Until relatively recently the pedestrian has been largely
ignored in the planning process. It was therefore decided
to focus in this study on the pedestrian. The setting was
confined to low and medium density residential areas for
three reasons: (1) most pedestrian planning has been done
in the central business district; (2) much of it in the past
has been ad hoc but emerging analytical techniques useful
for high density areas were considered beyond the scope of
this study to employ; and (3) many of the solutions appropriate
for high density areas are not applicable in areas of lower
density.
The objective was to formulate preferable alternatives
and improvements to the typical pedestrian system in low and
medium density residential areas from an analysis of scientific
and design literature. As this suggests, the study was
concerned with an aspect of the design portion of the planning
process. It was proposed to formulate a number of patterns
in order to arrive at the objective.
Patterns are a recently evolved design method. Each
pattern has four components: (1) a context or specific setting,
(2) a specific problem which reoccurs in the described context,
(3) a prescription describing a physical or functional relationship
or design image which will prevent the problem from
occurring, and (4) discussion which describes the problem
more fully and presents the data--empirical, if available--
upon which the prescription is based. Hence patterns are
reuseable design ideas or images; from them actual designs
are generated for use in any situation with the same context.
The use of patterns had important implications for this
study, their formulation constituted the basic methodology,
and the patterns formulated were the product or results.
The major groups of pedestrians--pre-school and school
children, housewives and retired persons--were isolated as
a result of two surveys, and major pedestrian planning
objectives--convenience, activities and comfort--were defined
in order to have a concise basis from which to formulate
the patterns.
Each of the patterns formulated was of a broad, generic
nature applicable to all user groups, although concerned with
only one or two objectives. As a test of their validity the
patterns were applied to two residential areas in metropolitan
Vancouver. While some of the patterns were able to be applied
to the built environment, it was considered that the inability
to apply all of them did not render them invalid for reasons
inherent in the application process.
It was concluded that the empirical data used in the
formulation of the patterns together with the application
of the patterns to the existing environment gave strong
indications that the objectives had been met. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/42122 |
| Date | January 1972 |
| Creators | Rodger, Ruth Corinna |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds