Factors influencing the effectiveness of human behavior in designed landscapes: two case studies in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Urban recreational spaces are meant for people to gather, relax, refresh and improve their interaction, thus should be designed consciously and sensitively to have a positive impact on a person’s cognition. The indicator of this impact will be the corresponding behaviour of users. A Landscape Architect is expected to influence the user’s movements and behaviour in creating a desired responsive atmosphere, not only by just designing pathways or furniture arrangements, but also by facilitating user’s movements and behaviour patterns associated with them. Several recreational landscape design interventions have emerged in urban areas of Sri Lanka during the recent past which seems to function well. However, whether these spaces really fulfil the above behavioural need is worth investigating. This paper intends to explore five significant factors which influence effective human behaviour in urban public spaces applicable to recreational landscape designs namely; variety, safety, convertibility, scale and permeability as commonly identified by the eminent scholars; Alexander 1977,Rapoport1977,Bentley et al, 1985and Gehl, 2010. Leading to an investigation on factors unique to Sri Lankan context, a case study survey was implemented in Diyatha Uyana, Baththramulla (n=30) and Urban wetland park, Nugagoda(n=30) with the use of questionnaires, behavioural mapping, observations and then analysed with spatial syntax software. Design following behaviour as well as design against behaviour was observed in both cases. Diyatha Uyana was ranked comparatively high with reference to all the factors tested dominated by variety over Urban Wetland Park. Lack of convertibility, sense of scale, safety and sensitivity to the psychophysiological and behavioural requirements of human beings related to recreation were found to be the weak points inducing design against behaviour of the users and needs careful attention in future recreational landscape design interventions.