Observing other pedestrians: Investigating the typical distance and duration of fixation

After dark, road lighting should enhance the visual component of pedestrians’ interpersonal judgements such as evaluating the intent of others. Investigation of lighting effects requires better understanding of the nature of this task as expressed by the typical distance at which the judgement is made (and hence visual size) and the duration of observation, which in past studies have been arbitrary. Better understanding will help with interpretation of the significance of lighting characteristics such as illuminance and light spectrum. Conclusions of comfort distance in past studies are not consistent and hence this article presents new data determined using eye-tracking. We propose that further work on interpersonal judgements should examine the effects of lighting at a distance of 15 m with an observation duration of 500 ms

Engrained experience—a comparison of microclimate perception schemata and microclimate measurements in Dutch urban squares

Acceptance of public spaces is often guided by perceptual schemata. Such schemata also seem to play a role in thermal comfort and microclimate experience. For climate-responsive design with a focus on thermal comfort it is important to acquire knowledge about these schemata. For this purpose, perceived and “real” microclimate situations were compared for three Dutch urban squares. People were asked about their long-term microclimate perceptions, which resulted in “cognitive microclimate maps”. These were compared with mapped microclimate data from measurements representing the common microclimate when people stay outdoors. The comparison revealed some unexpected low matches; people clearly overestimated the influence of the wind. Therefore, a second assumption was developed: that it is the more salient wind situations that become engrained in people’s memory. A comparison using measurement data from windy days shows better matches. This suggests that these more salient situations play a role in the microclimate schemata that people develop about urban places. The consequences from this study for urban design are twofold. Firstly, urban design should address not only the “real” problems, but, more prominently, the “perceived” problems. Secondly, microclimate simulations addressing thermal comfort issues in urban spaces should focus on these perceived, salient situations

Spatial morphology and urban heat island: comparative case studies

Urbanisation is a process associated with the global industrial and technological development. Globally, this process causes a continuous change of the land cover and increases the urban areas. Scholars from various disciplines address these changes that affect the global climatic system, microclimate and the environment. Urban heat island (UHI) is considered as one of the climatic change phenomena which are associated with the urbanisation process. This phenomenon increases the air temperature in the urban areas compared by the surrounding rural ones. This makes up for the problem of overlook the local scale analysis of the UHI and focuses on the mesoscale. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the urban structures in residential areas of Cairo and the UHI. The research methods use remote sensing techniques and field monitoring devices to catch the variances in the air temperature. The key finding figured out the importance of considering the configuration of urban patterns in development plans. Future research in studying the phenomenon is needed for addressing the exact effect of each urban morphology parameters on UHI and analysing the spatial and temporal distribution of the phenomenon throughout various periods of the different the seasons

Place-making and performance: The impact of walkable built environments on business performance in Phoenix and Boston

This paper examines the importance of place-making in economic development by evaluating the relationship between specific urban design features – based on Jacobs’ “four generators of diversity” and Ewing and Cervero’s “Five-D’s” – and business sales volume. Despite the increased recognition of the importance of walkable urbanism in recent years, relatively little research has assessed the potential economic development benefits of walkable places. While a few authors have assessed the impact of urban design on property values, this paper fills a gap by examining links between components of walkable built environments and individual business characteristics. This paper uses a Hierarchical Linear Modeling framework to explicitly look at the relationship between neighborhood built environment features at the Census tract level and the sales volume per employee of individual businesses in 2010. The cities of Phoenix and Boston are used as contrasting study sites in order to inspect how larger regional characteristics influence the built environment–performance link. The results indicate that specific features of walkable built environments are positively associated with business performance. However, the relationship between walkable built environments and business performance varies considerably depending on the type of business and city-level context being studied, indicating that significant nuance must be used when considering place-based economic interventions. Although no causal statements can be made about the built environment and business performance, the results of this paper indicate that (in some contexts) design-based place-making initiatives could be used to generate sustainable local economic development