Use of GIS for the Method of Urban Safety Analysis and Environmental Design

Element-IIc: Cells
“Cells” are town blocks as fundamental units of the organic city in the MUSE. There are many different buildings in each “cell” and it has different characteristics according to the structural types and construction period. By applying the vulnerability functions derived by Murao and Yamazaki (1999) or the Building Collapse Risk Assessment (Murao and Yamazaki 2000) to the “cell”, as shown in Figure 6, we can estimate the dangerous area in the city.

Element-IId: Voids
“Voids” are places not occupied by buildings, such as open spaces, public squares, parks, playgrounds, campuses, parking lots. People gather in the “voids” to take part in various urban activities: taking a walk, meeting with others, playing, evacuating from fires, etc. Networks of “voids” and “paths” influence urban safety.

Element-IIe: Cores
“Cores” are point elements, such as buildings important in the case of a disaster: city halls, ward offices, elementary schools, hospitals, electric substations, etc. These buildings have special functions for disaster management, evacuation, utilities, lifeline control, and health care.

Element-III: Webs (as Systematic Elements)
While the “shapes” are the physical elements on the ground, the “webs” are basically systematic elements underground. The “webs” include each lifeline system, such as common ducts, water pipes, and optical fiber cables, and the systems are related to the “cores”.

Element-IV: Nature (as Natural Elements)
A city has its own nature, such as lakes, rivers, forests, groves and fields, according to its geographical features or climate. These natural elements, “nature”, will be essential elements in the urban safety analysis and environmental design. Water from a river is useful for extinguishing fires, and networked greenbelts in the city can be firebreak belts. By combining “nature” with artificial elements, it is possible to make the city comfortable and safe.


(a) Distribution of Strong Ground Motion	(b) Building Collapse Risk

Figure 6 Display of urban safety analysis by the MUSE
4. Conclusions
In this paper a method of analyzing and designing a city was proposed, from the viewpoint of urban safety. The proposed method, called MUSE (the Method of Urban Safety Analysis and Environmental Design), is based on the theory of The Image of the City by Lynch (1961), and the urban physical elements are defined as parts of an organic system. Using the MUSE with Arc/View 3D analyst, we can easily visually simulate the city as a three-dimensional world, a task which previously required much time by making models, on a monitor. The authors constructed vulnerability functions (Murao and Yamazaki, 1999) and proposed the Method for Building Collapse Risk Assessment (Murao and Yamazaki, 2000). By applying these urban safety assessment methods to the MUSE, it should be useful for early damage assessment systems. Moreover, by combining it with recent technology, the proposed method will be realized for urban safety in the future.

References

Lynch, Kevin, (1960). The Image of the City, MIT Press.
Murao, O., Tanaka, H., and Yamazaki, F., (1999). “Comparison of Building Collapse Risk and Actual Building Damage Due to the 1995 Kobe Earthquake,” Proceedings of 6th Japan/United States Workshop on Urban Earthquake Hazard Reduction, Kobe, Japan.
Murao, O., and Yamazaki, F., (1999). “Development of Fragility Curves for Buildings Based on Damage Data due to the Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake,” Proceedings of the Asian-Pacific Symposium on Structural Reliability and Its Applications, 259-269, Taipei, Taiwan.
Murao, O., and Yamazaki, F., (2000). “New Method for Building Collapse Risk Assessment Based on Damage Data Due to the 1995 Kobe Earthquake,” Proceedings of the 12th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (in printing).
Smithon, P., and Smithon, A., (1967). Urban Structuring, Studio Vista Ltd.
Tange, K., (1961). Tokyo Project 1960, Kenzo Tange Laboratory.

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