SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE BUILDING AND DESIGN
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM [ARC 61303] PROJECT 2: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY
A COMPARISON OF PEDESTRIAN INTENSITY BETWEEN CHARLES STREET AND PETALING STREET
NAME:
MELISSA ANNE MEI HONG LI
STUDENT ID:
0320729
LECTURER:
MR. NAZMI ANUAR
SUBMISSION DATE:
28TH NOVEMBER, 2016
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1.0 INTRODUCTION “First life, then spaces, then buildings; the other way around never works.” This thought provoking quote by Danish architect and urban planning consultant Jan Gehl is a perfect summation of his ideologies on the manner in which urban cities should be thought of, planned, designed and sustained for the future. In Gehl’s eyes city planning/architecture best serves its purpose if built to suit the lives of its inhabitants – the people; for they are the life force of any built form or space. The intensity of public activity and interaction is a good determinant of the character and identity of a city. Gehl categorises 3 types of activity under which public interaction is formed: necessary, optional and social activities. Such activities lead to the formation of contact points of varying intensity in public spaces. While buildings inevitably inform public activities the focus of these contact points lies in the spaces between buildings. Hence, sidewalks and street corners have the potential to offer much more than their intended functional purpose which is to ease pedestrian flow; they can inject life into a city scape. While drawing parallels between some of the key aspects from Gehl’s extract: Life Between Buildings, this essay focuses firstly on the comparison of patterns in pedestrian intensity that result from contact points on two streets: Charles Street, Boston MA and Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur. Secondly, it provides personal observations and opinions based on differing aspects of both streets that lead to these patterns of pedestrian intensity while also giving reference to a few ideologies of well-known architectural theorists. 2.0 A STREET SCENE: CHARLES STREET VS. PETALING STREET 2.1 CHARLES STREET, BOSTON Charles Street is a north-south street in the city centre of Boston, MA. The Northern end of the street is famous for its townhouses, apartments, high end boutique stores, galleries and home accessory shops with many restaurants and cafes while the south end forms a boundary between Boston Common and the Boston Public Garden.
Figure 1 Plan view of Charles Street with its contact points. 2|Page
An example of a street view of Charles Street shown in Figure 2 below, is indicative of a pleasant, well a maintained outdoor environment that encourages optional and social gatherings. Gehl refers to this aspect of urban planning in his writings where he mentions that the outdoor environment is an influential factor in occurrence of public activity.
Figure 2 Charles Street views A look at the street section in Figure 3 confirms this, as it shows contact points and varying levels of pedestrian intensity. *Note A portion of the Western side of the street is taken for this analysis.
Figure 3 Western faรงade of the street showing various contact points at different locations of the street
2.2 PETALING STREET, KUALA LUMPUR Petaling Street is the Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur. Located along Jalan Petaling, this famous street is a tourist hotspot with many types of trading activities, markets and food stalls knitted closely around a variety of high-end and budget hotels.
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Figure 4 Site Plan showing location of Chinatown on Jalan Petaling The outdoor environment of Petaling Street however, is a complete contrast to that of Charles Street. It is a place where the hustle and bustle never ends. Trading activities spill out from the shophouses in the form of transient markets. The atmosphere is loud and the weather is hot. The markets are placed close to each other resulting in the lack of good ventilation. The street in general is untidy and not well maintained. Despite its rather gritty conditions, visitors both foreign and local, pour into Petaling Street either to dine on the famous street food or to get good bargains on a variety of items that are sold at the markets. A perspective view of the street in Figure 5 below shows potential contact points of local food stalls and markets with a constant pedestrian intensity along the entire street.
Fig 5 Perspective Showing Petaling Street with not as many distinguished contact points 4|Page
From the observations above, there is a slight contradiction with Gehl’s emphasis on the state of the outdoor environment. The conditions of Charles Street are more pleasant compared to Petaling Street and allow for a variety of contact points. Despite this, the pedestrian intensity on Charles Street is only concentrated at certain points along the street. In the case of Petaling Street, the pedestrian intensity is consistently high but the number of contact points are less. Which again is strange as the higher the number of contact points, more people are attracted to the place. Petaling Street somehow manages to achieve this without the presence of prominent contact points. This then brings us to the question: Despite its gritty outdoor conditions and lack of specific contact points, what makes Petaling Street a thriving destination that results in constant high pedestrian intensity? 3.0 URBAN BUILT FORMS 3.1 SIGNAGE AND SCALE Jan Gehl implies a very strong message when he speaks of architecture as an interplay of life and form. What he emphasizes is the importance of scale in urban design. For him, human scale is vital when designing for it can heavily influence the way public spaces are experienced. Look at this in the context of Charles Street and Petaling Street. The scale of the street and the buildings that line it are different in both cases. As you walk through Petaling Street, you feel a closer connection to the space because of its smaller scale. Activities and communication work because of proximity and it is this element of proximity that helps you navigate through the public space encouraging new discovery and allowing you to remain longer within that space which accounts for its high pedestrian intensity. This could potentially explain why there are a few noticeable contact points along the street; proximity could ensure that the entire street be considered as one collective contact point. Therefore, pedestrians are drawn in not because of the presence of a contact point but rather by the proximity and scale of the activities within this urban context. Charles street however, lacks this sense of connection as tall commercial and residential buildings surround pedestrians. However, what it lacks in scale, it makes up for in signage. While pedestrians are drawn to Petaling Street via scale and proximity of activity, Charles Street makes use of commercial signs to draw people in, inevitably creating a more target oriented experience which could possibly account for the pin pointed, varying levels of pedestrian intensity. 3.2 INTERMEDIARY SPACES Japanese Architect Kisho Kurukawa in his writings suggests a very interesting comparison between Western architecture and Japanese architecture. He describes Western spaces as being “discrete” while Japanese spaces are “continuous” and one with nature. He further describes the significance of the wall and how Westerners use it to conquer nature hence creating a division between the exterior environment and the interior space. In Japan, effort is put into integrating the out and in via the use of intermediary spaces. The same can be said in the comparison of Charles Street and Petaling Street. In Charles Street, much of the activity takes place within the building itself, except for a few that occur in open public spaces like the outdoor café area. Canopies and benches create contact points, but they are only available at certain points on the street, but don’t run continuously along it which is another reason for the pedestrian
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intensity to be confined to specific locations along the street as pedestrians are only drawn to the activities that lie inside the buildings. However, at Petaling Street, the 5 Ft veranda-way originally designed in relation to climatic conditions, has become an intermediary space that blurs the boundary between the interior and exterior. But it is not only the interior and exterior aspect of the space but also the interior and exterior aspect of activity. Trading activities have spilled out into the street as indicated in Figure 6, to form a type of transient street market culture thus resulting in a kind of symbiosis of all trading activities along the whole street of Chinatown. Hence, the resulting high pedestrian intensity is not only influenced by the built form, but also by the type of trading activities that spill out from the buildings and extend along the whole street.
4.0 UNIVALENT VS. MULTIVALENT NATURE OF ACTIVITY Theorist Charles Jencks writes of a univalent and multivalent nature in which something can either portray a clear meaning or it can expose itself to a variety of different interpretations. In a way, Charles Street and Petaling Street are univalent and multivalent respectively based upon the type of activities that result in contact points being made. On Charles street, the activities are more target oriented where signage acts as the navigator- the type of programme/activity is already indicated. Petaling street however is more dynamic in terms of its activity. Proximity acts as the navigator. The spaces and activities are constantly changing, complex and profoundly multivalent. Despite this, they both allow for involuntary/passive contacts to be made amongst pedestrians. But what is most interesting is the manner in which these passive contacts are formed. At Charles Street, majority of contact points formed are from necessary activity due to the type of function taking place within a building. The function of the building or the purpose of visiting it maybe univalent, but it still induces a form of contact amongst pedestrians. Gehl further emphasizes on this aspect by writing that contact made at a modest level such as a chance meeting or a contact formed over shared activity could be a potential for the contact to develop to another level. For example, a mere trip to the grocery store for a mundane purpose can lead to a conversation with someone unknown who has the same shared interests and could lead to acquaintances being made. In the case of Petaling street, the entire streetscape revolves around spontaneous experiences and discovery being made which lead to the formation of passive contacts. 6|Page
5.0 CONCLUSION Having observed the two distinguishing aspects of pedestrian intensity through the location of contact points in both Charles Street and Petaling Street, the major aspect that stands out is how both streets engage the pedestrians in a different manner. The urban form plays a major role in how the people move along in Charles Street for it is the buildings themselves that become contact points. Majority of public interaction takes place within the building, resulting in varying pedestrian intensities closer to the proximity of that particular building. But in the case of Petaling Street, it is more to do with proximity and human interaction because of the scale at which these activities take place in, and as large numbers of people move through the street, it draws in more, attracting their curiosity. Therefore, it is clear that context is of utmost importance for the character of social activities and pedestrian movement varies depending on the location it belongs to.
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