Abstract

This design proposal would provide a solution for a specific area of downtown Almaty, Kazakhstan and is based on research and analysis of city information, as well as on the author’s own experiences that were gathered onsite.

Almaty is very car-dependent; the city contains 1.8 million people and sprawls across an area of 263 square miles. Low-height structures to accommodate seismic activity, long travelling distances, wide roads, and vehicular parking chaos can be observed within the city center of Almaty. Having similar population – Munich, Germany and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA were compared to Almaty, where Floor Area Ratio (FAR) showed a value of 1.97 in Almaty, lowest value with a slight lead at Munich and more than twice as high in Philadelphia.

The Panfilov Street project is a recent reconstruction of an existing street into a pedestrian-friendly street, with limited single-lane access for cars. It took both good and bad critics from public, overall being a progressive move in history of Almaty city planning, which had a positive effect on the city center life. As such, the rest of the central city could be improved to enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and the New Urbanism movement could have a positive impact on Almaty’s city center, improving the environment from a pedestrian point of view while also maintaining vehicular access by “densifying” the area; clearly defining private and public spaces; rethinking parking; and providing adequate access routes for people, bicycles and vehicles. Floor area ratio (FAR) of selected site was increased by 30% to 2.63, additionally, 20% rise in area of private and semi-private spaces to approximately 120,000 square feet was observed. Length of pedestrian sidewalk value rose from an existing 7,582 to 9,015 linear feet, along with 5,300 linear feet of bicycle network proposed with this design proposal. As for vehicular issue, with reorganization of the blocks layout and streets, parking capacity was increased from 308 to 410 cars along on-street, surface lot, garage and privately owned automobile storage types.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Urban renewal--Kazakhstan; City planning--Kazakhstan; Transportation--Kazakhstan--Planning

Publication Date

Spring 2019

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Architecture (M.Arch.)

Department, Program, or Center

Architecture (GIS)

Advisor

Giovanna Potesta

Advisor/Committee Member

Nana-Yaw Andoh

Advisor/Committee Member

Julius Chiavaroli

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

ARCH-MARCH

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