Page 37 - JCAU-5-3

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Walkability evaluation of Beijing Old Town

characteristics, and the distribution characteristics are the Central Axis. The higher side of the street aspect ratio
generally different along both sides of Chang’an Avenue. is mainly distributed in the branch roads, such as Ganyu
As shown in Figure 6, the road interface is characterized Alley. The width of the road is only 5 m, while the height
by road width, road aspect ratio, and road continuity. As of the buildings on the higher side reaches 18 – 24 m,
can be seen from the following analysis results, the streets giving people a feeling of narrow space and strong sense
north of Chang’an Avenue are relatively narrow and most of constraint (Yu, 2013). The height to width ratio of
of the branch streets have a width within 10 m, which is the lower side is between 0 and 3.3 m, and the height to
related to the fact that there are many hutongs (alleys) in width ratio of zero indicates that the street side is the non-
the heritage area north of Chang’an Avenue and within physical building space, such as green space or square.
the buffer zone. The average height of buildings is higher Street continuity represents the continuity of the physical
on both sides of the main road and lower on both sides of interface formed by buildings on both sides of the street
the branch streets. The buildings to the south of Chang’an (Jiang et al., 2016). The academic community advocates
Avenue are taller than those to the north, owing to the creating a unified, orderly, and vibrant urban street through
earlier development of the south of the old city of Beijing complete and continuous building façades along the street
and the preservation of historical buildings in the north. (Jin, 1991; Jiang & Chen, 2014). The spatial distribution
From the high side and the low side, the aspect ratio of continuity is characterized by higher continuity to the
mainly represents the pedestrian’s perception in different north of Chang’an Avenue and lower continuity to the
walking directions of the same street. Thus, the road south of it, with the lowest continuity being zero. For
network with street view was selected as the basis for example, in the north of Xihai and Houhai, one side of the
street analysis. The spatial distribution characteristics of street is an architectural space, whereas the other side is an
the overall index are north of Chang’an Avenue and east of ecological space.

Figure 5. Extraction results of fence pixels. Source: Street scene repainting

Figure 6. Analysis results of street interface indicators. Source: Drawings by the authors

Volume 5 Issue 3 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1033