Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted USERS' PERCEPTIONS OF HOLY PUBLIC SPACES IN THE HOLY CITY OF MAKKAH(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2024-07-01) Nabhan, Yahya Muhammed; Bin Lamit, Hasanuddin; Bin Azizui, Muhammad FaridFrom the first human settlements, public spaces were connected to the people and dominated their activities and the urban lifestyle. Recently, many studies have been undertaken to enhance the public spaces in modern city, and placemaking is the most used method to enhance the public spaces that align with the users’ needs. The public spaces around the Grand Mosque in Makkah have worked in multiple ways to enhance the profile of the Grand Mosque and the Sacred Places in the Holy City of Makkah since the time of rebuilding the Kaabah until the present day. Also, the Holy City of Makkah has become one of the most important religious, economic, commercial, and social cities and the estimated number of visitors to the Holy City of Makkah will be around 30 million by the year 2030. Moreover, recently the disappearance of public open places in the Holy City of Makkah, especially in the urban center and around the Grand Mosque, led to the disappearance of activities by visitors-and residents, turning the open spaces into generally transit areas. The study considered two types of activities, holiness activity and public activity. This research is aimed at creating parameters to enhance the Holy Public Spaces around the Grand Mosque by considering the users ‘needs in public spaces while addressing the Sense of Holiness. This study adopted an exploratory and explanatory approach to better comprehend the historical development of these areas and to investigate the user's perception of the Holy Public Spaces. The first step in the process of study is to identify the existing conditions of the public spaces and the issues that exist within it. A Holy Space Making framework was later developed through a systematic literature review to evaluate the public spaces in the holy city by taking into account the possible influential factors that might affect the users in the public spaces through readapted place-making factors and the Sense of Holiness. This is followed by the use of a quantitative approach, collecting data from 433 people of various nationalities by simple random sampling method who had been to the Holy City of Makkah to either do Umrah or Hajj. This research used social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook together with emails to disseminate this questionnaire. SPSS was used to do the statistical analysis of the data based on the Likert scale. Based on the results, it is evident that the quality of public spaces in the Holy City of Makkah significantly impacts its users’ public attitude and productivity. This research highlights the meaning and the factors that may enhance these public spaces. The findings indicates that users relate faithfulness, holiness, privacy with sanctity while identity attachment, sense of place, peace and character to place attachment. The findings of this research have wide implications for fields where the concept of a holy public place is significant. This research is a crucial milestone in gathering empirical information on the creation of Holy Public Space-Making that takes into account the physical, psychological, and spiritual needs and perceptions of users to improve the quality of life in these spaces. It is recommended that further emphasis be given to understanding the functions of open spaces in places in Islamic countries which are identified and recognized as Holy.17 0Item Restricted Assessing the Availability, Accessibility, and Distribution of Public Open Spaces: A Case Study of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia(Submitted to the graduate degree program in School of Architecture and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas, 2023-07-03) Alalyani, Abdulwahab; Rashid, MahbubIn the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), cities such as Riyadh face many challenges, including those related to public health. Public open spaces (POS) can play a central role in promoting community health by accommodating passive and active daily activities in these cities. However, these valuable resources may not be readily available, accessible, or well-distributed among all urban communities. This study aims to evaluate the availability and accessibility of POS and their distribution in the neighborhoods of Riyadh. Several studies have highlighted the importance of availability, accessibility, and other factors in the planning and distributing POS. The distribution of open spaces across various social and spatial domains has also been a subject of concern. Three research objectives are considered. The first objective is to measure the existing levels of availability and accessibility of POS in the neighborhoods. The second is to explore the availability and physical accessibility of POS based on neighborhoods' socioeconomic status. The third is to investigate the POS availability and physical accessibility among Riyadh's neighborhoods based on urban development periods before and after 1953 (old and modern neighborhoods). POS availability is defined as POS areas per person which was measured by calculating the total of POS areas with respect to the total population within a geological area. POS accessibility is defined as the ease with which people can reach POS by walking. To study differences among Riyadh’s neighborhoods, we focused on the 400 meters network distance from the POS. Spatial and socioeconomic data were collected from Riyadh’s official government websites. POS was defined as urban community parks that meet the criteria of being public, free, accessible, and developed. The neighborhoods in Riyadh were sampled to investigate the availability and accessibility of POS according to the three objectives. All POS were mapped and evaluated using the geographical information systems (GIS). We used a One-way ANOVA to test the differences between the social and spatial groups. The findings demonstrated that POS availability in Riyadh is low, and POS accessibility is limited, with variations in their distribution. Across 137 neighborhoods, there is an average of 1.65 m2 of POS per person, which does not meet the minimum WHO standard of 9m2, nor did not reach 3.1m2 per person, as seen in the comparable local example of Dubai. The findings revealed that the high-income neighborhoods were higher in the availability of POS compared to medium and low-income neighborhoods. Finally, the findings show that the neighborhoods developed before 1953 had lower POS availability than those developed after 1953, and there is a statistically significant difference. Our findings show that POSs accessibility is limited. Only a third or less of Riyadh’s population resides within good or average access coverage of POS. In contrast, two-thirds of Riyadh’s population live in places with poor POS coverage. This study proposes several recommendations and suggestions to improve the availability and accessibility of POS. These practical and constructive solutions focus mainly on three dimensions: administrative and political, design, and user-related activities and programs in public spaces. Future research opportunities are identified. However, a challenge remains in acquiring comprehensive social and spatial data and enabling access to such data and tools.97 0