The Footprint of Walking and Street Activities to the Architecture of the Street: The Case of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

Street and the activities bound within it associate the social, cultural, economic and spatial significance with walking, apart from its mobility aspect of moving from point A to B. The conventional requirement for street design provide s for distinctive and defined spatial organization, visual expression and functions. Given to socio-economic condition of the population in cities of least developed countries, street ha s become part of platform for both walking and economic activities. In this respect, the streets are exposed to transforming formal and informal socio-economic activities amidst the hardly isolated function of walking. Such street dynamics have influenced the street organization and hence the architecture of the street questioning the authenticity of conventional design orthodox. The case study is done in Dar es Salaam city to acquire empirical data that provide insight on such phenomenon. It is revealed that the influence of socio-economic activities in streets overrule s the conventional requirements such that they shape the walking condition and the architecture of the street. Thus, it is concluded that the design for walking has to take into consideration the socio-economic context of the locality and its impact to the architecture of the street in order to achieve convenience of both walking and the street visual expression.