Investigating pedestrian connectivity within apartment complexes: a case study of Seoul and Singapore

In present-day Asian cities characterised by apartment complexes—large clusters of apartment buildings with amenities—, constructing walkable apartment complexes is common, especially in Seoul and Singapore. However, scholars have criticised Seoul’s apartment complexes for hindering walkable neighbourhoods, as opposed to Singapore’s apartment complexes. Hence, we examined pedestrian connectivity within a 500-meter radius walking distance, which many researchers have recognised, inter alia, as an essential measure of walkability, of Seoul and Singapore’s apartment complexes, unveiling their design distinctions from a pedestrian connectivity perspective. We analysed eight study sites representing each decade (1970s-2000s) in both cities, focusing on the three measures of intersections affecting pedestrian connectivity within apartment complexes: the number of urban street intersections, the number of intersections on the boundary of apartment complexes, and intersection density in an apartment complex. We found that Singapore’s apartment complexes have a denser and more connected pedestrian network that is strongly integrated into a larger network of urban streets, leading to higher pedestrian connectivity within a 500-meter radius walking distance, than Seoul does. It is because, although, Seoul and Singapore’s apartment complexes appear similar, their layouts differ on a micro-scale. Singapore sites adopt different designs, such as locating pedestrian accesses at varied locations at all apartment complex boundaries through the opened boundary and pilotis on the ground floor of apartment buildings and clustering more apartment complexes on each block. These findings contribute insights into planning and designing walkable apartment complexes, which have immense value and are in high demand in most Asian cities.