Structure of Amenity and its Regional Characteristics of Open Spaces

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the structure of amenity (components of amenity and their integrated forms) of open spaces and its regional differences among urban open spaces, country open spaces and natural area's open spaces. For the persuit of this study it is impotant to analyze people's idea of the best condition of open spaces, so 42 items were selected as the components of open space and the degrees of people's desire for each of them were measured in 7 ranks (from quite unnecessary to very necessary). The questionnairing were held to 5 different groups of people. Results were the following.
1. The degrees of desire for the components of urban open spaces were high in every 5 groups, on the contrary the degrees of desire for the each components of natural area's open spaces varied more widely than those of urban open spaces.
2. Comparing the degrees of desire for a component between urban open spaces and natural area's open spaces, the components of [urban open spaces>natural area's open spaces] type were artificial and those of [urban open spaces<natural area's open spaces] type were natural, and those of [urbanopen spaces≠natural area's open spaces] type were indispensable or unnecessary for every open space.
3. Through the factor analysis by the Direct Varimax Method based on correlation coefficients between each desire for the components of open spaces, 11 factors were estimated, such as restfulness, artificiality, coolness, natural beauty, natural play, comfortness of nature, cleanliness, utility, management, quietness and naturalness. Among these factors, restfulness, artificiality and coolness were estimated in every groups and regions (urban, country and natural area).
4. Difining the “components of factor” as the components of open spaces which have greater factor loadings, eight factors without restfulness, artifi ciality and coolness sometimes belonged to the components of these three factors. Therefore eight factors except these three factors were peculiar to a group or to a region. Then restfulness, artificiality and coolness were considered as the fundamental factors or criterions in the case of the evaluation of open spaces.
5. The number of the components of artificiality were inclined to increase from urban open spaces to country and natural area's open spaces, i. e. in urban open spaces japanese garden, children play facilities and stands in open spaces were the main components of the artifiiciality and in country and natural area's open spaces even the components of utility and natural play belonged to the components of artificiality.
6. Defining the “need of factor” as the mean value of the degrees of desire for the components of a factor, the need of restfulness were the highest, then the needs of coolness and artificiality followed it. Comparing these needs of factors among urban country and natural area's open spaces, the need of artificiality was inclined to decrease in the order of urban, country and natural area.