Impacts of landscape architecture on outdoor insecurity in urban housing complexes

Abstract

Housing is one of the most essential components of life, offering shelter, protection, and comfort, as well as a place to rest. When considering the Sri Lankan housing complexes Millennium city housing complex was highlighted mainly because of the crime incidents that happened inside the housing complex. This research is done to demonstrate and to investigate the application of landscape architecture for security on urban housing complexes based on Millennium city housing complex, using landscape character to reduce outdoor insecurity. Seven places in the millennium city housing complex premises were selected to apply the crime prevention through environmental design theory and to observe its effectiveness through structured interviews and by considering the police reports that were taken through Sri Lanka police Athurugiriya. Natural surveillance, Territorial reinforcement, Maintenance, Prospect, Refuge, and Escape factors are separately discussed in the analysis regarding the selected places. A sectional survey is done for further analysis. The outcome shows that the house settings and the landscape character affect the outdoor landscape safety of the residents. The study will be a source to better understand how landscape architecture can be applied for outdoor security in urban housing complexes.