The Ordinary Nature of Urbanisation by Bingru Zhang

Following the development trajectory of new buildings and the potential impacts it m ay have on the existing physical street space and social fabric how will it influence street public behaviour in the future?

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Abstract A city is a public place which people to live to share and exchange for their idea. With the development of urbanization, an increasing number of skyscrapers are built in the city. In this context, Gehl (2011)feels that many architects and urban planners ignored the human scale; the city they created from an aerial view, ignore the life between buildings that is real space people to use to live and work.

The study on the city background to explore how the new building influence street public behavior in the future.

Gehl (2011)concludes the people social behavior on the street to define the three outdoor activity types: Necessary activities, Optional activities, and Social activities. Every type of activity happens in a different physical environment.

The first is necessary activities that are related to compulsory activities - including going to school or to work and so on. Generally, daily tasks belong to this group, which happens all year and nearly all conditions. The second is optional activities that are recreational and fun; the quality of outdoor space is a crucial factor to decide the incidence of these group activities. The last is social activities that include all activities-depending on the presence of others in public spaces. It covers kids play, greeting, and conversations and all various kinds of outdoor activities. In other words, it develops based on the connection other two activity types, because people are in the same space.

In this essay, based on the definition of three different outdoor activities types explore the influence of the new building and street public behavior by using the ArcGIS tool. The study purpose to first, analysis the three outdoor activities in the whole Melbourne to unpack their relationship, Second, to test the physical environment, including building and street to analysis their existing conditions, what’s the effect about new building on the existing street and what kinds of factors influence public behavior on the street.

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Contents Abstract

2

Introduction

4

Linage Map

6

Methods

8

Site location

13

Observation

14

Outlook

22

Conclution

24

3

Introduction The problem of urbanization in Melbourne in the early The city should be a place where people meet to share, exchange ideas, and relax, while the streets, squares, and parks are a catalyst to make these events happen (. Gehl Jan thinks that city modernists transform their attention to the individual building, not city space. This ideology becomes dominant by 1960. This situation led to many leftover spaces in the city at that time. In 1980, Melbourne’s inner city was filled with different offices, buildings, and high-rise. Almost no people live in the city. The laneway between the building is used to be for access, sewerage, and waste disposal during this time. Therefore, the new buildings didn’t provide vibrant to the city. Based on this situation, Adams discovered a hidden resource in the layout of the downtown grid that is key to attract people back to the city. (Human scale 2012) After, Gehl Jan proposed to the activate city through the rejuvenation of Melbourne laneway. Currently, Melbourne laneways are famous over the world; it transformed them into inviting passages, lined with street café bars, graffiti art, and so on. (Sarah O 2015) Currently, the high-rise building is also a main tend in Melbourne. When are the high-rise buildings built or planned, whether the same problem will happen again? Therefore, the purpose of this image essay base on three types of activities from Gehl Jan explores the potential influence of new building in physical space that how it affects public behavior on the street in the future.

Figure 2 The image relect the laneway in the backside of the buildings, it has a pool physical conditions at 1980, the City Strategy Plan (1985) forcused on the streetscape upgrade, mainly to active city laneway

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Figure 1 The picture shows the 1980 Melbourne city Swanston street, in this period, private car is priority in the street. City is built for the car.

Photograph - Street Decorations, Swanston Street, (Museums Victoria Collections, 2019)

1980 Melbourne city laneway

Photo from Human scale 2012

2018 Melbourne city laneway

Photo by Harry Vincent 5

linage map People-Centred City

INSITITUTIONS PROJECT T I M E

laneways were crappiest space

'safe, comfortable and efficient movement of people and goods'

Melbourne Transportation Plan 1969

City of Melbourne strategy plan 1985

Rob Adams

Henry Bolte's state government

"We made the cities originally so that people could come together, meet each other and together develop the culture of mankind''.

Melbourne Underground Rail Loop 1971

KEY THINKERS

POLICY

THEORY

Car City

Jan Gehl

Gehl

City of Melbourne

improving the pedestrian experience

encourage resi development i central city.

The City’s Grids and Greenery strategy 1987

Rob Adams

City of Melbourne

Postcode 3000 1992

Rob Adams

City of Melbourne

City of Melbou

produce 300 apartments i the central city Public realm improve an extensive freeway network

1970's

underground railway line in CBD

the Melbourne Miracle

upgraded streetdcape

1980's

The linage map shows the type of street develop from 1970 until now. In the city, the street doses't only belong to the transportaion, it change its function and role based on city development. Moreover, in the city area, streets are become an important outdoor space for people to get togther. According to the linage map, it clearly shows that people behavior change on the street from driving the car , take public transport and walking to the street.

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idential in the

Walkable City

'If you can design a good street, you have a good city'

Using public space

0

urne

Revitalization of City Laneways 1993

Life between Buildings 2006

Pedestrian Priority City

Walkability

Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places 2012

Streets as Places

Road Safety Plan 2013-17

A Connected City Walking Plan 2014-17

A great walking city.

Future Melbourne 2026 Plan

Car-free proposal 2012 Rob Adams

Jan Gehl

Robert Doyle

Jeff Speck

Glyn Davis

Cathy Oke

City of Melbourne City of Melbourne

Gehl Island Press

City of Melbourne

City of Melbourne

0 n y

active building frontages for Cafe, retail, shop

Swanston street car-free pedestrian road

2000's

expanded pedestrian network

Transforming Southbank Boulevard and Dodds Street

2020'

7

Methods

Outdoor activities and quality of outdoor sapce

Diagrams from the book The life between city p11

Figure 3 shows the relationship between the quality of the physical environment and three different types of outdoor activities.

When outdoor space quality is poor, the necessary activities happen only.

When the quality of the outdoor space is high, the necessary activities unchanged. Optional activities will increase because good outdoor space quality attracts people to stay longer to make events happen, like a meeting, sit, and play; vice-versa. Furthermore, with the increase of optional activity frequency, the rate of social activities steadily rises as well.

Physical Environment Category

PHYSICAL ENVRIONMENT

HEIGHT BUILDING TYPE

STORE TYPE

BUSINESS FIRST GROUND USE RESIDENTIAL

STORE AMOUNT

WIDTH STREET

ACCESIBILITY FURNITURE TREE'S CANOPY

Gehl (2011)says that the relationship between distance, intensity, closeness, and warm can be used in the perception of people from architectural dimensions. Different building dimensions can generate different spatial scale and perceptions from big to small. Figure 4 clearly shows the spatial relationship between the building and the street. It illustrates the physical environment category; it is divided main two parts-building and street. The building is divided into the category of Height and Type that includes business, residential, and further class is first ground use, including store type and amount. The street is categorized by the width, accessibility, furniture, and tree’s canopy. All information from the diagram are factors to influence the public behavior on outdoor space.

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Outdoor Activity

KernelD_shp1 VALUE ≤30656.0875 ≤61312.175 ≤91968.2625 ≤122624.35 ≤153280.4375 ≤183936.525

optionnal activity necessary activity High ≤245248.7

N Kilometers low

≤275904.7875 social activity ≤306560.875

点4_PointToRaster Value

点_PointToRaster1

0 0.5

1

2

3

4

Value 18982 0

0 0.5 1

2

3

Kilometers 4

3429 0

‘the changed conditions in urban societies are expressed most clearly by recent changes in street life patterns’ (Gehl 2011). Figure 5 shows that the relationship between necessary activities, optional activities, and social activities in Melbourne. Based on the definition of these three types of outdoor activity, the information of necessary activities includes the location of an office building, school, retail, shopping mall, indoor restaurant, church, and school; the information of optional activities includes street furniture, barbecue seats, an outdoor café. The information social activity shows the outdoor pedestrian number per hourly for one month. It clearly illustrates that the density of necessary activities is on CBD (city business center), the distribution of optional activities is as well.

The results show that the Melbourne CBD and Southbank is the main area where three different types of activities take place.

≤214592.6125

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The city should be a place where people meet to share, exchange ideas, and relax, while the streets, squares, and parks are a catalyst to make these events happen. Gehl (2011) thinks that city modernists transform their attention to the individual building, not city space. Figure 6 shows the development of the activity building.

The new building height ranges from 52.8meter to 327meter. Notably, the highest building is located in the CBD and Southbank area.

Figure 7 demonstrates the building height in Melbourne. The high-rise building mainly distributes in the Melbourne CBD and Southbank. According to these two figures building height information, it is an inevitable trend that an increasing number of a high building are built in the city and suburb.

2019 Melbourne building height Value 298.82 0.05

10

0 0.5 1

2

3

Kilometers 4

ÂŻ

Figure 8 shows the accessibility in the melbourne, it clear shows that the CBD has a high accessibility. Trian, bus and tram all these public transport accross the CBD

Esri, HERE, Garmin, (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS user community

pedestrian linepotential gree path potential greentram laneway traker city tram line city trampath stops gree city circle trampotential stop circle metro station accessibiloty bus stop tram traker Metro station bus citystop circle tram stops

Esri, HERE, Garmin, (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS user community

0

1

2

4 Kilometers

0

1

2

4 Kilometers

ÂŻ ÂŻ

metro station accessibiloty bus stop

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Hourly Counts High

Pedestrain sensor Location

These image show the location of the pedestrian sensor in the CBD, and the pedestrian volume they collected. There are two group data chosen to make a comparison: Actual hourly Pedestrian Counts for Saturday 23 March 2019 and Actual hourly Pedestrian Counts for Tuesday 05 March 2019.

Images illustrate different results. Figure 9, it indicates that the pedestrian flow main gathers on02/05/2019 the Bourke My street, little Collins Map street, Pedestrian_Counting_TUSEDAY Southbank, and Arts Center.

Figure 10, the pedestrian Pedestrian_Counting_TUSEDAY hotspot is also collect in the Hourly_Counts Spencer Collins street and High RMIT building 80. Moreover, it can see clearly that the CBD and Southbank is the Low main area where people get together.

LOW

Bourke street

Soutbank Arts center

Hourly Counts High

My Map

Pedestrain sensor Location

LOW

RMIT BUILDING 80

Southern Cross

0.6km

COM, Vicmap, Esri, HERE, Garmin, USGS, METI/NASA

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https://andru666.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/print.html

1

Choose study location

19

I DAY

Y

strian_Counting_

strian_Counting_

y_Counts High

Low

Elizabeth Street

STRIAN ACCOUNT

Bourke street

0.6km

COM, Vicmap, Esri, HERE, Garmin, USGS, METI/NASA

dru666.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/print.html

1/1

Figure 11 shows the location for further study. The location of study areas is selected based on the before the information of pedestrian volume, building height, and the map of three different types of outdoor activities. Based before information, it clearly shows that the Bourke street mall has a higher pedestrian volume no matter the Tuesday and Saturday, and the pedestrian volume of Elizabeth street is not changing between two different days. Besides, these two study areas have different physical environments, including building volumes and height, as well as street quality. The reason I choose two different study areas is that I want to make a comparison to explore the what're the factors make it have different the pedestrian volume results, and what's the role of building to play in these two different study areas, and how the street public behavior is affected. Through the comparison, it is an excellent way to figure out the information of similarities and differences in these study areas.

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Elizabeth Street figure 12 Elizabeth street is the important traffic distribution center . There is the entrance of the melbourne central station, and also a tram station. It is the reason to cause the high pedestrain volume

Tram line Car line

Tram station Car line Central station

Bourke Street figure 13 Bourke Street only have tram pass by, which means that it provide more street space for the pedestrian for outdoor events happen.

Tram line

Car line

Tram station

The figure 12 and 13 shows the building block in Elizabeth street and Bourke street. It is apparent that they have different building context. There is a massive high-rise building in Elizabeth street, and the medium size building forms the Bourke street. Furthermore, the street quality is also different because of the building context. Even though their street has the same width, from the perspective of visual, the Elizabeth street looks like narrower than Bourke street, and the rhythm of pedestrian flow may be higher. The street scale in Bourke street looks like more width, and the rhythm of pedestrian flow may be slower. The Japanese scholar Yoshinobu proposed the spatial ratio of the street. He says that the perception of people in the street space is related to the ratio relation of the width of street(D), the height of the building wall (H). Thus, the height of the building is the one factor to influence public behavior on the street.

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Street Spatial ration

Bourke street

60M 47M

26M

Elizabeth street

ME BANK: 247 M

40M

26M

The figure 14 and 15 shows the building block in Elizabeth street, and figure 13 and 14 illustrate the section of Bourke Street and Elizabeth street. It clearly shows the spatial ration of the street. In the Bourke street, the height of the building on the left side is the 60 meters, and the right side for that is 40 meters. The road width is 26 meters. According to the definition of the spatial ratio of the street (D/H) from Ashihara Yoshinobu, Bourke street, the spatial ratio is D(26m)/H (60m) ≈0.5. It is hard to calculate the spatial ration in Elizabeth street because The different height of the building forms it. To explore the building height will influence the public experience, I choose the highest building Me Bank(247M), so the spatial ratio on Elizabeth Street is D (26m)/H (247m) ≈ 0.1. Ashihara Yoshinobu points out that when the street ratio is D/ H>1, a sense of distance will be gradually generated with the ration increase. The feeling of distance in Bourke Street is more extensive than Elizbeth street. However, it cannot reflect the good or bad quality of the physical environment. It is only one of the spatial sensation that the building generates.

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The figure 16 and 17 shows the building façade on the Bourke street north

figure 16

The street space is formed by the combination of the architectural form on street and façade building. Meanwhile, it is a significant to expression of the street character which is influenced by the volume, form and texture of the façade of the building. Rudofsky points out that the buildings on both sides of the street should have continuity to form a complete street space. The building façade is the stage background of the street, and its form, color, texture all contribution to the expression and characteristic of the street. On the Bourke street, the building is old, and it has a sense of history because of its unique façade, and also it generates a historical atmosphere on the street. In this atmosphere, the historical façade attracts people to take photos and watching. Therefore, the building façade is also a factor to make optional activities happen.

figure 17

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Bourke street North Facade

Elizabeth Street East

figure 18

By contrast, the buildings on Elizabeth Street is the modern building, especially the Me bank building is high, and it is the office building, the materials, like glass and steel give public the sense of alienation.

The other buildings have similar shape and height, and their building facades almost same. According to this information, the building faรงade in Elizabeth street is hard to make interaction to the pedestrian expect for necessary activities. People may not stay for a long time for building faรงade in this street.

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Figure 19

Mall Phamacy Bank

Jewelry Bag Sunglass

Jacobes (1992)points out that to provide the different functions to different buildings is one of the methods to make the street to keep vibrant. Buildings with different functions and different users can create different occupations people use the space in a different time. In Bourke street, there are two large shopping mallMyer and David Jones, and the other retail stores, including clothing, sunglasses, shoes, Jewelry, makeup and so on. The various kinds of stores provide more choices for visitors. Also, these shops have a good show-window to exhibition their products, which are new products or sell products, it can catch victors’ eyes to make them stay and gather.

Moreover, the range of pedestrian activity is lager because of the private-car ban on the crossing. The large street space also gives the opportunity for the shopping mall and store to hold product activities. So, the shopping mall and retail store are the main factors to provide more options for visitors.

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Figure 20

motocycle Phamacy store Cafe and restaaurant bookshop

Grocery Bank Convience

By contrast, the amount of retail stores is less than Bourke street, and the type of retail includes a restaurant, cafÊ, convivence store, outdoor adventure products, and motorcycle store. In this condition, people would be not staying for longer in this street except for taking food; some store types like a motorcycle and outdoor adventures don’t belong to the basic needs for the general public. The site photos show the general public who pass by the store. Moreover, the narrow pedestrian road is hard to shop owners to hold activities. So, the type of street store is also a factor to influence public behavior on the street.

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Figure 21

Bourke Street

Tree

Seat

Figure 21 shows the tree’s canopy on Bourke street. The tree is an essential element to influence public behavior on the street. The tree can provide a canopy for visitors and cooling temperatures in sunny days in the summer, so it benefits for adjusting a micro-climate atmosphere in the street. Moreover, it can keep biodiversity, a certain of number trees can attract birds, it can increase the space interesting. Although in Bourke street, the tree is not the main purpose of attracting people to come here, the tree’s number can be increased because people prefer to sit under the tree.

Moreover, it clearly shows that most of the street furniture are located under the tree. Gehl (2011, p.

130) points out that it is possible for making people stay a long time that needs to create good physical environment quality to achieve it. He also says that ‘the existing of excellent opportunities for sitting paves the way for numerous activities that are prime attractions in public space: eating, reading, sleeping, knitting, sunbathing, watching people, talking, and so on. The site photo shows the seat layout in Bourke street. There is various seat layout in Bourke street; it is thoughtfully arranged in a different location. These seats’ arrangement also increases the chance to interact with site events, like watching street show.

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Figure 22

Elizabeth Street

Tree

Seat

Figure 22 shows the trees canopy on Elizabeth street. The result shows that there a row of continue tree is planted the right of street, and there is only one tree on the left. The reason for that is building form. But it doesn’t influence people waking on the left street, where arcades provide the function for the pedestrian.

Moreover, It is worthy noticed that the street seat face to the building, not street. There are two reasons; the first is that people seat in front of the shop can have a visual interaction to the shop; another reason is safe.

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Outlook Figure 23

Elizabeth Street

il reta

tral n e C rne u o b st Mel ale d s lon il ttle A A

Church

il reta le sda

lon

st all

mM u i r o

Emp

ll

t Ma e e r t ke S

r

Bou

Pedestrain flow Proposed Road closed to traffic Road closed to traffic Proposed footpath extention The figure 23 shows the furture proposal plan in Elizabeth Street. Because of the high pedestrain volume and physical envrionment conditio, Elizabeth Street can be proposed to close the traffic road, to provide more space for pedestraim

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Figure 24 shows the high Pedestrian volume on Elizabeth Street

Pedestrain volum

Image from Melbourne Walking Plan 2014-17 p 52

Figure 25

Proposal section A-A Figure 25 shows the proposal of the street secenario

Long term Optional activities

1.Provide an active front to buildings on at least oneside of the street space or plaza 2. Creat a small node space for pedestrain to take break, like tree pool furniture 3.Enable adjacent businesses to use the street space for Cafe furniture and to display merchandise

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Conclusion

Figure 25-30

Gehl, J 2011. Life between buildings: using public space.

Island press

figure 20-24

Figure 25-30 shows different public behavior on the street. It shows clearly that there are lots of events, like street performance, sales activity to attract people to stop for listening. By Contrast, Elizabeth street is quieter.

The objective of this image essay was to explore how the element of buildings generate space quality, which can influence the street people behavior. Using the definition of necessary activity, optional activity and social activity from Gehl Jan to be a methodology explore the what kinds of physical environment factors will influence these three types of people behavior and how to create a good physical environment to improve the optional activities on the street.

Althought, each of street have different features, in term of physical envrionment quality, it can also be improved to create good space to make peopel to stay. For example, from the prcecedent "The Creative Corridor for little Rock'', -'Rrestructures the corridor in to a node utilizing the urbansim of streetscapes'.

Through the node in the street, node space can attract more people to stay longer in the street.

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Refrence Ashihara, Y 1983. The aesthetic townscape

Gehl, J 2011. Life between buildings: using public space. Island press

Jacobs, J 1992. The death and life of great American cities. 1961. New York: Vintage.

Jacobs, J 1992. The death and life of great American cities. 1961. New York: Vintage.

Sarah O 2015 Melbourne: A Case Study in the Revitalization of City Laneways, Part 1 Viewed 2 May 2019 <https://www.theurbanist.org/2015/09/16/ melbourne-a-case-study-in-therevitalization-of-city-laneways-part-1/> Rudofsky, B 1969. Streets for People: a primer for Americans. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

The Human Scale 2012, DVD, Madman Entertainment, directed by Andreas M. Dalsgaard

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