Examining three roles of urban “portals” in their relationship with “places” using social media photographs

Abstract

Portals are the transition spaces between paths and places in an urban environment such as the entrance to a square from a connecting street. This paper aims to explore different forms of portals by considering their relationship with places. In doing so, a people-generated image analysis was adopted for two case studies conducted in popular Chinese recreational venues: Sanlitun Village, Beijing; and Xintiandi, Shanghai. Through an analysis of nearly 53,000Instagram photographs, three different roles that a portal can fulfil are identified and defined as the 'doorway', the 'showroom', and the 'place'. These typologies are derived from a deeper understanding of urban space through the 'eyes of the users', and this knowledge can in turn influence the design process for the public realm and urban spaces.

Temporary Design on Public Open Space for Improving the Pedestrian’s Perception Using Social Media Images in Winter Cities

“…The focus of the case study is demonstrating the impact of temporary architectural and design interventions on pedestrians' perception. The methodology is similar to that used by Xiao Qian, who explored transition spaces between streets and squares using people-generated image analysis based on the similarities of the features and by clustering them by text analysis of the caption [22]. However, this method of this study focuses on clustering the images into the groups of urban elements and their number.…”

“…Datasets include the URL of the image, captions hashtags, the date, the time, the geographic location of the location IDs and the location name. Text data as a caption is an optional function for users: it allows them to express the intention of taking the photograph [22] and make reference to the place using hashtags. The amount and correctness of the dataset of the place can be distinct due to the exporting options.…”

“…On the example of winter-oriented event "Ledyanoy gorodok" ("Ice Town") at the Lenin Square we consider permanent design as a "no event" situation of the square and the combination of the permanent design and temporary design is considered as the "event" (Figure 1). There is a growing interest in landscape [20,21] and urban design [22] by employing social media to gather impressions of people's perception of urban and natural environments that implies people's reactions evoked [23] or emotional experience of urban objects. The individual's impression or emotional experience of an event, which is evoked from events themselves, can be captured in the photographs they take within spaces [22].…”

“…Moreover, the There is a growing interest in landscape [20,21] and urban design [22] by employing social media to gather impressions of people's perception of urban and natural environments that implies people's reactions evoked [23] or emotional experience of urban objects. The individual's impression or emotional experience of an event, which is evoked from events themselves, can be captured in the photographs they take within spaces [22]. Therefore, to define the urban design that make a strong impression on the pedestrians [24], a large number of photos related to the urban environment posted on social media was analyzed.…”

Exploring the sense of place of traditional shopping streets through Instagram’s visual images and narratives

“…It is also noted that “instagramable” comes from the words “Instagram” and “Able” (Prasetyo, 2019). These places are regarded as meaningful when connected to the visitors’ experience, thus strengthening the urban settings (Qian and Heath, 2019). These favourite locations contribute to the recognisability factor and increase place attraction through Instagram as social media.…”