Physical Element Effects in Public Space Attendance

This paper seeks to determine which physical elements of privately owned public spaces affect users′ impressions, which characteristics of these elements are noticed, and what impressions they cause. The study is based on a caption evaluation and semantic differential survey of 12 public spaces in the center of Tokyo. Ten participants were surveyed for each space, and 1494 of the obtained entries were analyzed. The semantic differential survey was then cross-referenced with density measures to evaluate the effect of physical elements′ densities on participants′ impressions.It was found that the physical elements that caught users′ attention were greenery, street furniture, the building, the sidewalk and the space itself. From all of the elements, tree coverage density was the best predictor of desire to stay and rest activities in the space. A logistic regression analysis of each activity by tree density is also provided.