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A Study on Human Scale of Space Surrounded with Hills and Capes

Publication year Port and Airport Research Institute Report 031-02-05 1992.06
Author(s) Ushio SAITOH,Masatoshi TAKESHITA,Kenji UESHIMA
Department
/Divison
Planning and Design Standard Division Port Planing Laboratory
Executive Summary

The purepose of this study is to find one of the standard of human scale in port. Fortunately, Japanese have interesting old geographical name which means the emvironment in which people feel comfortable like room by being enclosed with hills and capes. The name is 'muro'. It often makes complex with other geographical name. For example, 'muro-tsu' meaning port like room, or 'muro-hama' meaning beach-side village like room.
 We thought that we can find one of the standard of human scale in port by examining the scale of equivalent spaces for the geographical name. We could collect 30 names in Japanese coastal area, examined the scale, and considered it from some aspects.
 The main conclusions are as follows:
1) Changing it into square for convenience sake, the scale of equivalent spaces for the geographical name 'muro' equals roughly 200m ×200m~400m×400m.
2) According to knowledges on human scale about seeing and walking, people feel near or short about the distance of 200~400m. Therefore, so far as the scale of space, it seems that people can adapt themselves naturally to the equivalent spaces for 'muro'.

PDF File /en/pdf/en/vol031-no02-05.pdf