An Empirical approach to evaluate streetscapes of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Streets have been providing a theme for many studies, symposiums and planning and design studios all over the world for last few decades. Literature in the areas of planning, urban design and architecture reveals that research on perceived environmental qualities and the physical attributes that cause them are not rare, but wider applications of their finding in urban planning and design practices is limited due to a variety of reasons. One of the most felt reason is that the attributes discussed in these works are highly abstract in nature and therefore, demand some extra efforts for them to be developed into specific units of application. Another reason is the subjective approaches and speculative methods adopted in most of those studies, for which their outcomes can be contested under alternative conditions. Hence, there is a need for more objectively evolved, but adequately tested methods to empirically study the environmental qualities for design purposes. Previous studies indicated that people experience spatial qualities in an evaluative manner (eg: Nasar, 1999). On this background, this research aims to initiate an empirical method to evaluate streets capes based on Alan Jacob’s (1996) seminal work 'Great Streets’