The research is particularly relevant as cities face rising temperatures, increasingly dense urban activity, limited land, and growing demand for smart-city infrastructure. Public spaces are no longer simply places for recreation or social interaction. They also function as urban infrastructure that supports health, comfort, safety, environmental services, and the ability of cities to adapt to changing conditions.
Why Human-Centered Public Spaces Matter
Rasjid's research addresses a gap in how public spaces are evaluated. Previous studies have often examined thermal comfort, accessibility, environmental performance, user behavior, or smart technology separately. The Bandar Lampung study instead brings these elements together through a human-centered design framework.
The approach places people's needs, abilities, behavior, perceptions, and experiences at the center of design decisions. In a smart public space, technology should therefore support human well-being rather than become the primary goal of development.
The research examined five major design elements: shade, vegetation, adaptive furniture, universal access, and information technology. These elements were compared with users' thermal comfort, perceived accessibility, sense of safety, activity patterns, and length of stay. Climate resilience was assessed through indicators such as microclimate conditions, shading, vegetation, drainage, and the ability to maintain public-space functions under hot or rainy conditions.
How the Research Was Conducted
Rasjid used a mixed-method approach that combined measurements, observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The research involved 120 public-space users in Bandar Lampung and eight stakeholders, including public-space managers, architects, urban planners, a maintenance officer, and a local government representative. Data were collected during weekdays and weekends and across morning, afternoon, evening, and night periods.
Researchers measured temperature and humidity in different zones while also observing how people used the spaces. Participants completed questionnaires about comfort, accessibility, safety, vegetation, shade, furniture, and technology. Interviews provided additional information about design adaptation, maintenance, accessibility, and technology management. The quantitative data were analyzed using correlation analysis, while interview and observation findings were examined thematically.
Vegetation and Shade Had the Strongest Practical Impact
One of the clearest findings was the difference in temperature between open, shaded, and vegetated areas.
The average temperature in the open zone was 31.65°C, compared with 29.98°C in shaded areas and 29.43°C in vegetated areas. This means the vegetated zone was, on average, 2.22°C cooler than the open zone.
The difference became even larger during the afternoon. The open area reached an average of 34.6°C, while shaded areas measured 31.8°C and vegetated areas 30.9°C. The vegetated zone was therefore 3.7°C cooler than the open zone during the day.
User responses reflected these environmental differences. 68.3% of respondents said they were comfortable or very comfortable in areas combining vegetation and shade. In open areas, the corresponding figure was only 34.2%. Vegetation also received the highest average design score, at 4.15 out of 5, followed by shade at 4.08.
The relationship between vegetation and thermal comfort was also strong, with a correlation coefficient of 0.62. Shade showed a correlation of 0.58 with thermal comfort.
Cooler Areas Encourage Longer Use
The physical environment also appeared closely connected to how long people stayed.
During 16 observation sessions, researchers recorded 1,036 activity events. Sitting and social interaction accounted for 398 events, or 38.4%, making it the most common activity. More than 60% of recorded activities occurred in areas with vegetation, shade, or both. During daytime observations, 74.5% of sedentary activities were concentrated in shaded and vegetated areas.
Average time spent in the space was 38.6 minutes in open areas, compared with 64.2 minutes in shaded areas and 71.5 minutes in vegetated areas.
Overall, human-centered design showed positive relationships with four important outcomes:
- Thermal comfort: 0.64
- Accessibility: 0.59
- Safety perception: 0.53
- Length of use: 0.47
All four relationships had statistical significance below 0.001.
Accessibility Requires More Than Ramps
The research also found that universal accessibility remains an important challenge. Its relationship with users' perceived accessibility was particularly strong, at 0.66.
Interviews revealed problems including disconnected pathways, changes in elevation, uneven surfaces, limited directional signs, and poor connections between entrances, seating areas, and sanitation facilities. The findings indicate that an accessible public space must provide a continuous and understandable route, rather than simply installing individual ramps or designated paths.
This has direct implications for older people, people with reduced mobility, and other users who depend on safe and continuous movement through public spaces.
Smart Technology Should Support People, Not Replace Good Design
Information technology received the lowest average score among the five design elements, at 3.58. Its relationship with safety perception was also weaker than the relationships between vegetation, shade, and thermal comfort, with a coefficient of 0.41.
At the research locations, digital technology was still largely limited to information boards and some lighting facilities. Environmental information, accessible navigation, facility reporting, and monitoring systems had not yet been integrated. Digital information was involved in only 7.6% of observed activities.
For Achmad Zoelkarnaen Rasjid of Universitas Lampung, the findings indicate that smart-city development should not be reduced to technological sophistication. The evidence suggests that technology becomes more meaningful when it responds directly to users' needs, while ecological and spatial elements such as vegetation, shade, furniture, and accessibility remain fundamental to everyday experience.
Implications for Climate-Resilient Cities
The findings offer practical guidance for architects, urban planners, local governments, and public-space managers. Bandar Lampung and other Indonesian cities can prioritize the equitable distribution of trees and shaded areas, place adaptive furniture in comfortable zones, create continuous universal-access routes, and use technology for environmental information, navigation, lighting, and facility reporting.
Maintenance is equally important. The research identified vegetation care, drainage, furniture, lighting, budgets, and coordination between management units as factors affecting long-term performance. Climate resilience therefore cannot be achieved through design alone. Public spaces must also be maintained as integrated systems.
The authors acknowledge several limitations. The study used a non-probability sample, focused on a single urban context, and had a relatively high proportion of young respondents. The cross-sectional design and correlation analysis also cannot establish direct cause-and-effect relationships. Future research is recommended to include more children, older adults, and people with disabilities, compare multiple public spaces, and conduct measurements across different seasons.
Author Profile
Achmad Zoelkarnaen Rasjid is affiliated with Universitas Lampung and serves as the corresponding author of the article. The published paper does not state an academic degree for Rasjid, so no degree is added here to avoid introducing unsupported information. Based on the article, his research focus in this publication covers human-centered design, smart public spaces, climate resilience, thermal comfort, accessibility, and sustainable urban architecture.
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