Analysis of liminal space - from a sense of safety to a new identity

Abstract

The research connects liminal spaces and pedestrian experience with a safety theory, in the domain of urban studies. Important topics for this research are based walking, safety, perception, and transport. Walking is becoming an important aspect of an individual's everyday life in terms of public health, economic, environmental, and other benefits. The factors that define a space as walkable are not limited to the physical dimensions of a place but also include perception. For safety, the terms of legibility and readability are important as one of the key prerequisites for observation and all other pedestrian activities. Previous walkability research is focused on neighborhoods or shopping and business districts, but not on liminal spaces. Regarding the aim, there are interesting urban phenomena in the contemporary city which define the occasion of this research. The transport infrastructure can radically divide urban tissue, where, in the history of roads, we haven't found a solution for improving the space of the city highway. Furthermore, post-socialist cities in transformation characterize some crucial changes in urban patterns and urban impacts. The assumptions are various and multidisciplinary. The first one is focused on post-socialist neighborhoods and their usage especially on mikrorayons in today’s post-social city where the neighborhood of opportunity is considered an imaginary territory that represents a transformed neighborhood unit where the user can satisfy all of his needs by walking. The second one is based on analogy space with the written text, where legibility is focused on small parts and signs, while readability is based on the whole and on associations, that are emerging in our minds with possible common space usage scenarios. And last ones are based on historical and psychological aspects – Belgrade was part of two unfinished modernizations in the XX century and as such it provides new opportunities for transformations according to new types of active transport such as walking and cycling; human faces of passers-by as stimuli from the environment, fill the working memory of the pedestrian user and affect his orientation in space. The study area is liminal spaces in Belgrade, especially the spaces of traffic hubs of the city highway, such as Mostar Interchange and unsafe parts of New Belgrade mega blocks. The liminal spaces are multidimensionally analyzed using different methods such as ergonomic and spatial analysis, behavioral observations, space syntax, mappings, walking interviews, and elements of psychological and historical research. The focus will be on comparisons and finding out connections and differences between liminal spaces as a part of various places – transport hubs in transport spaces, passages as points of pedestrian network in different types of neighborhoods, and other places. The research aims to find out urban patterns in liminal spaces, as well as elements that can improve the readability and security of that space, focusing on new pedestrian mobility. The results should show that elements of transformation can be defined by redefining the relationship between spatial planning, urban design, a sense of security, as well as the identity, and historical character of space.