USER PATTERNS: OUTDOOR SPACE AND OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The understanding of the relationship between outdoor activities and outdoor urban spaces is a complex issue, comprising a mutual study between urban space configuration and human behaviors aspect. Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre 1987 confirmed that when the outdoor areas are of high quality, the outdoor activity take place with the same frequency, and they tend to take a longer time. From this point, this paper presents an investigation method of the quality of outdoor urban space basing on the investigation of user pattern. El-Houria plaza in Biskra city, Algeria was chosen as case study. Behavioral mapping and questionnaire survey were applied, for data collection and analysis on March, where the mean daily maximum temperature in the city is 24°C. The findings from this study show that there is a segregation in the continuity of outdoor activities during the day, due to the poor quality of plaza, as well as this confirmed that the continuity of outdoor activities in space is depend on the quality of outdoor urban space. This investigation method can be used it and applied to analysis user pattern and examine the quality of outdoor urban space to lead and prompt to a successful design.

Keywords

• outdoor space
• human behaviors
• activities
• climate
• space use