Human-centered Design for Green Landscape of Urban Streets

This paper first introduces the development process of urban street green landscape in China and the human-centered thinking of the design of urban street green landscape.On the basis of detailed elaboration of the basic theories of urban street green landscape,it analyzes the existing problems and causes for urban street green landscape.Then,from the perspective of human-centered thought,it comes up with several measures for optimizing the green landscape design of urban streets,to provide much more human-centered experience of urban street green landscape.

Application of Smart Streetlights in Urban Road Lighting

The construction and installation of street lighting is an important element in the modernization of China’s cities.Besides,it also plays an important role in raising the living standards of the people.In recent years,with the technological and economic development,smart street lighting has gradually emerged.Key functions of smart street lighting include road illumination,cultural promotion,meteorological monitoring,public broadcasting,and 5G micro-base stations.The overall quality of smart street lighting construction directly impacts the effectiveness of urban development and the city’s comprehensive growth.This paper analyzes the concept of smart street lighting,its advantages and disadvantages,the functionalities of smart street light systems,and the application of smart street lighting in urban road illumination.

Residents' Collective Memory of Urban Street and Lane Spaces:A Case Study of the Confucius Temple Block in Nanjing City

Along with the rapid globalization and urbanization,primitive ecological environment and cultural life atmosphere of urban streets and lanes have degraded,memories of the city have been lost,and cities have shown the tendency of convergence and homogenization.Taking the Confucius Temple Block for example,this paper applied cognitive map,oral interview and GIS spatial statistics to study residents' col ective memories of urban street and lane spaces,and found that the locals' collective memories of streets and lanes in the Confucius Temple Block declined gradually in the sequence of "aura area" → "secondary aura area" → "buffer area" → "blind spot area",and "civilian" urban design concept was claimed as the major incentive of the decline.Streets and lanes as important components of urban public spaces have specific historical connotations and genius loci,and they deserve wide concern from the academic circle and the society for their function of protecting collective memories of residents.

Urban Street Design Based on Spatial Experience

As the living place of urban citizens,urban street space covers the activities of people of all ages and is an important space for citizens to carry out public activities and interpersonal communication.The slogan of“people-orientation”is shouted in the construction process of every city street,but the street space design based on people’s personal experience and people’s psychological feeling is the real peopleoriented design.The design techniques of street space are explored from the perspective of people’s space experience.Starting from the elements of urban street space,according to the attributes of street space and people’s experience path in the space,the paper fi nds out the factors affecting the spatial experience of urban streets,and further explores the strategy of building urban street space.From the perspective of space experience,the design of urban street space is explored,in order to provide reference for the future design of urban streets that meet people’s experience.

Numerical and Experimental Studies on Flow and Pollutant Dispersion in Urban Street Canyons

In this study numerical simulations and water tank experiments were used to investigate the flow and pollutant dispersion in an urban street canyon. Two types of canyon geometry were tested. The studies indicate that in a step-up notch canyon （higher buildings on the downstream side of the canyon）, the height and shape of the upstream lower buildings plays an important role in flow pattern and pollutant dispersion, while in a step-down notch canyon （lower buildings on the downstream side）, the downstream lower buildings have little influence. The studies also show that the substitution of tall towers for parailelepiped buildings on one side of the canyon may enhance the street ventilation and decrease the pollutant concentration emitted by motor vehicles.

Congestion Pricing of Urban Street Segments along with MRT Route—The Case Study of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, already has a congestion problem to handle the ever-growing demand for traffic. The usage of private cars cannot be stopped by charging and the town is not encouraged by quality public transport. It is impossible to enforce congestion prices here in line with traditional cordon pricing systems since the region uses unusual land patterns. However, the current project Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line 6, which will be built by 2021, provides the prospect of congestion pricing. A price and optimum approach were established for this article. The congestion price is only payable for the segments and is accessible for private cars under this system. Two urban street segments along the MRT route were selected for the study and congestion toll for a private car is estimated for each segment separately. The sum of the toll in monetary terms is determined using certain associated parameters from the discrepancy from the actual Level of Service (LOS) travel time and traffic flow to the desired LOS. The outcome has shown that the price per passenger car is $0.3 - $0.44. The price is flexible, which means it will vary based on traffic volume. The findings for politicians to enforce congestion pricing are viewed as recommendations.

Application of Smart Lighting in Urban Street Lighting

At present,the number of road engineering projects is increasing,and the corresponding street lighting work is receiving much more attention.In order to improve the lighting,operation,convenience,and energy-saving effect of urban streets,the concept of“smart lighting”needs to be implemented.This includes the planning of an urban street lighting design scheme and the use of appropriate software as well as components to realize significant optimization of the lighting work in urban streets.Therefore,this paper discusses the application measures of smart lighting in urban street lighting to provide reference.

二维街谷地面加热引起的流场特征的水槽实验研究(英)

Water tank experiments are carried out to investigate the convection flow induced by bottom heating and the effects of the ambient wind on the flow in non-symmetrical urban street canyons based on the PIV (Particle Image Visualization) technique. Fluid experiments show that with calm ambient wind, the flows in the street canyon are completely driven by thermal force, and the convection can reach the upper atmosphere of the street canyon. Horizontal and vertical motions also appear above the roofs of the buildings. These are the conditions which favor the exchange of momentum and air mass between the street canyon and its environment. More than two vortices are induced by the convection, and the complex circulation pattern will vary with time in a wider street canyon. However, in a narrow street canyon, just one vortex appears. With a light ambient wind, the bottom heating and the associated convection result in just one main vortex. As the ambient wind speed increases, the vortex becomes more organized and its center shifts closer to the leeward building.

Aesthetics of urban commercial streets from the perspective of cognitive memory and user behavior in urban environments

Streets are one of the major elements that make-up the urban environment. Urban commercial and mixed-use street types occur as public spaces in every town and city all around the world. With the paucity of such spaces, streets have taken up to solve the problem. Hence, this study assesses the key physical, visual, and aesthetical characteristics and examines the influence of aesthetical attributes over the activity pattern, user behavioral responses, and the color palette observed. Moreover, this research has been carried out in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. Four significant commercial streets were identified and featured in the main study. The research method comprehends a structured questionnaire and multiple interviews to amass data, photo elicitation, and video corroboration to identify the key visual characteristics to study and scrutinize the aesthetical responses to various attributes that make good-looking urban commercial and mixed-use street types. The results of the study indicate that the diversity and perceived pleasantness of the environment, which includes elements such as facades, colors, aspect ratios, maintenance, and vegetation, has a very close association with walking preferences. The outcome of the study would also help architects, urban designers and planners, and policy makers to create positive spaces to foster urban commercial street types as place-making and aesthetically pleasing streets.

An investigation of the visual features of urban street vitality using a convolutional neural network

As a well-known urban landscape concept to describe urban space quality,urban street vitality is a subjective human perception of the urban environment but difficult to evaluate directly from the physical space.The study utilized a modern machine learning computer vision algorithm in the urban build environment to simulate the process,which starts with the visual perception of the urban street landscape and ends with the human reaction to street vitality.By analyzing the optimized trained model,we tried to identify urban street vitality’s visual features and evaluate their importance.A region around the Mochou Lake in Nanjing,China,was set as our study area.Seven investigators surveyed the area,recorded their evaluation score on each site’s vitality level with a corresponding picture taken on site.A total of 370 pictures and recorded score pairs from 231 valid survey sites were used to train a convolutional neural network.After optimization,a deep neural network model with 43 layers,including 11 convolutional ones,was created.Heat maps were then used to identify the features which lead to high vitality score outputs.The spatial distributions of different types of feature entities were also analyzed to help identify the spatial effects.The study found that visual features,including human,construction site,shop front,and roadside/walking pavement,are vital ones that correspond to the vitality of the urban street.The consistency of these critical features with traditional urban vitality features indicates the model had learned useful knowledge from the training process.Applying the trained model in urban planning practices can help to improve the city environment for better attraction of residents’activities and communications.