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This paper aims to propose a set of flexible design principles for enhancing the flexibility of street furniture to deal with the diverse and changing urban environment. Flexibility is an important but less considered element of public design (otherwise called public environment and facility design), especially in regard to the street furniture that is encountered in everyday life. Taking Hong Kong as a case study, this paper gives an overview of the concepts of flexibility and flexible design, and identifies the current limitations and problems of the current street furniture design practices with respect to the diverse and changing urban environment.

Based on a review of the current literature and relevant documentation, interviews with government officers and different groups of users (including those with special needs), and field observations in Hong Kong’s urban areas over a period of four years, the policies relating to street furniture design in Hong Kong and its management and implementation were evaluated.

The results indicate that the current street furniture in Hong Kong is unable to adapt to or resist changes, can easily cause safety and management problems and is not adaptable to new developments. This paper proposes six principles for the flexible design of street furniture, namely, custom in use, multifunctional use, responds effectively to changing circumstances, easily and conveniently managed, universal in use and sustainable in use.

It is difficult to understand the diverse needs and preferences of different users in urban environments. The findings in this paper are based on intensive field work and broad industry experience. To deal with the rapid and ongoing urban change, this paper recommends a further long-term and in-depth study of street furniture.

Based on the findings, this paper proposes six flexible design principles for designing street furniture that is sufficiently flexible to meet the rapid and ongoing urban change and diverse users’ needs.

Different societies and urban areas faced different types and levels of changes. Therefore, a flexible approach to street furniture design is important and necessary.

The findings of this paper and the proposed six flexible design principles can provide insight and direction for government officials, design and planning professionals, developers, utility and management companies and communities on how to embed public design (i.e. policy, implementation and management) in the future.

Safety, one of the basic human needs for existence, is a very important factor in achieving a successful urban space. A lack of its presence could make it challenging for residents of a place to live and function effectively. Therefore, this study aims to identify the urban design attributes that would potentially enhance the perceived sense of safety, mainly focusing on two case studies in El-Sherouk neighborhood in Cairo. The two selected case studies are considered car-oriented due to their reduced levels of safety.

This study was conducted through a set of data collection phases from field surveys and survey questionnaires that infer the influence of the surrounding urban environment on a specific target group. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical analysis tool was used to analyze data collected from survey questionnaires.

Finally, by the end of this research, a set of urban design qualities vital for achieving the desired levels of safety were introduced. The findings of this study revealed key urban design qualities that can potentially contribute to enhancing the perceived sense of safety as they showed a strong positive correlation: (1) imageability, (2) transparency, (3) complexity and (4) human scale and enclosure. Moreover, multiple linear regression indicates that urban design qualities are strong predictors of perceived safety.

This study presents a holistic approach to studying the relationship between urban design and perceived safety by examining two case studies located in El-Sherouk City in Cairo, Egypt. While previous research has focused on one theory of safety design such as crime prevention, defensible space theory, eyes on the street or safer city centers, this article tries to fill in the gap in the literature by analyzing all aspects of urban design and its correlation to an enhanced perceived safety. In addition, most of the previous studies have tackled the safety aspects of old urban settlements. However, this study tackles a new urban settlement.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the coherent and purposeful design of dense urban districts, by presenting a unified model for the multifunctional nature of urban streets, and illustrating its application in urban design.

Urban technologies and design analyses developed in recent years make a radical combination of environmental and human functions possible in compact urban districts. With these tools in hand, it is possible to organize our understanding of the components of street design.

The kind of street that can be constructed today can be considered an ecosystem in two senses: first, in the conventional sense of a biophysical landscape which participates in rain, sun, and living things; second, in the sense of a resident human community that evolves as does an ecosystem, through interacting of beings with each other and with their environment. Both human and natural systems develop with the same dynamic attributes of openness, self‐regulation, storage, and diversity; from these come the systems’ self‐maintenance, resilience, and adaptation. This is a unified model that encompasses a street's multiple functions and their connections to transportation, land use, and global environmental processes.

Illustrations are given of design practice applying this type of model by articulating and integrating rain gardens, permeable pavements, trees, pedestrian behavior settings, vehicular movements, and land use connections, in integrated forms in the midst of dense urban structures.

In contrast with previously proposed models of street design, the present model is functionally specific and complete, and applicable to streets with diverse features and contexts. With it there need not be antagonism, as there has been in the past, between transportation and the local human community, nor between nature and human welfare.

This chapter describes the construction and operation of a new concept in shared street design – the Pedestrian Priority Street (PPS). The PPS is a design concept and policy approach developed in Seoul, Korea. It specifically seeks to retrofit narrow and busy street networks to promote shared use and protect pedestrians. First the evolution of the PPS concept is described. This is followed by an account of the design, construction and evaluation of two pilot PPS projects in 2013, and a brief description of eight additional projects completed during 2014. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the future of PPS, including recommendations on strengths of the over-arching approach. Evaluation of PPS pilot projects shows that the general level of user satisfaction on treated streets was significantly increased and vehicle speeds were slightly decreased. Of note is that observation studies show a reduced incidence of pedestrians coming in risky proximity to vehicles. This indicates that the general possibility of pedestrian-car accidents decreased and a considerable change in driver behaviour. Other findings of interest relate to the need to involve the community in decision making about shared street design and the related need to design street treatments to reflect the surrounding land use. PPS in Seoul is reflective of a new era in shared street design and implementation, promoting streets as places to be, rather than simply thoroughfares to move through at speed. Its design concepts can be applied to any street, but will be particularly relevant to those seeking to retrofit narrow, car-dominated streets to be more balanced in their appeal to pedestrians as well as car users.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze walking activity and recent efforts at augmenting walkability conditions in the cities of Macau, Lisbon and Las Vegas.

The methodology consisted mostly of in-loco observations, pedestrian counts and extensive reviews of the literature, city plans and regulations.

The findings include the need to properly design, maintain and retrofit pedestrian facilities, while reducing safety conflicts among street users as well as the establishment and the nurturing of a culture of walking.

A fivefold international walkability research agenda with implications for other cities around the world is established: the value and the need for comparative studies and best practices; the need for urban design interventions; the cultivation of attractiveness and aesthetics; the implementation of safety, construction and maintenance criteria; and responsible funding programs.

This paper has twofold implications for stakeholders with direct responsibilities in the design, planning, building and maintenance of streets and public spaces, and for those who simply use those places at their own discretion.

A succinct set of recommendations include the need to augment endogeneity, the need to make cities for people and not for automobiles and commitment to resolving pedestrian safety concerns.

This paper discusses the factors affecting street vibrancy from both a stakeholder’s and a user’s perspective. The fundamental and inalienable right to walk is analyzed using the WPPFUS framework (walking levels, purposes, primacy of walking, facilities, unique features and safety concerns).

What makes neighbourhood environment more walkable is an important question for urban planning and design research. The purpose of this paper is to explore this question through a case study of urban sidewalks in different contexts of urban neighbourhoods in Rajshahi city of Bangladesh.

Using participatory observation, Google street view and photography techniques, it examines the quality of the street facilities by demonstrating physical attributes of sidewalks and by analysing how various obstructions on them characterize neighbourhood walkability environment.

The findings suggest that the unusable sidewalks in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, are a production of inadequate and inappropriate planning and design that unable to capitalize the functionality of sidewalks as a means of walking. It further argues that the urban planners and designers of streets have paid little attention to the diverse requirements of sidewalks in accordance with spatial and socio-economic categories of urban neighbourhoods.

This study adds insights about the urban sidewalks planning and design in the context of a developing country. It provides an empirical evidence about the constraints and potentials of making a walkable city.

In the context of asian cities, streets define the diversity and vibrancy of public spaces despite facing a constant threat of losing the spaces to motorized vehicles and large-scale development. The social life of streets is eroded as a result of new developments that are exclusive and privately regulated. This paper discusses the attributes that influence the sociability of shopping streets based on the street users' assessment. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 332 respondents in four main shopping streets in the Kuala lumpur city centre, Malaysia. Identification of the sociability attributes using analytic network Process (anP) was applied to determine the sociability factors based on the order of priority. The study found that users tended to participate in social activities while visiting the shopping streets. However, their social behaviour indicated that the actual engagement in optional and informal activities was not regular. Perceived safety and spatial accessibility mainly influenced the users' level of engagement with the streets' activities. To retain streets as inclusive social spaces, urban designers could prioritise mixed-land uses, positive pedestrian experience and good accessibility in boosting sociability of urban places.

The purpose of this research is to examine the current physical qualities and activities of pedestrian environment from the perspective of the users' needs and perceptions for making user-friendly streets in Dhaka city.

Case study research approach was adapted with a mixed method approach in data collection and analysis to gather information about the interrelationship concerning the variables. The questionnaire survey and direct observation was conducted with the users of the streets to get the actual scenes of the study areas. For the findings, multiple sources of evidence were triangulated and used to analyze which were derived from the convergence of the data.

The findings of this study show that the needs for the factors which make people to use the street are similar with the previous theories derived by different scholars. The results establish that making of user-friendly street from the users' perspective has a significant relationship with the attributes of public spaces in the context of Dhaka. Correlation among the attributes of public spaces concerning sociability, uses and activities, access and linkage and safety, comfort and image showed the issues affecting the pedestrian environment toward a crucial condition in Dhaka city.

Time allocation, inadequacy of secondary data sources and earlier research on this topic in the context of Dhaka city, were the primary limitations to let an in-depth and full exploration of the research.

The study provided a detailed representation of Dhaka's users' perception of the pedestrian environment. This study suggests a new perspective of bettering pedestrian experience in the city center.