The influence of “sense of place” on the formation of the city image of the riverside historic urban district (Case study of Kampung Bandar, Senapelan, Pekanbaru)

Abstract

As towns and cities developed, their characteristics manifest as the uniqueness brought by the diversity among them. However, modernization had cause the uniqueness tend to fade and lose its meaning as part of the image of a city. Kampung Bandar, the oldest historic district of Pekanbaru located on the riverside of Siak River, is no longer well-known for its prominent past. There are three historic sites that is potential to be developed as the image of the district, namely Rumah Singgah Tuan Kadi, Istana Hinggap and Rumah Tenun. This paper aims to assess how a sense of place influences the city image in the historic riverside district of Kampung Bandar based on the perceptions of its inhabitants, as well as the role of landmarks as attributes of the sense of place in the formation of the historic urban district’s image. This research used a mixed-method. Qualitative methods involve in-depth interviews with experts and community leaders, whereas quantitative methods scored sites importance according to the local community. The results of the study show that Rumah Singgah Tuan Kadi have the highest sense of place and contribute significantly to the formation of the riverside urban district’s image.

The spatial configuration of local climate zones reveals effects on wayfinding in human walking

“…Spatial cognition is broadly defined as the understanding of the relationships between the self and their surrounding environments and objects [4]. Moving through space, the various city images are created in the human mind due to different spatial knowledge acquired from the process of spatial cognition [5]. These city images can be the cognitive representations of the external environment to guide human wayfinding in movement.…”