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Identified Physical Settings Determinants of Public Activities in the
Sidoarjo City Square
Muhamad Ratodi
1
, Qurrotul A’yun
1
, Oktavi Elok Hapsari
1
, and Rita Ernawati
1
1
Department of Architecture, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampe, Jl. A.Yani 117, Surabaya, Indonesia
Keywords: Physical setting, Public activities, Green open space, City square
Abstract: Physical environment settings are believed to be able to influence public activity patterns by facilitating the
interaction between physical spatial space with its users. As one of the public green open areas and main civic
activities points, the Sidoarjo City Square also has a variety of user activity patterns, which are both suitable
and unsuitable to its design purposes. This article attempts to identify the physical settings determinants that
affect public space activities in Sidoarjo Square. Behavior mapping and time budget techniques were used to
collect data and analysis was conducted through data tabulation. The study identified at least five physical
settings factors that influence the Sidoarjo Square user activities, including shaded spaces, sitting and relaxing
areas, plazas, pedestrian paths and artificial lighting.
1 INTRODUCTION
The provision of green open space in Indonesia is
regulated through Law No. 26 of 2017, which
requires a minimum of twenty percent of the city to
be public open space. A good public open space must
be able to function and be used by the community to
gather, interact, and move safely and comfortably
(Siahaan, 2010).
In reality, there was a significant reduction in
the number of public open spaces in urban areas due
to public open land conversion into urban
infrastructure (Dwiyanto, 2009). This condition will
certainly lead to a decline in the quality of urban
public open spaces in Indonesia where they serve an
important function by contributing to the quality of
life of urban citizens (Ostermann, 2010).
The decline of the quality of public open
spaces is often encountered as common problems
arise, such as the lack of seating and gathering places,
visually poor entrance accesses, dysfunctional
features, winding paths, dead zones and unreachable
bus stop locations (Siahaan, 2010).
This phenomenon was also found in the district
of Sidoarjo. As with other cities in Indonesia, the
existence of the city square as a public open space has
also become a feature of urban spaces (Nas, 1986),
including Sidoarjo. Sidoarjo City Square, as the only
open public space in the area, also experienced
problems related to the quality of its public open
space. (Bilqisa, 2014) in her research stated that the
comfort of Sidoarjo Square users was still not well-
optimized due to the various economic and
recreational activities that take place there and have
not been facilitated by a good physical settings
arrangement. A good physical settings arrangement in
an area is believed to be able to influence the
activities and social behaviour of its users (Rapoport,
2016). Understanding user requirement activities will
help designers set up appropriate public facilities
(Courage and Baxter, 2005). This article will attempt
to identify the various factors that affect the physical
settings of Sidoarjo Square’s user activities.
2 RESEARCH METHOD
A qualitative approach was used to ensure the
sharpness of the research analysis, objectivity, and
systematicity in obtaining accuracy in interpretation.
We used direct observation techniques in addition to
behavioral mapping and time budget techniques to
map user behavior related to the physical settings of
Sidoarjo Square.
The purposive sampling technique was also used
to determine the observation subject, which was
observed during five different time periods for five
consecutive days (Sunday to Friday). Data analysis
Ratodi, M., A’yun, Q., Hapsari, O. and Ernawati, R.
Identified Physical Settings Determinants of Public Activities in the Sidoarjo City Square.
DOI: 10.5220/0008906100002481
In Proceedings of the Built Environment, Science and Technology International Conference (BEST ICON 2018), pages 49-53
ISBN: 978-989-758-414-5
Copyright
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2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
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