Browsing by Author "Meetiyagoda, L"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

item: Article-Full-text
Imageability and legibility: cognitive analysis and visibility assessment in galle heritage city
(Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and Taylor & Francis., 2022) Abeynayake, T; Meetiyagoda, L; Kankanamge, N; Mahanama, PKS
The concepts of imageability and legibility are important aspects of urban design. Many scholars use the terms “imageability” and “legibility” interchangeably, usually examining one concept and applying the implications to the other. This research explores the relationship between these two concepts by answering the research questions: 1. how do people perceive the saliency of landmarks (imageability) and 2. how does the spatial configuration facilitate the visibility level of landmarks (legibility)? The Galle Heritage City in Sri Lanka is considered as the case study. The first part of the empirical study is to assess the level of imageability of urban space users by completing 100 cognitive maps and producing a composite cognitive map that indicates the structural landmarks’ salience or the level of imageability. The second part is the level of legibility of the landmarks by employing the visibility assessment process and the third part compares the two results with a concurrence matrix. The findings highlight that there is a positive relationship between people’s perception (imageability) and level of visibility (legibility). Further, imageability mostly depends on semantic properties than legibility, but legibility predominantly depends on structural properties and visual properties are almost equally important to both concepts.
item: Article-Full-text
Towards great streets: an empirical approach to study a streetscape
Meetiyagoda, L; Munasinghe, J
This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need for such method is felt in a context that designing streets has been an area of wider concern but without adequately developed guides. Improving streets and their qualities necessitates an appropriate understanding of their presently available characteristics and therefore, demand robust methods for that purpose. The method presented in this paper is evolved upon Alan Jacob specified ‘requirements’ for a ‘great street’. It demonstrates a process for the evaluation of a streetscape in relation to a set of physical attributes, derived from Jacob’s requirements. The attributes are derived though diagnostics analysis of the requirements with the support of the other literature available in this area. Their strength is tested in a selected street segment of the Galle Road in Sri Lanka.
item: Article-Full-text
Towards great streets: an empirical approach to study a streetscape
Meetiyagoda, L; Munasinghe, J
This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need for such method is felt in a context that designing streets has been an area of wider concern but without adequately developed guides. Improving streets and their qualities necessitates an appropriate understanding of their presently available characteristics and therefore, demand robust methods for that purpose. The method presented in this paper is evolved upon Alan Jacob specified ‘requirements’ for a ‘great street’. It demonstrates a process for the evaluation of a streetscape in relation to a set of physical attributes, derived from Jacob’s requirements. The attributes are derived though diagnostics analysis of the requirements with the support of the other literature available in this area. Their strength is tested in a selected street segment of the Galle Road in Sri Lanka.
item: Article-Full-text
Towards great streets: an empirical approach to study a streetscape
Meetiyagoda, L; Munasinghe, J
It is practically possible to construct masonry loadbearing structures that will not show any cracks due to differential settlements caused by foundation provided that proper precautions taken. Taking adequate precautions is always better than cure. Designers and builders can do much to reduce the frequency of such cracks by choosing appropriate materials, details, methods and quality control measures. When cracks occur due to weaknesses of foundations, considerable amount of money has to be spent on the rectification of those. If the cost due to the loss of utility during the repair is then added to the actual cost of repair, it becomes clear that the elimination of foundation defects would give valuable financial benefits.
item: Article-Full-text
Towards Great Streets: An Empirical Approach to Study a Streetscape
(2016-08-18) Meetiyagoda, L; Munasinghe, J
This paper presents an attempt to device an empirical method for streetscape analysis. The need for such method is felt in a context that designing streets has been an area of wider concern but without adequately developed guides. Improving streets and their qualities necessitates an appropriate understanding of their presently available characteristics and therefore, demand robust methods for that purpose. The method presented in this paper is evolved upon Alan Jacob specified 'requirements' for a 'great street'. It demonstrates a process for the evaluation of a streetscape in relation to a set of physical attributes, derived from Jacob's requirements. The attributes are derived though diagnostics analysis of the requirements with the support of the other literature available in this area. Their strength is tested in a selected street segment of the Galle Road in Sri Lanka.
item: SRC-Report
Withstanding the forces : a study of the spatial configuration as the factor of organizing activities in small cities
Meetiyagoda, L; Bandara, A; Munasinghe, J
Small cities in Asia will have to play a major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable share of the world urban population by the mid of this century will be living in them. Planning their growth thus, has become a need of the day, and to support their planning with better informed decisions research is urgently needed in many aspects of small cities. One such important aspect is the dynamics of the configuration of spaces, which the existing body of knowledge in planning, has yet not fully explained and, towards which the planning approaches are conventionally least sensitive. In that context, this paper explores the dynamics of the spatial order in two small cities in Sri Lanka, namely Galle and Rathnapura. The two cities have been experiencing two types of forces associated with their growth and change. The first is the set of endogenous forces that urges them to change, sometimes expanding outward from their boundaries. The second is the flux of exogenous forces, among which technocratic urban planning process and recurrent and unexpected natural disasters are the prominent. Rathnapura city experienced annual floods, and a planned intervention to overcome that, and Galle city experienced a sudden tsunami disaster and an unplanned project based intervention that affected its growth. The interventions resulted in a reconfigurations and changes in the spatial order of activities in both cities, but in manners that were unprecedented by the planning agencies. The paper discusses this phenomenon of self-organizing, responding to the effects of external forces of change, as a function of the ‘spatial configuration': that is the overall composition of spatial elements, to determine the ‘activity pattern': that is the order of the location of activities in space. The spatial configurations and the activity patterns of these two cities before and after the said interventions are compared. The pattern of the activity spaces are studied with activity mapping and the spatial configurations are studied using Space Syntax
item: SRC-Report
Withstanding the Forces: A Study of the Spatial Configuration as the Factor of Organizing Activities in Small Cities
(2016-08-18) Meetiyagoda, L; Bandara, A; Munasinghe, J
Small cities in Asia will have to playa major role in future urban scenario, as a considerable share of the world urban population by the mid of this century will be living in them. Planning their growth thus, has become a need of the day, and to support their planning with better informed decisions research is urgently needed in many aspects of small cities. One such important aspect is the dynamics of the configuration of spaces, which the existing body of knowledge in planning has yet not fully explained and, towards which the planning approaches are conventionally least sensitive. In that context, this paper explores the dynamics of the spatial order in two small cities in Sri Lanka, namely Galle and Rathnapura. The two cities have been experiencing two types of forces associated with their growth and change. The first is the set of endogenous forces that urges them to change, sometimes expanding outward from their boundaries. The second is the flux of exogenous forces, among which technocratic urban planning process and recurrent and unexpected natural disasters are the prominent. Rathnapura city experienced annual floods, and a planned intervention to overcome that, and Galle city experienced asudden tsunami disaster and an unplanned project based intervention that affected its growth. The interventions resulted in a reconfigurations and changes in the spatial order of activities in both cities, but in manners that were unprecedented by the planning agencies. The paper discusses this phenomenon of self-organizing, responding to the effects of external forces of change, as a function of the 'spatial configuration': that is the overall composition of spatial elements, to determine the 'activity pattern': that is the order of the location of activities in space. The spatial configurations and the activity patterns of these two cities before and after the said interventions are compared. The pattern of the activity spaces are studied with activity mapping and the spatial configurations are studied using Space Syntax.
item: Article-Full-text
හරිත නගර සංකල්පයේ කාලීන අවශ්‍යතාව: විමර් ශනාත්මක විමසුමක්
(Central Environmental Authority, 2019) මීටියාගොඩ, එල්; Meetiyagoda, L
හරිත නගර සංකල්පයේ මූලධර් මය වන්නේ චක්‍රීය නාගරික පරිවෘත්තියයි. එනම් චක්‍රීය ආකාරයට එකිනෙකට බැඳුණු ඒකක දාම ව්‍යුහගත වීමයි. එක ඒකකයක ක්‍රියාකාරීත්වය අනෙක් ඒකක ක්‍රියාකාරීත්වයට අත්‍යවශ්‍ය වන අතර සෑම ඒකකයකම සාර් ථක ක්‍රියාකාරීත්වය තුළින් සජීව ලෙස හරිත නගරය ක්‍රියාත්මක වේ. මෙම හරිත නගරවල ප්‍රධාන අරමුණ වන්නේ ඉතාමත් සීමිත සම්පතක් වූ භූමි පරිභෝජනය අවම කරගැනීම, බලශක්තිය හා ස්වභාවික සම්පත් අවම ලෙස පරිභෝජනය කිරීම ස්වභාවික පරිසරය රැක ගැනීම සහ අවසානයේ කාබනික අපද්‍රව්‍ය පරිසරයට මුදා හැරීම ශුන්‍ය කිරීමයි.