Humanizing Taibah University Campus Open Spaces in Madinah: Toward a Sustainable Environment for Walkability and Green Spaces

Abstract

Open spaces on university campuses create an active academic environment and a vibrant, active social life. This paper aims to answer the question, "Under which conditions does a university campus change from subduing students' social life to enhancing it?" By studying the Taibah University (TU) campus in Madinah, Saudi Arabia, this research provides an initial step to enhance walkability and pedestrian movement for users. The study consists of main parts: theoretical background and literature review to reach design guidelines, site analysis and survey followed by discussion of results, and a final urban proposal for humanizing the campus along with the recommendation to use the campus as a catalyst to humanise Madinah. Analysing TU will be completed through a site visit and picture documentation. The research has also engaged the students' opinions through survey assessment of the campus. The survey study was done in fall 2019 through students' participation in the graduation project in the Architecture Engineering Department at Taibah University to study the urban context of the campus and propose new uses for buildings. The finding of this paper will propose important steps to increase campus walkability; social sustainability and stress on the main future studies to strengthen the research results.