 0 0

2

4

6

Number of Food Establishment

8

10

analytic discussion St re et Cl ub

St er Ay Sta nle yS t

ns on Rd

er

St

t

Ay

St

Ka

11

ax

M

9

n St

d

oa

ll R

we

Cook S t

Number of drivers who remember it 6pt- 6 drivers 3pts- 3 drivers 0.003 pt- 0 drivers

Rd

10

Murra y St

so n

nd

Duxton Hill

ur

all

n ya da

Ta

Sta nle yS t

d

7

12

lok

oa

6

on

Am oy St

gR

5

Duxton Rd Dux

Te

St ub

So

ian

d

2

Bo

et

tS

nS

St

St

An

Ba

e

m ill La ne

re

eR

4g

rin

an

ub

kin

1

Sp

3 L

em

Cl

Ers

aS

t

go

Te l MR ok A yer T

G

re et

Bri dg uth

d

Sa

nR d

Ce cil St

d

nR d

n St

Cook S t

t

Number of non drivers who remember 4pt- 4 non drivers 3pts- 3 non drivers 0.003 pt- 0 non drivers

d oa ll R we ax M

9

Ce cil St

Duxton Rd Dux

11

Te

y St

Duxton Hill

Cl

Rd

10

Murra

Ta

tS

St ur all n ya da Ka

Str ee t

8

on

lok

2

Bo

12

7 8

St re et

Am oy St

Ba nd aS t

4

6

Rd er Ay eta Kr

In addition, we also noted that for Erskine Road, there is a higher percentage of non-drivers actually remembered the road than drivers. This could be due to the fatc that Erskine Road is flanked by shophouses where the narrow road is generally more suitable for walking.

Sp rin gS t

5

er

Secondly, drivers may not actually drive in the area. Some of them may simply park their cars somewhere else to explore the area by foot and hence its not comparable to guage if the perception of these drivers are different from pedestrians.

3

ad Ro

Ay

Firstly, as the sample size is too small and not representative of the population of non-drivers who visit the area. Out of the people whom we surveyed in Maxwell, 2 non-drivers are actually foreigners who only have a brief impression of the area, and are thus likely to be biased towards routes they have been to.

Cl ub

Te l MR ok A yer T

G em m ill La ne

g ian nS An

eta

Our results showed that drivers were more able to pick out the Maxwell intersection than non-drivers where Maxwell Road is almost unnoticed by them. Although this gives us a hint that non-drivers may indeed have a poorer impression of the streets, the overall information collected prove to be ultimately non-conclusive.

Sa go La ne

d eR kin Ers

1

Kr

We only gathered enough data to compare drivers and non-drivers in Maxwell area.

tre et

d

We tried to identify if respondents with driving experience would be able to remember roads better than non-drivers. Our initial hypothesis was that drivers would have a better image of the streets as it is much more required of them when they navigate through the area.

So uth Bri dg

5. People who drive have better memory of the spatial network than pedestrians.

lessons from street survey While approaching residents and business owners, we observed many subtle differences in their reactions towards our questions. There was a large difference between approaching the older and younger generation for survey. As there was a language barrier between the elderly respondents and interviewer, it meant that the survey had to be conducted in Mandarin and some terminologies could not be translated on the spot.

The young people were more approachable when we introduced ourselves as students doing research. However, the elderly whom were initially very eager to help when they first asked them became very hestitant to draw on the map when they found out it was for research purposes. Many of them told us that they were afraid to ‘get it wrong’. We think this could be due to a deeply ingrained mentality towards education in the past versus the relative openness in today’s education and social attitudes.

Another difference observed among the elderly was that despite knowing the place very well, they were not able to grasp the purpose of the experiment quickly and identify that the missing streets on the map. They would usually look at the map for a very long time but could not understand what drawing to complete it meant. They could verbalise the streets very well, down to how one street turns into the other, but were very uncomfortable with drawing it. Sometimes we would try to prompt them by pointing to the map and ask if the two disjoint streets are connected to encourage them to draw on the map.

Additionally, many elderly respondents told us they could teach us how to go anywhere in the area but they could not draw it on the map. We think it could be because they have constructed their cognitive map solely based on their pedestrian walkthrough experience and hence found it very difficult to reference their cognitive map to the figure-ground plane view of the paper map. Hence, their lack of experience with maps could have resulted in a poor person-to-object comprehension of the spatial environment, where they could be perfectly oriented themselves but not grasp the larger structure of the environment.

These situations during the street survey lead to the biases listed on the right.

BIASES 1. Specific group(s) of respondents who do not form a good representation of the overall demographics of the site were targeted.

The business proprietors and workers were targeted as potential respondents familiar with the site who have higher chances of drawing the missing portion of the map from their memory. However, many of them rejected participating in the survey due to 2 main reasons. Firstly, the unwillingness in drawing the map even though they could verbalize the main roads. Secondly, a significant number of workers have sufficient knowledge of the site as they only take a specific route to their workplace.

2. The survey map that we gave to the respondent have slight hint on certain streets.

The portion of network removed from the survey map often contain at least one obvious link for the main street running through the site. It is possible for respondents with little or no knowledge of the site’s network to establish this link by looking at the survey map provided. Hence it is impossible to differentiate between respondents who truly knew the link intuitively and those who made a correct guess.

3. Many elderly respondents did not understand the survey purpose and could not read as well as complete the map even.

These elderly respondents are often longtime residents of the sites assumed to have a great familiarity to its network. While our assumption was partially right, the elderly were unable to translate their verbal knowledge of the site into sketch maps due to unwillingness, inability to read the map given or fear of sketching inaccurate response (generation gap in terms of education attitudes). Also, many of them mistook the group’s intention and thought we were asking for directions.

4. Inconsistency in prompting respondents to respond during survey process.

Even though some respondents were willing to sketch the map, they were reluctant in penning in down and quickly switched back to telling the surveyor or suggest the use of digital navigation tool to get an accurate response. They had to be constantly reminded and prompt (e.g. how to the missing roads run) to complete the remaining parts of the map. On the other hand, some respondents (usually the those in their 20s-30s) were able to focus on the sketching the map (regardless of their familiarity to the site) to the best of their memory without any prompts.

conclusion WELL-REMEMBERED BUILT ENVIRONMENT 1. Well-defined street pattern including orthogonal (Geylang Road) and radial (Maxwell) street patterns

Well-defined street patterns help with person-to-object comprehension.

It aids a person with anchoring the structures of a cognitive map.

People who are poor at layout referencing often know how to walk to destinations but cannot put all the different routes together to create a larger structure. Their cognitive map usually end up being distorted by their perceived distance of the routes based on how long they feel the journey has taken. Therefore, a well-defined pattern could help in them understanding scale of the physical environment because they will be able to intuitively understand that the two different routes in a gridal pattern are of the same physical distance.

2. Wider streets

Wide streets (e.g. street 6,9 and 11 in Maxwell) are easier to remember because it allow them to see more of the streets and a wider range locations (visual cues) they connect to.

3. Streets with specific activities

Streets leading to a nearby anchor point, for instances Maxwell Food Centre (street 6 and 11) or Tiong Bahru Market (street 4 and 7) are more memorable because of the activities associated with them.

HARD-TO-REMEMBER BUILT ENVIRONMENT 1. Streets without well defined pattern like horseshoe shape (street 6 in Tiong Bahru)

Streets with a more well-defined grid is easier to reference as people can easily orient to them based on their relative sense of direction. An example would be the Geylang Road area where the streets are based off a rectangular grid and have their street names sequentially ordered with numbers.

However, streets shaped like a horseshoe confuses people’s orientation and as a result of its remoteness in the middle of the land parcel, it does not offer a reference location or line for people to orientate themselves, hence causing a lack of accurate perception of the overall geometry of the area.

2. Streets further away from the main street (street 6,7 and 10 in Geylang Road)

Streets located far away from the main street are harder to remember as they appear to be hidden and only people whom are very familiar with the area would use them. Geylang Road’s street 10 may follow the orthogonal pattern of the road, yet its lack of expression along the main road and the quiet back lane it opens to serves mainly the shop owners nearby and hence is forgotten by many.

Usually amenities or businesses located at these areas serve a very specific customer range who travels there directly for a it. Therefore, even people who have been there for multiple times may not use these obscure back alleys as they tend to stick to one familiar route.

3. Streets with lesser activities

Streets that diverge away from main street (e.g. street 2,3,4 and 12 in Maxwell) are secondary routes which tends to have less activities and amenities as compared to the main streets. This leads to people being less familiar with them because they are less likely to be used.

Streets with dead ends (e.g. street 7 and 8 in Maxwell) are

design recommendation Aljunie

One of the biggest problems in cognitive mapping is that people tend to distort and fragment their cognitive sketch maps. Our design recommendation focuses on helping people to remember the spatial configuration more clearly.

Tiong Ba hru MRT

Tiong Bahru Rd

Kim Pong Rd

a bin

t

nS

Se

nM

Po

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ng

7

e

att St

t

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9

10

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Rd

ua

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New Position of Shops Individual Food Places

Jala

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an

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Yo

ylang

Lorong 26 Geylang

Lorong 24 Geylang

Geylang

Geylang

Lorong 20 Geylang

Lorong 18

Lorong 16

lang

ang 12 Geyl

1 4 Ge y

Lorong

Lorong

Lorong 28 Ge

lang

8

5

Food Centre

m ar Guile

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6

out Ro Westerh

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2

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eylang

5 Ge

g 17 G

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Lorong 19

Loron

L o ro

Lorong 23 Ge

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Drive Loron

Lim Siak St

4

Lower D

venue Sims A

En

Lorong 27A Gey la

Sims

ng

1

al Centr way ss Expre

13

tM

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Walkway with planter boxes

GEYLANG ROAD

TIONG BAHRU

Based on the literature review, the overall characteristics of street elements is an important factor to make people integrate them together into memorable patterns that will facilitate in the construct of their cognitive maps.

Tiong Bahru is an quaint estate that has attracted many buzz and crowd.

It is important to prevent new cafes and activities from disrupting the original identitiy of the place and the daily activities of the elderly residents.

Hence, to further improve the memorability of each street in Geylang Road, we suggest that the walking experience in Geylang could be varied and soften. The current walking options are unsheltered walkway or five footway. The characteristics of Geylang street could be varied by adding trees or planter boxes on some of the walkway. The type of trees, shrubs, and flowers could help create distinct characters for the street.

As the new establishments congregates along certain streets, it segment the old and new in Tiong Bahru. Hence, by fragmenting programs and dispersing them throughout the estate could help to encourage people, particular visitors, to discover other routes because they would have to go in different directions to access the shops they want. This will help them to have a better image of the neighborhood. Also, it will divert the crowd away from a particular street, maintaining the overall quaintness of the estate.

Bo

on

Ta

St re et Cl ub

tS

St

t

ean St

Sta nle yS t

New Activities New Local Food Places

ins on Rd

Duxton Rd Dux

d

Cook S t

d oa ll R we ax M

aig Cr

on Rd

y St

Ce cil St

Rd

St re et

er

Ba nd aS t Rd

Keon g Saik

er

Ay

N ei lR oa d

Te l MR ok A yer T

G em m ill La ne

Murra

Duxton Hill

MAXWELL

Cl ub

Cr os sS t

t rS llu na ya a d Ka

Rd

d nR ua Ch

Mo ha me dA li L an e

ad Ro

eta

Sp rin gS t

t

g ian nS An

Kr

d eR kin Ers

Sa go La ne

So uth Bri dg e

Br idg e

Rd

Sm ith Str ee t

Ne w

un g

To ng

Se n

Te mp le Str ee t

Lim ck Te

k Jia

Ro ad

St

ee

Ay

Str

lok

ue

Te

sq

Am oy St

Mo

Ch ina St

design recommendation

Maxwell is a very transient district for visitors between Tanjong Pagar and Chinatown. Hence, with such a unique property, the focus should be on providing a sense of discovery for pedestrians instead of helping them memorise the place clearly. This valuable walking experiences can be created with the existing network by injecting more activities along the secondary streets such as art galleries,cafes, park and playground to complement the exisiting activities and destinations found in the area.

We would also like to suggest the introduction more of local food establishments around the district (along Neil Road) to cater to the tourists in the area as it is currently populated by foreign cuisine which dilutes the area’s identity and history.

Photo credits: Cafehopping.sg

20.016 URBAN ANALYSIS

EXPERIMENT 5: BIG AGGREGATE DATA

Chiew Jia En, Chong Zhuo Wen, Jessie Tang, Liliani Saputri, Stephanie Loh Qi Jia

CONTENT INTRODUCTION

3

LITERATURE REVIEW

3

RESEARCH QUESTION

4

HYPOTHESES

4

METHODOLOGY

5

SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT

7

RATINGS ANALYSIS

8

PRICE RANGE ANALYSIS

10

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE ANALYSIS

11

CAFE CULTURE INSIGHTS

12

BUILT ENVIRONMENT INSIGHTS

12

SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS

13

CLUSTERING

14

LIMITATIONS

15

CONCLUSION

16

DESIGN RECOMMENDATION

17

INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW INTRODUCTION

This experiment is interested understanding the growing trend of independent cafes in Singapore, particularly those in the Kampong Glam area. By focusing on user recommendation data from various social media sites (e.g. HungryGoWhere ratings, Burpple reviews, Instagram posts, Facebook likes and visits), we aim to investigate how these factors are related to the cafe’s popularity. This is defined by the number of check-ins found on Foursquare.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In urban analysis, methodology difficulties hinder the study of urban mobility pattern, particularly when it comes to understanding how a city is used in daily operation as a whole (Sevtsuk and Ratti, 2010). Big data aggregation thus offer a power technological tool to address this research gap.

By tapping on the individual’s idiosyncratic behaviour on mobile devices and/or social media platforms, data can be gathered to study travel trajectories of each anonymous research subject (Eagle and Pentland, 2009).

Mobile devices are tracked and human trajectories are predicted using Levy flight and random walk methods models while call volume data are studied using Erlang measurements (Gonzalez et al, 2008; Sevtsuk and Ratti, 2010). On the other hand, social media data are analyzed based on the number and spatial distribution of the check-ins (Cheng et al, 2011).

Studies have concluded that human trajectories show a high degree of temporal and spatial regularity (Gonzalez et al, 2008). Large differences in people’s activities are not only observed between weekday and weekend travels, but also on a hourly, daily and weekly basis (Sevtsuk and Ratti, 2010). This confirms the periodicity of people’s activities (usually in 24, 72 or 128 hour cycles) in urban areas suggested by earlier urban studies using observational and survey data (Hanson and Huff, 2001; Schlich and Axhausen, 2003; Schafer, 2000).

The methodology promises important changes in the study of geographical and the social sciences, where public spaces can be designed dynamically to meet the needs on the number and composition of people using the space (Ahas and Mark, 2005). However, there are privacy issues related to tracking of mobile devices. For instances, the data obtained from tracking individual mobile phones can also be used to estimate geographic ‘anchor points’ pertaining to residential and employment locations (Sevtsuk and Ratti, 2010).

Nonetheless, as the population become increasingly wired and accustom to sharing on social platforms and location-based services, it is predicted to be a shift in public view towards the extraction and analysis of such data (Ahas and Mark, 2005).

RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESES RESEARCH QUESTION

The aim of the experiment is to investigate what makes cafes in Kampong Glam popular based on the number of Foursquare check-ins they have.

HYPOTHESES 1. Cafes with better ratings are more popular.

We assume that Singaporeans cafe goers are quite sensitive to reviews and therefore, if a cafe has high ratings, it is likely that it will have a higher number of check-ins. We examine the cafe’s overall ratings as well as its service, ambience and food ratings to see what patronizers find most important about a cafe.

2. Cafes in the middle price range are more popular.

People who regularly patronise independent cafes tend to go for middle price range outlets (approx. $10 - $19) because they usually seek for places that offer a range of premium gourmet choices and unique dining atmosphere. However, patronizers will be deterred if the prices are too high as cafes are not seen as fine dining options.

3. Cafes with greater social media presence are more popular.

The greater the social media presence a cafe have (e.g. Facebook likes and visits, Instagram followers and hashtags, Burpple reviews, sponsored blog post/review), more people would visit the cafe to try it out as there social media sites have become increasingly regular food guides for the younger, highly wired generation which makes up the bulk of the targeted consumer group of these independent cafes. Social media presence can be viewed as a ‘word-of-mouth marketing’ method in today’s context.

METHODOLOGY We defined popularity as the number of check-ins on Foursquare because it would indicate how many people patronize the cafe. We then looked for reliable websites catered to local food review to find the ratings for cafes. From these websites, we found out that what people value the most about the cafe experience is the food quality, price and ambience of the outlet as these factors are the most commonly rated ones across various review websites.

By mapping the initial Foursquare data set onto CartoDB, we then got an overall idea on the geographical distribution of cafes in different parts of Singapore.

After analyzing several locations in Downtown area (e.g. Tanjong Pagar, Clark Quay), Kampong Glam was selected as the diversity of its built environment and the high density of cafes around the area. We then subsequently cross-referenced Foursquare data with other social media indicators to investigate the online presence and popularity of the individual cafes in the area.

We collected data from different social platforms (e.g. Facebook, HungryGoWhere, Instagram, Burpple) that we felt were influential in people’s choices on which cafe they would patronize due to the large community of reviewers on these sites. We then plotted the graphs of the factors that we explored and hypothesized against the number of check-ins and analysed them to see if there was any correlation between them.

We also plotted the data onto maps to visualize if the factors were affected by physical built environment and location choice.

SITE HISTORY & CONTEXT Kampong Glam was chosen as it is one of the hotspot for independent cafes. The area is not only a tourist attraction found in Bugis area but also a significant quarter for the local Muslim community since it was home to the Malay aristocracy prior to British Colonisation. Today, the developments have transformed it into a multi-cultural neighborhood with conserved shophouses and a historically rich Sultan Mosque.

The cafes in the area can be grouped into two types: Halal cafes catered to the Muslim community (e.g. Aliwal Street, Kandahar Street) and upscale cafes (e.g. Haji Lane, Bali Lane) catered to the younger generation seeking for unique cafe experience.

Conserved building Civic & community institution Commercial Pedestrianised street

RATING ANALYSIS

We used the data from 3 major online platforms where users can give ratings, recommendations and/or reviews to food establishments in Singapore. They are Foursquare, HungryGoWhere and Facebook.

Hypothesis 1: Cafes with better overall ratings are more popular.

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As it can be seen from the scatter plots, there is no correlation between the overall ratings received by the cafe on the particular platform with number of check-ins recorded. This happens because the rating system on each website differ because they cater to different users need.

While HungryGoWhere is more focus towards food reviews, Facebook is originally a platform built for social networking now commonly used by businesses as a marketing tool. In addition, Foursquare is designed for checking-in to various places rather than reviewing on the food quality.

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* y-axis: number of check-ins using Foursquare

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We suspected that the reviews on HungryGoWhere is not a reliable measurement even though it is a platform built specifically for food reviews because of its declining popularity due to competition from several other up-and-coming online food review platforms like Burpple and 8Days.

RATING ANALYSIS Hypothesis 1: Cafes with better overall ratings (consisting of food quality, service and ambience ratings) are more popular.

There is no correlation between food quality, service, and ambience ratings with the number of check-ins. There is also no correlation between the individual rating aspects with each other. We speculate that it might be because all these factors are highly subjected to the individual reviewer’s personal taste and preference. People may for some reason prefer a certain type of cafe ambience and hence rate a particular cafe highly for it. Therefore, this could explain why the overall rating for a cafe is bad because everyone would go to the cafe for the particular trait they found from the recommendation rather than the overall experiences.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is no correlation between food quality ratings and number of check-ins. This could be because people go to cafes for other reasons rather than the food quality. People may perhaps like to go to cafes because of the whole experience of the built environment surrounding the cafe and its designed interior spaces offer.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is no correlation between service ratings and number of check-ins. This is could possibly be less due the cafe culture and more to do with the general Singapore culture. We do not have a strong tipping culture locally and therefore people working in the service or retail industries are not directly rewarded for good service they offer. Since all patronizers are required to pay a standard service charge, it does not provide incentives for waiters to provide better service.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is no correlation between ambience ratings and number of check-ins. We speculate that it might be because all the cafe are designed to express a certain visual identity, catering to different types of cafe goers. In addition, cafe goers have different attitudes and highly subjective preference over the visual identity, interior design which constitutes to what makes a ‘good ambience’.

PRICE RANGE ANALYSIS Hypothesis 2: Middle priced range cafes are more popular.

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We found this hypothesis to be untrue because the number of check-ins at the mid-range priced cafes are very close to the total number of check-ins at the higher priced cafes. This might be due to the fact that cafe goers are already prepared to spend more money when they patronise cafes for their unique gourmet offerings.

Also, the trend of ‘cafe-hopping’ is also noted among local cafe goes where they go to multiple cafes a day to try different kinds of food there; they walk from cafe to cafe and sit down occasionally at one to buy a drink. As such, they cafe goers may already be prepared to spend more and therefore a price difference of $10 may not have any significance on their choice of cafe.

For more information, please see article on http://business.asiaone.com/news/will-the-cafe-bubble-burst.

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Price Number of check-ins High clustering where price and check-ins are well balanced (able to compare prices) Pricier locations with smaller number of check-ins and lie far away from the cluster of cafes, suggesting that they are not exposed to the same kind of competition as those lying in the clustered areas (green dots)

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE ANALYSIS Hypothesis 3: Cafes with more social presence media are more popular.

For this hypothesis, we looked at the popular social networking sites suchs as Facebook and Instagram to find out if there was a correlation between people being more aware of the social presence and the number of visitors to the cafe. We define cafes with higher social presence as those with not only official accounts on these sites, but also have high number of Facebook likes and Instagram hashtags and followers.

However, we found this to be untrue because there is very little correlation between the cafeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social media presence and the number of physical check-ins. We suspect that this may be because some social media websites are not catered towards looking for online food reviews and recommendations. For example, Facebook is meant for networking and sharing with friends while Instagram is meant for photography sharing. Hence, these social media sites may not have a realistic depiction of the overall ratings of the actual group of cafe patronisers.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is very little correlation between the number of Facebook likes and the number of checkins. It could possbly be that Facebook likes is not a accurate measurement because it can encompass a wide range of positive sentiments and not seen as a reliable or common tool to indicate recommendation for food in particular.

People may also go to the cafeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Facebook page to like it simply because their friends liked the page and they saw it on their newsfeed. This does not reflect that they ever went to patronise the cafe.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is very little correlation between the number of Instagram hashtags and the number of checkins.

As it can be seen from the scatter plot, there is very little correlation between the number of Instagram followers and the number of checkins.

This may be because when people go to cafes and post a related photograph with hashtags, it allows them with a lot of freedom of expression.

For instances, #cafe #Singapore would not yield search result for a particular cafe of interest even if the photo post is actually regarding it unless it is geo-tagged as well.

We intially thought that with an Instagram account, people could google the cafe and look at the photos of their food and would be encouraged to go there. However, it is proven to be untrue and may be due to the fact that the Instagram account is maintained by the cafe and not their followers, therefore it lacks reliability for potential patrons to guage their quality.

CAFE CULTURE INSIGHTS Insight 1: Cafes do not necessary need to cater to the ‘hipster’ community but it is vital for them to form part of a larger local community within the vicinity they are located in.

The cafe culture in Singapore is growing in prominence because of its tendency to locate and cluster in many other trendy ‘hipster’ areas such as Tiong Bahru and Everton Park. However, we found that cafes have also thrived beyond these areas and in other ethnic enclaves such as Kampong Glam and Joo Chiat (where they are Muslim and Peranakan enclaves respectively).

It is more important for cafes to be position themselves as part of a larger local community and culture in order to draw patronisers from a larger, and more varied target base. This helps to ensure that there will be a constant flow of demand. Cafes, therefore survive better in clusters as they can tap on the larger patron base as a collective destination. Hence, the location of cafes are therefore crucial to their survival.

In the case of Kampong Glam, the cafes along Baghdad Street are catered towards the Muslim community because there are places of worship and specialty shops catering to the needs of the community. On the other hand, those cafes located along Haji Lane are catered more for the younger consumer base looking for alternative retail and dining experience beyond the common brand chains found island-wide.

Insight 2: Cafes on the right social network have the ‘stronger’ social presence as they are cater to a specific group of patrons looking for similar cafe experiences and are hence more popular with a stronger, more tightly-knit community of followers.

Cafes that are predominantly on Facebook and Instagram may have many likes and hastags but may not have a similar number of check-ins on Foursquare because Facebook and Instagram are neither the most credible nor exciting source of food reviews and recommendations.

The presence on the right social media site, helps in promoting the cafe to a large extent based on our earlier results. Burpple, an increasing popular food review site, started off as an “Instagram for food”. It has location data and visually attractive photos, provides a easy-to-use mobile platform where information are shared easily. The cafes that are highly recommended on Burpple are found to have a large number of check-ins on Foursquare.

BUILT ENVIRONMENT INSIGHTS

BAGHDAD STREET VS HAJI LANE

Baghdad Street is directly linked to the Masjid Sultan Mosque by a pedestrianised street lined with shophouses and palm trees, evoking the areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Malay heritage imagery.

The spillover traffic from the Mosque and Baghdad street results in higher patronage densities for the cafes located at the BaghdadArab Street intersection.

On the other hand, Haji Lane is separated by a wider Arab Street and is two rows of shophouses away from the activity generating Mosque. As a result, it has a lower check-in densisy across the Lane as compared to those at thhe Baghdad-Arab Street intersection.

STREETS 1. North Bridge Road: Lined with Halal restaurants, perfumers and islamic goods stores that serves the Muslim community and also people (including tourists) who go to the Masjid Sultan mosque.

2. Haji Lane: Gentrified street with mix of western and middle eastern cafes, clothing stores, lifestyle boutiques.

3. Arab Street: Cluster of fabric stores and provision shops which have been in the area for decades.

4. Baghdad street: Handicrafts and cafe street.

Perhaps due to its distance from the core of Kampong Glam, it has developed a more international palette of cafes and shops, attracting visitors and tourists, leading to a disproportionately larger number of Facebook ratings to Foursquare check-ins.

Facebook ratings Foursquare check-ins Overlap More significant Facebook ratings to checkins More significant check-ins to Facebook ratings

SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS Burppleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s system that necessitates the linkage of photos by pinning the location of the cafe is found to have the best positive correlation with Foursquare check-in data. It is also observed that location pinning is more important than having a high number of photos as the graph for HungryGoWhere shows a better correlation than for Instagram hashtags. This might also be because different cafes can share the same hashtag, reducing the accuracy of the results.

However, the most telling factor of check-ins for cafes is not the number of people who have rated the cafe after eating there, but the total number of visitors to the site itself as seen from the graph of number of Facebook visits to the number of Foursquare check-ins.

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HUNGRYGOWHERE

FOOD SPECIFIC

CLUSTERING

We observed that the cafes tend to cluster in locations where the streets are more pedestrianised. As seen from the map where Haji Lane and Baghdad Street are pedestrianised, more cafes are found than on Arab Street. Hence, we believe that the local environment and activity is interrelated to the distribution of cafe and constitutes significantly to perceived atmosphere of the local community. The pedestrianised street will allow patrons to have easier access to other cafes when they are on â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cafe-hoppingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. In addition, the community of cafes may be more clustered in Baghdad street due to the presence of the Sultan Mosque nearby which acts as a strong local anchor and landmark.

LIMITATIONS 1. Lack of available data

Our data collection method was not comprehensive enough to represent some aspects of the topic of interest.

For example, the time lapse between when the patron visit the cafe and when he or she review it on social media can vary significantly.

Also, across different social media platforms, we also saw that as similar information are recorded differently across the sites, they cannot be compared directly to one another. These sites may include different rating attributes, making the choice of social media sites to study a crucial factor in shaping the subsequent data analysis.

2. Lack of user profiles

As we collected our data, we realised that the way these social media users behave on the platform and share varying interests from one to another. For instances, Instagram appeals to photo and video enthusiasts while Burpple appeals to food lovers looking for a quick way to share food reviews on mobile platforms. The demographic composition of each social media platform is thus different and if more data could be made available, we believe more trends related to user profile and usage patterns can be spotted.

In case of our experiment, if we were able to further analyse the user profile attributes (e.g. nationality, age, favourite cuisine) which the check-ins were made, a better understanding and comparison of cafe patronage patterns and pratron profiles could be made.

3. Reliability of the data collected

The data collected from the different sites varies in terms of the user interface, causing some of the data to be less reliable. For example, in Facebook and Foursquare, rating cafes is not the main function in its user interface and ratings are awarded by number of stars, tabulated cumulatively. Hence, the user interface of Burpple is more well representive with the eating outlets sorted and ranked by its users that is updated consistently.

4. Site context was too small

In many of the analysis, it yielded a small correlation. This could be due to the site chosen being too specific.

The cafes within the chosen site also have similar attributes and hence little distinction could be made when we look for relationships with regards to their individual popularity.

CONCLUSION 1. Cafes with better ratings are more popular.

We have showed that the overall rating does not positively correlates with the number of check-ins. This happens because we assumed that people choose to go to cafes for the same reasons all the time, which is food quality, ambience, and price. An overall rating underrepresents the specific reason why people choose to go to the cafe.

While we favored individual ratings for food and ambience in determining the success and popularity of the cafe, it does not show a good correlation with number of check-ins. Since the check-ins are not specific to the quality of food or ambience, the direct correlation of these factors cannot be clearly analysed just by plotting the two sets of data together.

The Burpple recommendation system is a better indication because the reviews and recommendations were based on specific dishes, ambience and were ranked consistently to reflect the current popularity of the cafe.

2. Middle price range cafe are more popular.

This hypothesis can been proven to be inconclusive because the middle price cafes share similar number of check-ins when compared to the higher range cafes. However, it has been observed that cafes of a lower price range are not popular as patrons are less price sensitive when they are looking for unique experiences. And as such, this may explain the rise in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cafehoppingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; trend even though it is rather expensive to do so.

3. Cafes with more social media presence are more popular in check-ins.

We measured the social media presence of the cafes using the number of Facebook likes and visits, Instagram hashtags which had a negative correlation with the number of Foursquare check-ins. Hence, it is more important that cafes build a strong presence in social media sites specialising on food, where users link pin their location and directly linked with images of the cafe.

In terms of the built environment design, we observed that the physical character of the site and strategic location is more significant than its online presence. Cafes can used their location advantage to drive their presence on social media.

DESIGN RECOMMENDATION 1. Social media platforms need to stay relevant

As the preference of the tech-savvy generation is ever changing, social media sites needs to frequently update their user interface to suit the online community’s needs. This is seen via comparing HungryGoWhere and Burpple, 2 of the largest food review platforms in Singapore.

The much newer Burpple (2012) has more users and well documented reviews with photos compared to the more established HungryGoWhere (2008) due the former having a more relevant user interface for mobile users. Hence, social media sites should consistently update their user interface to connect the public and create a bigger community for sharing.

2. Cafe to locate near strong local communities and update their online presence

From our experiment we found that cafes that are connected strongly to the physical and/or online communities to be more popular. Hence, we would recommend potential cafe owners to locate near areas with strong local communal identity with anchor points such as Baghdad Street or with other popular ‘cafe streets’ to draw their patron base with a bigger collective identity.

During our data mining stage, we realised that many of the cafes that received check-ins did not appear on social media sites. This could be due to the cafe being unaware of its own social media presence or it is permanently no longer in operation. To help create a more comprehensive set of online data, registered businesse should register their location on map so that the characteristics and activities of our built environment can be easily studied.

An interactive 3D map, the Virtual Singapore, which shows the nation’s aboveground structures such as trees, buildings and carpark lots will be available by 2017.

3. New websites need to have a more targeted function

We found that sites such as Burpple provided a more simplified user interface that simultaneously enforces users to input photos location and comments. This makes the sharing process to be more homogenous and personal across users through the creation of a targeted function.

DESIGN RECOMMENDATION We would recommend new social media startups that wish to venture into the field of food recommendations or any other forms of ground-up reviews to consider the introduction of a targeted function which will benefit in drawing a targeted of users interested in the subject.

Also, we advise older sites such as Foursquare and HungryGowhere to move towards the direction of a more mobile-oriented user interface.

4. Social media can improve user interface to enhance accuracy of bid data

We observed that many of the people active on social media have various accounts across different sites and they use each site for different purposes. As such the data regarding a particular cafe is scattered across the different platforms making the data collection process extremely challenging. Currently, the Google account allows user to login to a large host of other third-party websites. However, it is not used by any of the major food review sites in Singapore.

Also, many of the social media sites allow users to post and tag a location after they have already left the place. Since the posting of information is not done real time, this creates uncertainty in the data collected due to the unknown time lapse involved. Hence, we would recommend social media platforms allow for 2 types of location tagging - one real time tagging and the other is the existing type of tagging. This would allow us to observe on a larger scale to see how the city functions in a real time.