Urban Design-Perceptual Dimension

10. a schema : describes an organized pattern of
thought that organizes categories of information
and the relationships among them
Differentiate by :
1. Gender
2. Age
3. Culture
4. Religion
5. Personal Experience

11. Perception process :
Perception is a complex processing, involves gathering, organizing and
making sense of information about the environment. It is shaped in
five steps:
1. Pay attention
2. Thinking – organizing – keeping information
3. Giving a meaning
4. Evaluation : preferring or not
5. Recognizing and using

12. The users of the city react with urban environment using senses
They don’t have the same strength but we use them all in Urban perception

14. Mental image :
Mental image properties :
The overall mental image of an urban environment
will be:
1. Partial : not covering the whole city
2. Simplified : omitting a great deal of information
3. Unique : each individual has his/her own
4. Distorted : not necessary has real distance or
direction.
The image which the user form in his mind about the
architectural and urban components of the city and their
places so he can direct his motion through the city after
that.

15. Mental image :
Differences in
environmental perception
depend on factors like:
• age,
• gender,
• ethnicity,
• lifestyle,
• the physical, social
and culture
environment in which
the person lives and
was raised.

16. Mental Image
• Differs from one to another but
• Sometimes there are some common themes between a
lot of users these themes are called image regularities
image regularities
The Common urban components which are used by
different users to form their mental image about the city

17. The image of the city:
The key work in the field of
urban imagery is kevin
lynch’s the image of the city
(1960) based on mental
mapping techniques, and
interviews with residents of
Boston, Jersey city and Los
Angles.
Initially interested in
legibility (how people
orientate themselves
and navigate within
cities)

18. The image of the city:
Based on of individuals images, lynch drives
five key physical elements of the city :
1. Paths
2. Edges
3. Nodes
4. Districts
5. Landmarks

19. 1. Paths :
Paths are the channels along
which observers move
(streets, transit lines, canals,
etc.).

20. Why paths are important elements in the city
image?
* Concentration of uses
*Containing significant
buildings and facades

21. * paths are the most important elements in people’s images :
• other elements are arranged and along them.
• Unclear paths = unclear city image

22. 2. Edges :
Edges are linear elements that
form boundaries between
areas or linear breaks in
continuity (e.g. shores, railway
cuts, walls).
Natural edgesManmade edges

23. 2. Edges :
The strongest edges are continuous in form, and often impenetrable
to cross movement.

24. Difference between path and edge
Paths
Direct the motion to
specific direction
Edges
* Prevent motion in
specific direction

25. 3. Districts:
are the medium to large
parts of the city which
share the same
characteristics
Style - spatial form,
topography- colors-
texture, urban fabric….

26. 3 . Districts :
Districts may have Clear
edges, or soft uncertain
ones gradually fading away
into surrounding areas.

27. 4. Nodes:
Strategic points in the city that:
• the user can enter it
• be directed to many destinations
• it can be gathering places or intersection of paths, or places for activities

28. 5. Land marks :
A physical element with UNIQUE
AND SPECIAL visual features that
has a "point-specific” location,
and can be identified from the
distance.

29. What makes landmark a
land mark?
Singularity:
“one in the context”
Clarity of general form

31. None of lynch’s elements exits in isolation :
all combine to provide the overall image:
• Districts are structures with nodes
• Edges define Districts
• Paths introduction to Districts
• Nodes sprinkled by landmarks ….
• Nodes emphasizes the connection between paths
All combine to provide the overall image of the city
The image of the city:

32. What creates unclear
urban Image ?

33. What creates unclear urban image:
1. Discontinuous and unclear paths

34. What creates unclear urban image:
2. Weak Edges

35. What creates unclear urban image:
3. Lacks of character “No identity”
“No iconic elements or landmarks”
V.S

36. What creates unclear urban image:
4. Branching in connections
branching Nodes

37. What creates unclear urban image:
5. No distinctive districts:
V.S

38. The image of the city:
Lynch argued that thee workable
environmental images required
three attributes :
1. Identity : an object’s
distinction from other things
2. Structure : the object’s
spatial relation to the
observer and other objects
3. Meaning : the object’s
meaning for the observer

39. What purposes does it serve?
• Preventing feeling lost
• Helping make the city feel like “home”

40. • So it is important to understand how people think and
form their mental impression about the city and the
common themes they share to help designers to design
urban environment in a clear manner for users