Sense of place—A tale of two recreational parks near the Solani aqueduct in Roorkee

Abstract

Sense of Place is the interaction of the human with its environment, and is an important element of any place making process. Design should be legible to the user, and should be done according to the social, physical requirements of the users. Yet, there are numerous instances, where the users discard the built environment, in this case the public park. In this paper, we have considered the two parks developed near the Solani aqueduct in the city of Roorkee. While the smaller of the two is used by the residents of the city, the larger one is forsaken by the people. This unique case where two parks are in the vicinity of each other, cater to the same demography, but the user interaction with the spaces being markedly different, proves to be an ideal study of behavioral patterns and sense of place for users of a public space.