Search Results (3)

As China’s urban development enters the era of stock optimization, the practice of transforming and utilizing spaces under urban overpasses is rapidly gaining momentum. Converting these underpass spaces into sports areas has emerged as a new form of creating public space. Understanding the perceptions of users from different age groups towards these underpass spaces holds significant guiding value for optimizing the design of such areas and improving the quality of service. Taking the Yanshan Interchange Lowline Park in Jinan as an example, this research applied methods of observation, interviews, questionnaires, and importance–satisfaction analysis (ISA) to investigate the activity preferences and the similarities and differences in the perceptions of spatial environment elements in underpass spaces among four age groups: children, youth, middle-aged adults, and the elderly. The findings indicate that different age groups exhibit varying degrees of sensitivity to spatial information, demand levels, and perceptual perspectives in underline parks, which result in distinct spatiotemporal distributions and spatial perception disparities when using the park. All the groups agree that the underpass sports space requires significant improvements in terms of comfort and safety. Based on this, this study proposes age-friendly urban space renewal strategies for spaces under elevated highways, focusing on addressing areas with lower satisfaction across all age groups. These strategies include optimizing the allocation of time, area, and activity types within activity spaces, enhancing the safety and comfort of activity areas, and enriching the cultural connotation and inclusivity of the space. This research provides a theoretical basis for optimizing and creating age-friendly or age-specific urban sports public spaces under elevated highways. Full article

In modern urban development, utilizing the space under overpasses (SUO) contributes to connecting the cityscape and facilitating the transformation of SUO into a public urban space. However, existing studies sometimes fail to properly take into account user requirements, resulting in the neglect of the SUO by the population. The solutions proposed are based on the assumption that the SUO can be renewed, but there is no thorough evaluation methodology to determine if the current state of the SUO can be renewed and in which areas it needs renewal. In this research, all the overpasses within the Third Ring Road in Chengdu are taken as samples. Based on cultural ecosystem services (CES) and external spatial quality (ESQ), an evaluation system for the renewal potential of SUO was established and the overpass with the most potential for regeneration was selected: the Longtan Overpass. Further, the KANO model was used to explore the categories of residents’ requirements for indicators of CES in the space under Longtan Overpass, so as to propose targeted renewal strategies. This study found a positive correlation between the satisfaction of residents living near Longtan Overpass and the natural aesthetics and facade landscape of the SUO. It also suggests that enhancing cultural service indicators such as sports, human aesthetics, customs and humanities, and geographical history can improve the attractiveness of the SUO. This study also found that quantitatively assessing the value of SUO through ecosystem cultural services is feasible, which provides new ideas and methods for updating SUO. These findings help urban designers understand how people feel. Full article

The overpasses and the terrain under them in Chongqing, a mountainous city in China, are complex and diverse, and some spaces under the overpasses are integrated and reconstructed into the underpass green space for citizens to stroll about or have a rest. From the perspective of visitor perception, this paper constructs a perception evaluation system of the environmental characteristics of underpass green space in mountainous cities from the following five environmental perception dimensions: path organization, security, aesthetic value, physical environment, activities and cultural. The IPA-Kano model is used to quantify environmental perception, and the main environmental factors affecting the improvement of recreation satisfaction of underpass green space in three types of terrain are explored, with a view to improving the environment and service functions of underpass green spaces in high-density interchange networks in mountainous cities, and enhancing the attractiveness of underpass green spaces. It can be found from the study that: (1) Among the five environmental perception dimensions, visitors pay more attention to the physical environment quality of the underpass green space and their physical and psychological activity experience, while their demands for visual senses are relatively low. Due to the deficiency or lack of leisure facilities, sports facilities, children’s playgrounds and amusement equipment, the dimension of “activities and cultural perception” of the underpass green space has the lowest scores of all. (2) The existing sites, facilities and landscape resources of the underpass green space, different terrain types and underpass environment are the important reasons that affect the performance of environmental perception factors and their priority ranking results. (3) The improvement of security of the arrival path or sports facilities is beneficial to improve visitor satisfaction of underpass green space of three types of terrain. The number of environmental factors to be optimized of the three types of terrain are ranked as: mountainous green space > flat green space > concave green space. Among them, four environmental factors have a high priority in two kinds of underpass green space, which are the distribution and quantity of leisure facilities, the effect of noise reduction and sound insulation, the adequacy of activity venues and the distribution and quantity of sports facilities. Finally, according to the particularity of the underpass environment and the characteristics of three types of terrain, this paper puts forward some suggestions for optimizing the service function of underpass green space from five perceptual dimensions. Full article