Enhancing restorative effect of urban park in congested district

Abstract

As urban districts become more congested, small green space such as pocket parks become more important as an environment for restoration. Although urban park takes a significant role for urban people to achieve restorative effect, but early research on the restorative environment did not provide detailed information about the specific design of the physical environment that supported the restoration. In this study, it was investigated whether there are relationships between restorative performances with park design elements, in order to suggest a design guideline to enhancing restorative effect of an urban park. A method was designed to investigate and compare the different restorative performances of various local urban parks with varying design in a congested district. The individual parks were taken as the units of analysis. All the parks were sampled from Sham Shui Po, and each park was analysis by mappings and photos. The differences on physical expressions for each design element in different parks were found out. The ratings on the psychological variables that are more specific to design elements - being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility were provided by the users from such parks through the questionnaire. After combined the mapping data and questionnaire data, the differences of each design element among the cases and how that of differences influence the perceived restorative factors were found out. This study indicated distinctive patterns of the relations between park design elements and restoration potential by being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility. Finally, the results provide guidance for the design of small yet restorative urban parks.