A Quantitative Analysis of Natural Surveillance at Elementary Schools
-Evaluation Method Based on Perspectives from Both Outside Visibility and Visibility from Inside Buildings-

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increased demand for the development of an effective way of addressing the somewhat contradictory topics of opening schools to the community and crime prevention. In response to this demand, there has been a rise in the active usage of theory of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Natural surveillance is particularly important in CPTED, and there has been a proposal to increase crime prevention efforts based on natural surveillance by using layout and floor planning studies, in addition to previous elementary school facility planning models that have focused primarily on the function and design of schools. For this reason, it has become necessary to develop a method to quantitatively evaluate the natural surveillance of elementary schools. The authors proposed a method to evaluate natural surveillance from two perspectives — the view of the school grounds from outside and the view of the exterior from inside the buildings — for 46 elementary schools, for the purpose of gaining knowledge concerning the factors that make elementary schools safe or unsafe.