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Permeability and Its Measurements Tested in Abstract Forms and Four Chinese New Towns

Author(s): ORCID




Medium: journal article
Language(s): English
Published in: Buildings, , n. 7, v. 13
Page(s): 1779
DOI: 10.3390/buildings13071779
Abstract:

It is widely accepted that permeability is a key attribute for sustainable development, but two puzzles remain unsolved. First, there is no consensus on its measurement. Second, there are still many new urban developments that lack this quality; regardless, it is a well-known urban design principle. This paper reviews different permeability measurements and proposes to categorize them into four quadrants, then compares eleven of them with four sets of abstract forms and four real cases from Southeast China. The two measures rooted in space syntax theory demonstrate their robustness in the abstract forms. In contrast, the area-based measures cannot quantify the differences between places with similar content. In the actual case studies, by comparing the differences between original plans and the real built forms, we suggest that three traps impair their permeability and therefore deviate greatly from the initial design visions, resulting in automobile-oriented travel patterns. The two new measures were used to quantify the different levels of permeability in these four cases. It is concluded that the qualitative urban design principles may fail to be delivered without a quantitative and precise description of urban form. Consistent measures and more empirical cases are needed to reveal the contribution of spatial networks to sustainable development.

Copyright: © 2023 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
License:

This creative work has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license which allows copying, and redistribution as well as adaptation of the original work provided appropriate credit is given to the original author and the conditions of the license are met.

  • About this
    data sheet
  • Reference-ID
    10737578
  • Published on:
    03/09/2023
  • Last updated on:
    14/09/2023
 
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