Urban Street Design and Standards in Architecture

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which the streets in the city of Nairobi were guided by the street standards enacted by different statutes. The streets studied were Mamlaka, State House and Nyerere. Mainly, the applicable standards adressed the functionality, safety and convenience, visual integrity and continuity, proper response to topography of the street and integration of service utility including advertisements located along the streets. Each of the street was evaluated for compliance with the standards. Data was collected through observations to and interviews with street users. Qualitative analysis was carried out on the data. The main findings were that the street standards were not complied with adequately and the street users such as pedestrians, street vendors, cyclists and motorists perceived the street as unsafe, inconvenient, lack visual integrity and continuity of streetscape elements. The study found that there were many agencies who were involved in implementing street standards originating from different statutes. The study recommends that there should be full compliance of street standards as laid down by different statutes, since the standards influence the spatial dimensions of the public domain. Finally, the study proposes a need for an overall agency that would coordinate the design of the street to ensure standards from different statutes are harmoniously implemented and overall street design objectives of safety, convenience, functionality, visual integration and continuity, and, response to topography and natural environment are met.