Urban Semiotic Structure Reappraisal: A Representation of Perceptual Landmarks Appraisal Process (Case Study: Sadra New Town)

Document Type : Independent Research Articles

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

3 M. A. in Urban Design, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

The conscious and purposeful design of the city structure, and in particular, the symbolic structure of the city, plays an essential role in improving the public realm quality. A set of symbolic elements is necessary to achieve such a structure, arranged in an interconnected network. This study is applied according to its main objectives and has a descriptive-analytical nature. In this research, the symbolic structure of the city has been analyzed from both citizens' and experts' perspectives. Considering the importance of signs in the spatio-physical cohesion and the integrated perception of the city structure, this study intends to explain the visual system of Sadra New Town by emphasizing the semiotic structure and the citizens' perception and mental maps. For this purpose, after selecting 90 citizens, the research team captured their mental map with the help of symbolic elements and landmark recognition in 3 stages. Following this stage, an integrated perceptual map was produced by projecting and overlaying the mental maps using GIS Software. Then, to apprehend the semiotic structure of the New Town, the elements present in the citizens' mental maps were ranked using the AHP method. It was determined that visual, perceptual, functional, and structural landmarks are among the priorities selected by the experts, respectively. The rankings were analyzed using the SAW method to assess the quality of the individuals' mental maps elements concerning the sub-criteria of each landmark. In this way, the final score of each landmark, path, and node was calculated and classified in good, medium, and poor spectroscopy. In this way, according to the analysis of the mental maps focusing on the semiotic structure of Sadra New Town, it is clear that city landmarks, visual qualities, main entrance, and the entrance of distinctive avenues, public spaces, and paths are all crucial elements in the citizens' perceptual map. These elements are components of the urban visual system with a physical-visual aspect. According to their specific characteristics, each of them can establish their position in people's minds.

Keywords

References

Alkan Bala, H. (2016). Landmarks in urban space as signs. Current Urban Studies, 4(04), 409 – 429
Allen, G. L. (1999). Spatial abilities, cognitive maps, and wayfinding. Wayfinding behavior: Cognitive mapping and other spatial processes, 46 – 80
Appleyard, D. (1970). Styles and methods of structuring a city. Environment and behavior, 2(1), 100 – 117
Bently, I., Alcock, A., Murrain, P., McGlynn, S., & Smith, G. (2003). Responsive Environments (Mostafa 12 Behzadfar, Trans.). Tehran, Iran University of of Science and Industry. (In Persian)
Caduff, D., & Timpf, S. (2008). On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation. Cognitive processing, 9(4), 249 – 267
Chandler, D. (2007). Semiotics: the basics. Taylor & Francis
Clerici, A., & Mironowicz, I. (2009). Are Landmarks Essential to The City – Its Development? Proceedings REAL CORP 2009 Tagungsband , 22-25
Day, P. K. (2004). Analytic hierarchy process helps evaluate project in Indian oil pipelines industry. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(6), 588–604.
Evans, G. W., Marrero, D. G., & Butler, P. A. (1981). Environmental learning and cognitive mapping. Environment and Behavior, 13(1), 83 - 104.‏
Ganitseva, J., & Coors, V. (2010, November). Automatic landmark detection for 3D urban models. In 5th International Conference on 3D GeoInformation, Berlin, Germany
Golledge, R. G. (1999). Human wayfinding and cognitive maps. Wayfinding behavior: Cognitive mapping and other spatial processes, 5 – 45.
Hafeznia, M. (2005). Introduction to Research Methodology in Humanities. Tehran SAMT Publication.
Hallowell, M. R., & Gambatese, J. A. (2010). Qualitative research: Application of the Delphi method to CEM research. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(1), 99–107.
Kalen, G.,(1998). Summary of Urban Landscape, Translated by Manuchehr Tabibian, Tehran, University of Tehran Pub. (In Persian)
Kalin, A., & Yilmaz, D. (2012). A study on visibility analysis of urban landmarks: The case of Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) in Trabzon. METU Journal of the Faculty of the Architecture, 29(1), 241 – 271
Kurniawati, D.,Lenti,F.N., Nugroho,R.W (2021), Implementation of AHP and SAW Methods for Optimization of Decision Recommendations, Journal of International Conference Proceedings (JICP) Vol. 4 No. 1 .
l, H. (2004). Redefining Landmarks. Alam Bina Journal, University Technology Malaysia, 6(1), 66 – 76
Li, R. (2007). Human wayfinding and navigation in a large-scale environment: cognitive map development and wayfinding strategies (Doctoral dissertation), University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon.
Lovelace, K. L., Hegarty, M., & Montello, D. R. (1999, August). Elements of good route directions in familiar and unfamiliar environments. In International conference on spatial information theory (pp. 65 - 82). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lynch, K. (2008).translated by Prof. Manouchehr Mozayeni, The image of the city,. Tehran University publications (In Persian)
Michon, P. E., & Denis, M. (2001, September). When and why are visual landmarks used in giving directions?. In International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (pp. 292 - 305). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Moughtin, Cliff; et al. (1999), Urban design : method and techniques, Publisher: Oxford : Architectural Press
Mukherjea, S., & Hara, Y. (1997, April). Focus+ context views of world-wide web nodes. In Proceedings of the eighth ACM conference on Hypertext (Southampton, UK), (pp. 187 - 196).
Nixon, J. D., Dey, P. K., & Davies, P. A. (2010). Which is the best solar thermal collection technology for electricity generation in north-west India? Evaluation of options using the analytical hierarchy process. Energy, 35(12), 5230–5240.
Pakzad, J. (2016), Theoretical Foundations and Urban Design Process, Eighth Edition,. Shahidi Publishing, Tehran. (In Persian)
Panahi, S., Bahrami Samani, N. & Kia, A. (2016). A Semantic Approach to Urban Graffiti from Semiotics Viewpoint, International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development , 6(1), 85 – 94
Parhouse Consulting Enginieers (2016),  Sadra New Town Comprehensive Plan (revised), Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, Omran Co. of Sadra (In Persian).
Pour Jafar, M. R. and Mehdi Montazer al-Hajjah, (2010), Urban Signs, Definitions, Typology, Location, Planning and Design, Tahan Publication, Tehran. (In Persian)
Pour Jafar, M. R. and Ali Reza Sadeghi, (2008), Principles underlying the meaningful design of typical visual axes: An analytical-comparative approach, Hoviatshahr, Tehran. 2( 3), 95-107. (In Persian)
Presson, C. C., & Montello, D. R. (1988). Points of reference in spatial cognition: Stalking the elusive landmark. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6(4), 378 – 381
Raubal, M., & Winter, S. (2002, September). Enriching wayfinding instructions with local landmarks. In International conference on geographic information science (pp. 243 - 259). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.‏
Richter, K. F., & Winter, S. (2014). Introduction: What Landmarks Are, and Why They Are Important. In Landmarks (pp. 1 - 25). Springer, Cham
Saunders, M. N. K., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2015). Research methods for business students (Seventh edition). Pearson Education.
Saputra,M., Sitompul, O S. and Sihombing, P (2018), Comparison AHP and SAW to promotion of head major, department SMK uhammadiyah 04 Medan, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Information, Technology, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia.
Sholeh,M. (2009), The urban semiotic fields analysis methodology, Journal of “Honar – ha – ye – Ziba-Memari-Va-Shahrsazi”, Volume 1, Issue 39, University of Tehran, 105-116.
Shum, S. (1990). Real and Virtual Space: Mapping from Spatial Cognition to Hypertext. Hypermedia ,2(2), 133 – 158
Siegel, A. W., & White, S. H. (1975). The development of spatial representations of large-scale environments. In Advances in child development and behavior , 10, 9 – 55
Sorrows, M. E., & Hirtle, S. C. (1999, August). The nature of landmarks for real and electronic spaces. In International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (pp. 37 - 50). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Stankiewicz, B. J., & Kalia, A. A. (2007). Acquistion of structural versus object landmark knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33(2), 378 – 390
Steck, S. D., & Mallot, H . A. (2000). The Role of  Global and Local Landmark in Virtual Enviornment Navigation, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 9(1), 69 – 83.
Suganthi, L. (2018). Multi expert and multi criteria evaluation of sectoral investments for sustainable development: An integrated fuzzy AHP, VIKOR / DEA methodology. Sustainable Cities and Society, 43, 144–156.
Torkashvand. A. & Sahar Majidi (2013). "Recognizing some Signs in Urban Spaces". Iranian Architecture & Urbanism. Volume 6: 5-15. (In Parsian).
Vinson, N. G. (1999, May). Design guidelines for landmarks to support navigation in virtual environments. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 278 - 285). ACM
Winter, S., Tomko, M., Elias, B., & Sester, M. (2008). Landmark hierarchies in context. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 35(3), 381 - 398
Zhang, X., Li, Q. Q., Fang, Z. X., Lu, S. W., & Shaw, S. L. (2014). An assessment method for landmark recognition time in real scenes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 206 – 217
 
 
Urban Structure and Function Studies
Volume 9, Issue 32
August 2022
Pages 233-273

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 14 February 2022
  • Revise Date: 04 May 2022
  • Accept Date: 29 August 2022

Share

How to cite

Statistics