Pedestrian Patterns and Spaces: Modelling Visitor Engagement Dynamics at the Jeddah Northern Waterfront

Abstract

This research studies the Jeddah Waterfront in an attempt to first model, then understand the pedestrian-waterfront engagement dynamics. To understand potential factors driving pedestrian engagement, the research explores theories of natural movement, attractors, and prospect and refuge. To contextualize the pedestrian patterns, this study creates a model of the spatial characteristics of the waterfront. Modelling a waterfront space using current VGA tools was challenging. A new tool for creating visibility graphs then was explored and adapted, with components allowing the use of directed visibility graphs, night-time lighting and weighted visual attractors. The visibility results were then tested against pedestrian distribution, based on the snapshot observation method. Where the cumulative isovist count for each grid point was correlated with the predicted visibility from the graph with a r2 correlation value of 0.78. Pedestrian activity subgroups were then defined, the most common being: observing, settling, resting and travelling. These categories were then explored and associated with various spatial metric patterns resulting in a set of design recommendations for the ongoing Jeddah Waterfront expansions.