A Study of Place Identity of Urban Commercial Streets in Taiwan Under the Trend of Globalization

• Main Authors: Seng-Chung Wu, 吳聖中
• Other Authors: Kang-Li Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40990720453282557260

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 都市計劃學系碩博士班 === 93 === 　Local identity consists of the special place characteristics shared and loved by local inhabitants in a place that makes them feel comfortable and at home. It is also an important urban design catalyst that helps shaping a meaningful place. Street space, in particularly, represents the urban fabric, culture context, and activity patterns of a city. Major urban streets also play the important role of urban design in promoting local identity in Taiwan. Looking for the local identity of urban streets under the era of globalization has been an important research issue of urban design in Taiwan for a long time. Yet, while some architects and urban designers are exploring the standards of urban street design, relatively few studies explicitly explore the relationship between street identity and the strategies and methods of street design in Taiwan. Without a clear understanding of the key issues and factors influencing street identity, many urban streets are gradually losing their sense of place (i.e., becoming placelessness) under the trend of globalization. 　Using the eight selected urban streets in Taipei City and Tainan City as empirical case setting, this study attempts to explore the relationship between local identity and the methods and strategies of street design in Taiwan. Starting from a theoretical discussion of the concept of street identity and the influence of globalization on street environment, this study attempts to develop a theoretical framework for exploring the meaning of local identity of urban streets and the design factors which shape street identity. Employed research method involved field survey, questionnaire survey, descriptive statistical analysis, and in-depth interviews with related planners and urban designers, this study will explicitly address two research questions: (1)What is the relationship with globalization, identity and landscape evaluate; (2) How to establish a assessment framework to evaluate the street identity, in order to evaluate the key design elements and factors that can influence the street identity in Taiwan’s major cities, under the trend of globalization, and (3) how and to what extent can we improve street identity through design methods given the unavoidable trend of globalization. Through literature review and our proposed empirical study of the selected major urban streets in Taipei and Tainan, this study will also suggest several operational planning strategies for the designing of meaningful streets with clear local identity. 　After synthesized the results of field survey and statistical analysis, the results showed that used our assessment framework to evaluate the street identity under the trend of globalization is easy to work. This study identified the key elements that will influence the street identity which including landmark building, tree, commercial category, building form, building height and advertising signboard. At the same time, these elements are also similar with those which are easily influenced by globalization. It’s means that the local area should be through strengthening the region characteristic and developing place identity under the trend of globalization, in order to show the local area can't be replaced in the global network. At the end of this study, we tried to use the cognitive factors to classify to the case of the streets, the results showed that these factors which included of sense of place, friendliness, internationalization and modernization have the ability to identify the place where with globalization or local place character. Besides, when the street had more planting trees, these factors will conspicuous with naturalness, legibility and uniqueness. According to the results, this study attempted to suggest several operational planning strategies for intensify the local identity and to make a livable place.