Seoul city government made "the 1st Seoul Pedestrian Master Plan(1998)" according to the importance of pedestrian activity in the city, as a result, the series of 'Making Walkable Streets' project - 'making a model street by autonomous districts', 'ma...
Seoul city government made "the 1st Seoul Pedestrian Master Plan(1998)" according to the importance of pedestrian activity in the city, as a result, the series of 'Making Walkable Streets' project - 'making a model street by autonomous districts', 'making historic & cultural streets', etc- have been performed since 2001.
The evaluation of these projects is to obtain good results like improvement of the fundamental pedestrian's environment, while most citizen's recognition are to be short of impressive streets. There are several reasons, the first is insufficient consecrate planning and implement of streetscape, and the second is to be lack of survey of users' streets image and to be poor physical elements for making impressive streets images, and the third reason is to be scarcely any streets with attractive functions for many different types of human behavior.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of the projects' streetscape for street design elements to be considered. According to this purpose, this study conducted a questionnaire survey of pedestrians of 9 streets among the projects' streets about images - choosing impressive physical elements and the feeling of the street by the list of adjective of semantic differential scale-and the preference and main behavior, and analyzed constitution of impressive elements by the streets and correlation between the elements of the street and the feeling of users.
The approaches of this study were as follows.
The first, issues and valuation method of the streetscape were derived from a literature survey of the streetscape and the environmental psychology. The second, the adjective list which were used for evaluation of streetscape and the physical elements list of street which were used for choosing the impressive factor were drawn from a preliminary survey of pedestrians which were answered subjective questions. The third, a survey questionnaire with these lists was conducted to 30 persons each street. The fourth, the figure elements, the semi-figure elements, the ground elements were defined according to the frequency and the type of the impressive physical elements which meant 'the imageability'. The Fifth, the psychological factors of the streetscape were derived from the factor analysis, and the correlation analysis between these psychological factors and the figure elements, the semi-figure elements, the ground elements was performed. The sixth, two regression formulas were drawn, the one was a formula between the visual preference and the psychological factors, the other was between the complexity and the psychological factors, and the correlation analysis between these visual preference/the complexity and the impressive physical elements was also performed. The seventh, the visual preference-the human behaviors relations were analyzed by the frequency and the type of behaviors. Finally, the 9 streets were classified by the psychological reaction of the users and the physical elements which were reconstituted in the figure elements, the semi-figure elements, the ground elements.
The results of this study are as follows.
The first, the figure elements means that people recognize them well(more than 50% frequency) and these are unique and single elements on the street, the semi-figure elements were defined that these things were not single, but also could be recognized well by people, and the ground elements are not the single and the acknowledgeable. The most streets(9 streets) would not be founded the figure or the semi-figure elements, therefore it was proved that streets had been poor physical elements for making impressive streets images.
The second, the correlation between the figure elements, the semi-figure elements, the ground elements and the feeling of people were the figure elements related to 'old fashioned, tasteful, intimate' feeling, the semi-figure elements related to 'urban, dynamic, complex' feeling, and the groudn figure elements related to ' uniform, static' feeling.
The third, psychological factors which influenced on the visual preference were 'aesthetic & order sense', 'energetic & mysterious sense', 'convenient & safe sense', and 'sense with time' , and many sign boards were founded to have bad influence on the preference. In case of the complexity, 'aesthetic & order sense', 'energetic & mysterious sense', 'convenient & safe sense', 'sense with time', and 'the height of buildings' were related to, and it also had correlation deterioration of buildings, showcases, pavement conditions, signboards, street-furnitures, human activities, and a unique natural resource around the street.
The fourth, the correlation between psychological factors and impressive physical elements were that 'aesthetic & order sense' related to a symbolic tower on the street, signboards, and street-furnitures, and 'energetic & mysterious sense' related to human activities, and 'convenient & safe sense' related to the height of buildings, the shape of the street, and the resting place on the street.
The fifth, as the visual preference were higher, the frequency of the optional activities on the street would be higher, but as the preference were lower, the frequency of the necessary activities would be higher.
Finally, the type of 9 streets which were classified by street images of pedestrians were 'urban dynamic type(Myungdong-gil, Myungmul street)' which were constituted in the complex semi-figure elements, 'urban amenity enhancing type(Insadong-gil, Daehaak-ro, Univ.Hongik' reformed street of expired railroad)' showed high preference, 'historic-static type(Donhwamun-ro, Jungdong-gil) were constituted in the static and calm ground elements, and 'cut-and-dried type(Yeouido station-gil, Apgujeong-ro)' were streets without any character.