An Examination of the relationship between outdoor activities and physical quality of street spaces

Abstract

The knowledge inputs by the professionals in the field of urban design, is pleased by the emerging awareness of making vibrant urban spaces which is somewhat beyond the current practice of just providing basic infrastructure or establishing physical assets which is more common in road infrastructure developments in Sri Lankan context. Thus, the time is good for a change to move away from the current approaches and practices to convert our roads to streets and look in to them as a vital part of public realm. For such an initiation, it would be very much useful to have a thorough understanding about our streets and human activities occurring there. Therefore, this study has been focused on examining possible relationships exist between the occurrence of street activities and the physical quality ofstreets in Sri Lankan urban context. Jan Gehl’s explanation of three categories of outdoor activities has been taken as the underlining theoretical basis to conduct this study whereas the main street of Ambalangoda has been selected as a case study. Accordingly, based on the magnitude of accruing optional and social activities particularly, it has been attempted to identify special features and attributes associated with built environment as responsive to such activities. The research findings have been analyzed using graphical analysis tools and ultimately this study derives some key points which may support in street design endeavours looking forward of creating more responsive physical environments which better suit with Sri Lankan urban context. This study reveals that, street activities are noticeably responsive to the quality of physical environment. The detail analyses done on the built environment reveals about some of key features in the physical environment where social activities are particularly attracted to those spaces being vital parts of the urban public realm.