Street as Public Space - Measuring Street Life of Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Kuala Lumpur has envisioning in becoming World Class City by the year 2020. Essential elements of form and function of the urban environment are streets. Streets showcase the community and connect people. It's one of the most comfortable social environment that provides aesthetical and interaction pleasure for everyone. Classified as main shopping streets in the local Kuala Lumpur urban design guidelines, Jalan Masjid India (JMI) has its uniqueness of shopping experience and social interaction. This conceptual paper will study the physical and cultural characteristics of the street that will generate the street character by mapping its original characters. The findings will focus on strengthening the methodology applied to promote improvements in evaluating it as a great public space. Results will also contribute to understanding the overall site context, the street connectivity, and urban dynamics. This paper is part of a larger study that addresses on transforming the sociability of public space. IntroductionThe evolution of urban public space had multiple functions, themes, and meanings, which have been repeated through history and are still relevant today. The aim of this study is to provide evidence of physical character and patterns of use of the street that shapes the public space quality. The study will synthesize the overall site context, the street connectivity, and urban dynamics changing the use of public space. The findings will focus on strengthening the methodology applied to promote improvements in evaluating the street as a great public space. This paper is organized into five sections. The subsequent section contains the literature review of the study. The third section provides the methodology, followed by the study area, results and discussion section. The final section offers the conclusion and implications of the results.

People’s Ages and the Effectiveness of Using Activities in the Built Environment of Commercial Streets

“…Such activities create a vibrant and liveable environment, promote users' sense of place and identity, and reflect the character of a good city (Al-Obeidy 2015; Ali et al 2019Ali et al , 2020 (Sipan et al 2021). Sulaiman et al, (2017) found that many visible activities take place along the streets, giving users a welcoming and vibrant feeling to enjoy and stay longer in streets (Mehta & Bosson 2018;Ping-Li Chen 2014;Sulaiman et al 2017;Zhu et al 2013).…”

Children in Urban Space: An Overview

“…From the observation, the community here is conditioned to the physical condition and shapes their psychological development, therefore a change to this condition will take a lot of hard work. In an urban environment, the elements that complete the form and function of it are streets, and the role of the street is only seen to be the major thoroughfare for vehicular traffic (Sulaiman et al, 2017). In the context of Kuala Lumpur and the people's housing scheme, this is a real sight where the volume of the vehicles and the density of living condition is at balance, and this is not good.…”

Intergenerational Spaces: Designing for urban childhoods

“…Therefore a change to this condition will take a lot of hard work. In an urban environment, the elements that complete the form and function of it are streets, and the role of the road is only seen to be the major thoroughfare for vehicular traffic (Sulaiman et al, 2017). In the context of Kuala Lumpur and the people's housing scheme, this is a real sight where the volume of the vehicles and the density of living condition is at balance, and this is not good.…”