A case study on the biophilic framework of healthy city bikeways in Taichung City, Taiwan

Jose Antonio P. Bimbao ； Takazi Okuda

《ICFXD 2021 未來X設計國際學術研討會論文集》 2021 (2021/10) Pp. a03-03-1-11

https://doi.org/10.29673/ICFXD.202110.0003

摘要

A healthy city environment provides well-being through access to nature. Settings that allow for the natural environment to be perceived by humans are appealing since people tend to seek relationships with nature as theorized by the biophilia hypothesis of E.O. Wilson (1984). In light of the recent pandemic, healthy solutions have been emerging as a method to cope with the health risks. Transport has been greatly affected because of distancing requirements. Globally, cycling has turned into a common go-to strategy in urban centers as an effective strategy to manage congestion by providing a safer mode of movement by limiting pandemic-related risks for travelers. As it surfaces as an ‘essential’ mode of transport, urban settings temporarily restructured road networks to allow safer travel for cyclists. With the world moving forward, there is a threat for these shared roadways to revert to their congested normal state. In traditional urbanism, bikeways or cycling infrastructure has been designed to be close to the natural surroundings as part of green networks that connect green spaces and amenities such as parks. This relationship is a healthy biophilic relationship that encourages cyclists in their activity for recreation, leisure, or utility. Because various cities across the world are beginning to consider expanding their cycling infrastructure, planning development requires exploring this healthy biophilic relationship with existing bikeways. Established bikeways give a better idea of proper cycling infrastructure development in comparison to the ad-hoc, temporary pandemic solutions that mostly deal with repurposed existing road networks for the activity. This paper focuses on is the biophilic affinities of cycling. Taichung City, Taiwan serves as a suitable case study. It is assumed that the city has developed healthy cycling infrastructures that can guide post-pandemic development. The goal is to devise a framework that ties up the natural environment and existing cycling infrastructure. Objectives are to describe current bikeway conditions, process environmental variables, and create a network with the variables. These relationships built the framework to connect biophilia and cycling infrastructure patterned from the pillars of biophilic design. The resulting framework shows that there is a disconnect with visible biophilic patterns of green and blue infrastructure to road use typology. The other variables of elevation and perceivable surroundings through network analysis were necessary to connect the gap. This explained that biophilic patterns do not follow a template standard design for all bikeways, but rather, follow more specific, unique patterns based on place.

關鍵字

biophilia ； greener mobility ； healthy city ； livable