How to identify urban design qualities through the matrix analysis of built environments

Abstract The qualities of urban design introduced by built environments that are important for foot travels are the imaginability, legibility, enclosure, transparency, human scale, linkage, coherence, complexity and tidiness. This premise contextualizes a model that enables the reading of built environments in such a way that the qualities present in them can be described and measured. With the observation of a street, its physical and functional aspects are characterized and, with the combination of these characteristics of the built environment, it is possible to identify what qualities exist in the place. As a case study, 91 streets in the city of Lisbon were selected through eliminatory and classificatory criteria. It was possible perceive the great diversity of elements present in the same set of similar streets. These elements make the qualities present in the streets very diverse, although the selection criteria were similar. For the urban planner, this can serve as an analytical tool of aspects that influence the presence or absence that certain qualities in the channel space, being possible to proceed consciously on the qualification of spaces to turn them more suitable for pedestrians.

摘要 步行出行视角下，建成环境所承载的核心城市设计品质包括可意象性、可识别性、围合性、通透性、人本尺度、连通性、连贯性、复杂性与整洁度。该研究前提为一套建成环境解读模型搭建了理论语境，使得对建成环境中蕴含的各类设计品质进行描述与量化成为可能。通过对单条街道的实地观测，可对其物理与功能属性进行特征提取；结合上述建成环境特征，即可识别该街道空间所具备的相关设计品质。本研究以里斯本市为案例，通过淘汰性与分类性筛选标准选取了91条街道作为研究样本。研究发现，尽管筛选标准一致，但相似街道集合中所包含的空间元素却呈现出极高的多样性；此类元素差异使得不同街道的设计品质呈现出显著分化，即便其初始筛选标准相近。对于城市规划从业者而言，该模型可作为分析工具，用于探究影响街道空间特定设计品质存在与否的各类影响因子，从而能够有意识地开展空间品质优化工作，使街道空间更适配步行出行需求。