The role of landscaping elements in enhancing passive and active engagement in urban promenade: The case of Pharos Promenade, Alexandria, Egypt

• Main Authors: Asmaa Abdelrahman, Khalid Al-Hagla, Dina Saadallah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2018-12-01
• Series: Alexandria Engineering Journal
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110016818301182

Urban promenades play a vital role in a city's life. They are platforms to create social relations, as well as to promote civil life for community. This is the case in Alexandria, Egypt with its extended waterfront along the Mediterranean Sea coast. Pharos promenade, affords for both active and passive water related activities. The former is achieved through cognitive experience posed by the space, or through communicating with the participants in it, while the latter is related to the observation of what others are doing in public space.The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of landscaping elements in enhancing both passive and active engagement along Pharos Promenade. To achieve this aim, this paper intends to attain the following objectives through investigating; theoretical background of landscape elements, passive and active engagement, the promenade's history and development, its morphological analysis, types of users and activities, and its landscaping features. Finally, the paper concludes a two-dimensional matrix model, correlating design aspects of landscaping elements to Passive and active engagement aspects. It uses this matrix to evaluate the impacts of these elements on how do people experience this promenade. In addition, highlighting the most threatening elements, in the process of analysing the example of Pharos promenade, in Alexandria, Egypt. Keywords: Social interactions, Pharos promenade, Landscape elements, Passive engagement, Active engagement, Alexandria