A Study of the Relationship between Human Behavior and Urban Design during the Winter in a High-Snowfall Urban Area

Abstract

This study focuses on the relationship between the outdoor environment and usage behavior of open spaces in cities with snowy and cold climates (winter cities), using an outdoor survey conducted at AKAPURA Plaza in Sapporo, Japan. This study seeks to understand walking and staying behaviors and analyzes their relationships to snowy outdoor environments. An analysis of the survey data shows that while the number of pedestrians using AKAPLA Plaza decreased as temperatures dropped, the ratio of staying behavior to the number of pedestrians did not decrease despite dropping temperatures. This study identified the following three design principles that can be applied to encourage the usage of open urban spaces during the winter. In winter, the number of pedestrians decreases in correlation with decreases in temperature; however, during the snowy season, walking can be encouraged by providing areas with less snow (PATH). Partially snow-covered areas can encourage photography and snow play behavior (STORAGE). Finally, providing walking routes to snow-covered areas can encourage staying behavior (APPROACH). These design principles were established based on the study in Sapporo and have the potential to be widely applied in other winter cities across the world through future research and analysis.