Crowding is very common in highly dense cities such as Hong Kong. I still can picture the crowded scene on the public buses and the underground trains I used to take to work. I tended to use a lot of the public transport as the traffic is really bad in Hong Kong. During the rush hours, I had to stand for the whole 45 minutes bus journey to work, keeping in mind that it was only the second stop of the route from where I live. The underground journey was the worst experience of all; the passengers had to be pushed into the train in order to close the door (the picture below shows a scene of the crowded Hong Kong MTR train. Just imagine standing in the train packed with people, and you could clearly feel people breathing into your hair, or you are being forced into the middle of the cart with no handle and you are bouncing off everybody around you as the train moves. Those are just part of life in Hong Kong, where you cannot hide from no matter where you go. However, there could be ways to tackle or to ease the feeling of crowdedness within a space.
Different people have different levels of adaptation to crowding, such as people from Hong Kong would have a higher level of adaptation to crowding when compared to people from Sweden. Apart from cultural differences, there are factors such as Gender, Personality and Mood, that can determine the level of one’s adaptation.
How does a designer reduce the feeling of crowdedness within a space?
The first thing that came to my mind when looking back to the crowded scene in the trains of Hong Kong was the ceiling height. Increasing the height of the ceiling would greatly reduce the feeling of crowdedness. For example, people wouldn’t feel as crowded when seated in the Old Trafford football stadium in Manchester of UK which holds 75,000 people (shown in the photo below), because there is a vast vertical space through its semi open roof structure.
Temperature also plays a large part in how ones would feel about how crowded the space is. People tends to be angrier when they are hot, therefore they would have less tolerance on the crowds surrounding them. This is due to the sweat they would produce or even they smell from others body sweat, all reducing the level of comfort. To tackle these problem designers could employ AC systems to maintain a comfortable temperature and also keep the space ventilated could help too.
Finally, natural light can also reduce the feeling crowdedness within a space. Rooms filled with sun light are perceived to be less crowded than those without sunlight entering. Recording from our class session on crowding, sunlight can reduce the tone within a space, and in turn making the space feeling lighting, that might reduce the feeling of crowdedness (the picture below shows a white washed space filled with sunlight.)
References -
http://www.hongkonghustle.com/tag/mtr-hong-kong/
http://themountcarmel.com/images/croke_park.jpg&imgrefurl=http://community.manutd.com
http://www.momoy.com/2009/02/07/contemporary-and-spacious-interior-of-dehavilland-building
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/sweat-threat-army-looks-at-abnormal-perspiration-as-sign-of-harmful-intent/
http://chinaexpat.com/wp-content/uploads/u3/Chinese_crowding.jpg&imgrefurl
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