Public Walking Space. A study of Commercial Pedestrian Streets in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Nanjing

Abstract: This diploma work is built up around the topic on public walking spaces, based on the investigation and analysis of commercial pedestrian streets of Copenhagen in Denmark, Stockholm in Sweden and Nanjing in China. It intends to compare the pros and cons of these commercial pedestrian streets and enhance each other by extracting their positive attributes to improve the current situation and public walking space design. This work is constructed as follows: Firstly, the background and problems of public space and public walking space are introduced, and then the history of the subject and its classification are elaborated. Secondly, the relative theories of urban public space and walking space were investigated to provide the theoretical and scientific support to this thesis. Besides, in the case studies, the commercial pedestrian streets in three cities are analyzed respectively, in terms of context, location, transport situation, human-scale design and culture expression. Furthermore, regarding to how people use the public waling space, the investigations and interviews of these three walking streets were carried out. People are classified according to their different activities, and at the same time, their various relative demands for the streetscape are analyzed. 15 people from each street were selected randomly in the interview to provide feedback on four types of questions: traffic, protection, comfort, and enjoyment, which are proposed according to the 12 urban life qualities criteria of Jan Gehl’s research. Their answers are gathered and referenced in the final design proposals. Finally, Hu’nan Road, the commercial street in Nanjing is renewed in the light of all the previous studies. Through the work of the overall planning, transportation planning, and streetscape design, the author tries to solve current problems in the public walking streets, and improve the unsatisfactory status in the public walking street.