Functional zoning of park territories in large cities of Belarus: development of methods and quality assessment

Introduction. In Belarus, some urban parks are less attractive for visitors and need reconstruction due to the new requirements for specific types and conditions of recreation, which have changed over the last decades due to the influence of factors triggered by a change in the economic model of societal development. The task of functional zoning is solved when a park reconstruction project is developed. Decisions concerning the recreational and other areas have an important impact on park design stages and play an important role in developing comfortable park environments. The purpose of the study is to build and validate a methodology for assessing the quality of functional zoning of urban parks using quantifiable factors. Materials and methods. Quantifiable factors, that have a considerable impact on the comfort of park environments, were identified using an integrated approach. A planogram-based graphic-analytical method was used to assess the intensity of this impact. To identify the criteria for assessing the quality of park zoning, publicly available design guidelines and master plans of parks were analyzed. Information about current functional zoning of parks was obtained at the preliminary stage of the study by examining satellite images downloaded from the Google Earth Engine Explorer resource; this information was subsequently clarified using surveying methods. Results. A need to take into account a number of quantifiable factors, influencing the comfort of environments, accompanies the process of developing a functional zoning pattern for multifunctional urban parks. Hence, we had an idea to develop a methodology for the functional zoning quality assessment. For this purpose, a system of criteria for assessing the quality of functional zones and an assessment methodology were developed. The methodology stems from the fact that a planogram of influence of various factors on park territories represents a nonzero two-dimensional matrix, which helps perform mathe­matical summation operations in furtherance of a given set of criteria. The new methodology was used to assess the quality of current functional zoning of urban parks in eight large Belarusian cities. Conclusions. The methodology developed for the quality assessment of current functional zoning of urban parks confirms the validity of design solutions, and it can be used at the pre-project stage to improve the validity of solutions in the process of developing architectural and planning concepts of parks aimed at their reconstruction. It can also serve as a component of comprehensive assessments of comfort in the park environments when management decisions are made in terms of recreational areas.