CHARACTERISTICS OF SPACES WITHIN UNDERGROUND RETAIL PEDESTRIAN NETWORKS AND THEIR INFLUENCES ON PEDESTRIAN ACTIVITY

Abstract

In land-scare and highly populated Singapore, there is a need to build higher to accommodate the functions and facilities required for the nation to progress. This pressure on the ground has expedited the incidence of overhead and underground linkages between buildings so as to facilitate movement in this compact, vertical city. This is also the case for the planning of transport infrastructure which has recently shifted toward further expansion in the underground domain, with a network of underground linkages to bring greater urban connectivity. There are also visions for the construction of massive underground developments as a viable option for the city’s future expansion. Besides the technical challenges for construction, the trend of building beneath the ground evokes questions of their suitability for human usage. This paper looks into user patterns within present underground spaces for an understanding of the relationships between the spatial characteristics and the user behaviour which could build on a body of knowledge for improvements in designs of such underground spaces.