A Perception of architects' & urban designers' on impact of outdoor advertisement on visual pollution; an evidence from Nugegoda, Sri lanka.

Abstract

Today, Sri Lanka is moving towards developments of high urbanization this also leads to highly commercialized streetscape. In further Nugegoda, Sri Lanka is one of the envisioned Major Urban Centre within the Colombo Metropolitan Area for 2035. The rapid haphazard commercial development also leads to question the impact of Outdoor Advertisements on Visual Pollution within this context. However, Architects and Urban Designers are the professionals who define the streetscape and the image of the city. Therefore, this study focused on finding the impact of Outdoor Advertisements on Visual Pollution from the perceptions of Architects’ and Urban Designers’. The study area divided in to 44 surveyed points and photo-based web survey conducted to check the perception of the convenience population sample of 100 numbers of a mixture of Architects and Urban Designers on; appearance of the street (as), number of Outdoor Advertisements in the street (na) and appearance of the Outdoor Advertisements in the street (aa) based on these independent variables the dependent variable of Surveyed Visual Pollution Score constructed with Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS 26). The Surveyed Visual Pollution Score measured for each 44 points and Surveyed Visual Pollution Map was produced using ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst to make kernel interpolation. The study findings show that; the area near the main node of the study area becomes the highest visually polluted area and pollution are decreasing with the distance away from the main node. Additionally, the Surveyed Visual Pollution Map shows that there is positive relationship with Surveyed Visual Pollution Score and the hierarchy of the roads. A higher number of 38 out of 100 respondents strongly agree to place OAs in the Streetscape. A higher percentage of 46.7% respondents perceive OAs as means of Visual Pollution. The second highest percentage of 24.1% respondents perceive OAs effects the Image of the City. A higher percentage of 34.9% respondents prefers to have virtual and social media advertising rather OAs. The highest number of respondents (30 out of 100 respondents recommended) recommended to premise the area ratio of OAs to building façade of 1/8 : 1. Moreover, another 25 out of 100 respondents recommended to premise the area ratio of OAs to building façade of 1/16 : 1.