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UnderstandingInhabitants’SpatialExperienceoftheCityofDohathroughCognitiveMapping

ArticleinOpenHouseInternational·December2013

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AshrafM.Salama

UniversityofStrathclyde

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FatmaKhalfani

QatarUniversity

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Availablefrom:AshrafM.Salama

Retrievedon:25July2016

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INTRODUCTION: EXPERIENCINGDOHA’S URBAN OPEN SPACES

The city of Doha is experiencing continual rapidgrowth with new or emerging urban nodes andcentres, housing developments, and a wide spec-trum of mixed-use interventions. Little attention,however, has been paid to several importantgrowth aspects, including the examination of thedialectic relationship between the city inhabitantsand the urban environment, the understanding ofthe way in which the inhabitants comprehend andreact to its built environment and the resulting spa-tial experience, as well as their attitudes towardnewly urbanised spaces (Salama and Wiedmann,2013). Utilising techniques derived from the field of‘Environment-Behaviour Research,’ this paper pro-vides an analytical understanding of how the resi-dents of Doha identify with their surroundings, howthey spatially experience the city, and how theyrelate to selected key spaces or urban areas. Basedon applying cognitive mapping procedures togeth-er with an attitude survey the paper explores urbanareas in the city as perceived and experienced byvarious groups of residents.

Different cultural groups, age groups, andgenders appear to experience the city of Doha, itsoverall urban environment, and its urban openspaces in very different ways (Salama and Gharib,2012). These groups have different spheres of

experience, interaction with, and interest in thespaces; the purpose for which they visit and interactwith them varies dramatically. In addition, due tofactors related to their cultural background, age, orgender, their understanding and perception of thecity is quite different; this is generally based on theplaces where they live, work, visit, and how theymove about the city. Their perception of the overallurban environment is defined by their personalexperiences and relates to what different spaceswithin the city have to offer (Salama, 2011). Whilesome inhabitants may enjoy key attractions such asthe Corniche Waterfront Park (Figure 1) or Al BiddaPark (Figure 2) or the restored and rehabilitated tra-ditional market, Souq Waqif (Figure 3), others mayprefer the new, more exclusive, developments suchas Katara Cultural Village or The Pearl Qatardevelopment (Figure 4). Some may even like thedense urban areas and spaces that are charac-terised by affordable merchandising and shoppingareas, while still others prefer open green spacesthat satisfy their leisure time and recreational needsand those of their children.

Examining how the city inhabitants experi-ence it and its open spaces should go beyond inter-viewing a small group of inhabitants as this maysupport what is already self-evident. Rather,research techniques such as cognitive mappingand attitude surveys are needed to assess and inter-pret the way in which inhabitants comprehend dif-

Ashraf M. Salama, Ahood Al-Maimani, and Fatma Khalfani

Abstract

Despite the current fast track urban development process that characterizes the city of Doha, very few studies have

addressed several important growth aspects, including the examination of the way in which its inhabitants comprehend

and react to its built environment and the resulting spatial experience. This paper examines inhabitants’ spatial experi-

ence in the city by applying cognitive mapping procedures coupled with an attitude survey. 108 responses were

received, analyzed, and classified in three categories a) living, working, and visiting patterns; b) comprehension of

home range, home zone, and movement; and c) ethnic affiliation: Qataris and other Arab expatriates. The findings

contribute to an in-depth understanding of the inhabitants' spatial experience. The study concludes with an emphasis

that by establishing knowledge generated from research findings that are derived from direct experience of inhabitants

including movement patterns and the rhythm of geographical locations within the city, the various aspects of how cer-

tain areas work within the urban structure of the city can be elucidated.

Keywords: Spatial Experience, Doha, Urban Mobility, Home Range, Home Zone, Cognitive Mapping.

UNDERSTANDING INHABITANTS' SPATIAL EXPERIENCEOF THE CITY OF DOHA THROUGH COGNITIVEMAPPING

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ferent locations and their movement experiences.In this respect, cognitive mapping is utilized aprocess composed of a series of psychologicaltransformations by which individuals acquire, code,store, recall, and decode information about the rel-ative locations and attributes in their everyday spa-tial environment (Downs and Stea, 1973). Thus, acognitive map is a mental device that codes andsimplifies the way in which the spatial environmentis arranged (Ormrod, 2011). In essence, cognitivemaps are a mental representation of physical loca-tions.

When reviewing and analysing how the cityof Doha is experienced by its residents and users,two critical urban elements appear as predisposingfactors governed by the spatial perception of the

structure of a city; these are the understanding ofgeographical locations and urban mobility ormovement within the city, and the way in whichpeople relate to both.

Geographical locations can be exemplifiedby prominent or well-known places that influencepeople’s perception of the city, such as the areaswhere they live, work, visit, entertain, etc. Two typesof areas appear to have a strong influence on howpeople perceive geographical locations; these arereferred to as the ‘home zone’ and the ‘homerange.’ Home zone and home range are phenom-ena that relate to the concept of territoriality. Theyhave been discussed in the writings of theorists andresearchers whose main driver is to establish linksbetween the physical environment and social

Figure 2. Al-Bidda Park, one of the key attractions in the city of Doha. (Source: Authors).

Figure 1. The waterfront promenade of the Corniche road. (Source: Authors).

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behavior (Altman, 1975; Rapoport, 2006; Abdel-Hadi, ElNachar & Safieldin, 2011). On the onehand, the home zone is a phenomenon that isrelated to an environment with minimal need formodes of transportation; such locales can be easi-ly accessed on foot and thus engender a sense of

ownership and belonging among the residents ofits inner streets and public spaces. On the otherhand, home range is a concept more concernedwith a holistic mental image of the entire residentialenvironment, irrespective of its scale and size. Itplaces emphasis on the perceived territorial and

Figure 3. The restored traditional market, Souq Waqif. (Source: Authors).

Figure 4. The Pearl Qatar, one of the exclusive developments on the northwestern periphery of the city. (Source: Authors).

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geographical boundary for the inhabitants as indi-viduals and in groups.

For urban planning and design as branch-es derived from the domains of social sciences andengineering, a city is a fluid dynamic system thatkeeps evolving or changing. In any city materialand non-material inputs and outputs flow in, out,and within; a process that creates movement andmobility. Movement and urban mobility have beenviewed in the historical and contemporary urban lit-erature as important aspects of successful cities. Onthe one hand, historical writings in the field haveattempted to address social and behavioral issuesin relation to movement (Burgess, 1925; Sorokin,1927). On the other hand, contemporary writingshave focused on the idea of networks in relation tothe spatial structure (Geyer and Kontuly, 1996).

The current accelerated spread of urbanareas in Doha has led to extensive urban sprawland the formation of additional larger urbanisedareas and has resulted in the emergence ofagglomerations and the notion of greater andexpanding city boundaries or metropolitan areas.Such areas can be defined on the basis of how farfrom and how long it takes to commute to the citycore, or from living areas to work areas, and pub-lic places. Understanding urban mobility or move-ment patterns within the city is crucial to under-standing the operational principles that go beyonda single urban locality. Movement is also affectedby the new spatial patterns and the spatial distribu-tion of functions and uses. By developing an under-standing of people’s movement patterns and therhythm of geographical locations within the city, thevarious aspects of how certain areas work within thecity’s urban structure can be identified, analysedand explained.

A METHODOLOGY FORUNDERSTANDING THE INHABITANTS 'SPAT IAL EXPERIENCE IN THE CITY OFDOHA

In order to examine the experience of the city’sinhabitants in terms of movement and their com-prehension of the city in terms of where they live,work, entertain, and what travel routes they use, asurvey questionnaire was developed with twoobjectives in mind. The first aim was to gather datafor interpretations of how the city is experiencedbased on the inhabitants’ reactions to certain para-meters, rather than the utilising more standardpractice of reading and interpreting the city basedon analyses of reports by specialised professionalsor observers. The second objective was to investi-gate the way in which inhabitants perceive move-

ment in the city in relation to the geographical loca-tions most important to them such as living areas,work areas, and the public places they frequent.

Eighteen undergraduate students wereasked to respond to the survey questionnaire, andthen distribute it to ten people such as relatives andneighbors to solicit responses. The process requiredarchitecture students explaining the survey to theparticipants including its purpose and the nature ofthe questions. The questionnaire provided a map ofgreater Doha and included queries about basicinformation related to the gender, age, and cultur-al background of the participants; they wererequired to name them and indicate the area wherethey live and work on the map (Figure 5, Table 1).

Participants had to select the three publicspaces that they frequented the most, as well asindicate the routes they take from their residence totheir workplace, and the routes taken to the mostvisited public spaces on the map. Relying on cogni-tive mapping procedure, the questionnaire requiredparticipants to mark the home zone and homerange on the map. Home zone was defined to theparticipants as the immediate context around theirhomes, which reflects a shared or collective hypo-thetical ownership of communal space or areawhile home range was delineated as the respon-dents’ mental image, based on their understandingof what defines such an environment and their per-ception of its boundaries, of the entire residentialenvironment or district around their home.

Over 50% of the targeted populationresponded to the survey with a total of 108responses received. The comprehension of move-ment, home zone, and home range was an integralcomponent of a larger study conducted by archi-tecture students of the class of 2012 as part of anelective course on Post Occupancy Evaluation,

Figure 5. Fig. 5. Map of greater Doha and the spaces

investigated. (Google Earth, 2012).

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offered in the spring semester at the Department ofArchitecture and Urban Planning at QatarUniversity, and delivered in the Spring 2012.

The profile of the respondents was repre-sentative of a wide spectrum of people, from differ-ent cultural backgrounds: 65% of the respondentswere Qatari nationals while 35% were expatriateprofessionals, mainly from neighbouring Arabcountries. Sixty-nine per cent of the respondentswere between 20 and 40 years old, the majority ofwhom (65%) were female. While the respondents’profile was reasonably diverse, it should be notedthat Americans, Asians, and Europeans representother cultural groups that also form an importantcomponent of the city’s expatriate residents, werenot included in the survey. Therefore, while theresponses from the sample group and the popula-tion they represent cannot be generalised to repre-sent the whole city, they offer important insights intothe understanding of certain preferences andmovement patterns within the city as they relate tothe participants.

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Utilising frequency, cross-tabulation, and cumula-tive mapping procedures for the total number ofrespondents and for groups of Qataris and Arabexpatriates, results were categorised into three

bands that pertained to: a) living, working, and vis-iting; b) home range, home zone, and movement;and c) ethnic affiliation: Qataris and other Arabexpatriates.

Living, Working, and Visiting The areas where the participants in the survey livevary greatly. However, three areas or districts standout from the responses; these are Mamoura,Gharrafa, and Khraitiyat: 9% of the respondentslive in Mamoura district, while Gharrafa andKhraitiyat districts each received 8% of the respons-es. This result corresponds with the overall profile ofthe respondents: for example, the Mamoura districtis characterised by a mix of Qataris, who reside inprivately owned homes, and other Arab nationalswho live in villas and low-rise apartment buildingstypically rented by employers for their expatriateworkforce. In contrast, the Gharrafa and Khraitiyatdistricts, located in close proximity to the north-western peripheries of the city, are primarily char-acterised by Qatari homes thus reflecting their pref-erence for living on the outskirts and periphery ofthe city.

In terms of the areas where survey partici-pants work, four areas are clearly identified fromthe responses: 32% of the respondents work in theTarfa district while 12% work in the Dafna area. Thismay be due to the fact that the former is charac-terised by the presence of the Qatar Universitycampus, while the latter represents the emergingbusiness and financial district in the West Bay area.The Al Sadd and Shaqab districts received 7% and6% as respectively as workplace areas. This sug-gests that while the Al Sadd area represents a moretraditional business district, close to the city centrecore, the Dafna or West Bay financial area hasalready started to attract more businesses andemployees. Further the Shaqab area, which isdominated by the presence of Qatar Foundationand its various subsidiaries such as Education City,The Convention Centre, Sidra Hospital and QatarScience and Technology Park, does not representthe workplace zone for most of the survey partici-pants who are mainly Qatari and Arab nationals.

Four public spaces appear to compete forthe most frequently visited urban open spaces:Katara Cultural Village received 58% of the totalresponses, followed by Souq Waqif, Aspire Zone,and the Corniche waterfront area which received57%, 56%, and 49% respectively. This suggests astrong interest, by the respondents, in culture andsports, which are specific attributes of these partic-ular spaces. The result could be attributed to thefact that these places offer a wide variety of facili-ties, functions and activities including culturalevents and art exhibitions, and in the case of Katara

Table 1. List of questions included in the questionnaire to

examine movement experience and comprehension of geo-graphical locations. (Source: Authors).

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Cultural Village and Souq Waqif, ethnic restaurantsand cafés; the study also indicates a preference forenjoying the outdoors in the green spaces andwalking/pedestrian areas around the sports com-plex of Aspire Zone/Villagio and the tree-linedwaterfront park and pedestrian spine along theCorniche.

Two areas appear to be of no interest to therespondents as most visited urban spaces; these arethe Museum of Islamic Art Park (1%) and EducationCity (4%). Insufficient parking space, both insideand outside the museum boundaries, and the con-trolled accessibility to the gated museum gardens,in addition to the limited opening hours could befactors that discourage public interest in visiting.However, recently the MIA Park has been receivingmore visitors; this may be due to the recent estab-lishment of two cafés and a children’s play area inaddition to extended evening opening hours.Education City is an exclusive gated campus com-munity that requires permission to enter; it alsodoes not have activities that cater to the generalpublic and as such does not encourage visiting bythe public. It should be noted, however, thatEducation City does provide specialised activities ofinterest to academics and researchers.

Home Range, Home Zone and MovementMapping the respondents’ identification of home

and work locations, home zones, home ranges,and the routes taken from living areas to workareas reveals interesting findings (Figure 6). Basedon the responses, the distribution of homes clearlyreflects the fragmented nature of the city where res-idential areas are located far from the business orcommercial districts. This echoes the preference ofthe respondents to reside away from the centrecore, most specifically in the northwest and south-west of the city.

The perception of home zone is rather var-ied as some respondents depict it as an undefinedbubble while others portray it with clearly definedperimeters or boundaries. The responses withregard to home locations and home zones revealthree major areas that can be considered homezones for the participants: these are Al Waab,Dahil Al Hamam, and Khraitiyat. Responses tohome range also vary with regard to size of repre-sentative areas and the demarcation of boundaries.Notably, the cumulative mapping and the intersec-tion of home ranges show specific residential areasas representative of home ranges for the respon-dents. Areas of significance include Mamoura, AlWaab, Azizya, Dahil Al Hamam, Madinat Khalifa,and Gharrafa (Figure 6).

The distant location of certain residentialareas could also reflect difficulties with mobility andaccess across the city. Interestingly, the concentra-tion of private sector residential areas seems to bemoving toward the West Bay; the new business andfinancial district. This trend could eventually initiatebetter access routes to the residential areas locatednorthwest of the city, in addition to benefiting busi-nesses because of the closer proximity to certaingovernmental institutions that have recently relocat-ed to the West Bay area.

The results of mapping the respondents’indications of roads and routes taken to work areasand to the most visited places reveal significantfindings. For example, D-Ring Road, as part of thenew Doha Expressway which later merges into AlShamal Road, appears to be the most commonlyused route for respondents to reach their workplace(Figure 6). This is likely due to its connectivity as amain artery to the most important areas of the city.Its vehicular capacity and flow of movement makesit an important urban transport spine that links dif-ferent parts of the city.

In addition, routes taken to some of themost visited spaces appear as logical access pointsfrom nearby residential communities, as forinstance, Al Waab Street, which crosses Al FurusiyaRoad, a major artery that separates Doha from theneighbouring city of Al Rayyan, emerges as a majorspine. Al Waab Street starts from the southwestedge of the city, runs along and by Aspire

Figure 6.Cumulative mapping of respondents’ reactions togeographical location and movement across the city(Source: Authors).

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Zone/Villagio, and then connects to the DohaExpressway. The expressway eventually merges tobecome Al Shamal Road, the main highway to thenorth of the country. The eastern end of OnaizaStreet, which passes alongside Katara CulturalVillage and The Pearl Qatar en route to Lusail City- a major development project, also appears as animportant spine. While a considerable number ofalternative routes are used extensively by many

Doha residents, especially those that are paralleland to the east of Al Shamal Road, these do notseem to be much used by the respondents.

Ethnic Affiliation: Qataris and Arab ExpatriatesA number of usage and destination differenceswere found in the responses of Qataris comparedto other Arab expatriates, for example,Aspire/Villagio Zone (Figure 7), Katara Cultural

Figure 7. Aspire Park, a key attraction of Qataris in the sample surveyed. (Source: Authors).

Figure 8. Souq Waqif, a key attraction of Arab expartiates in the sample surveyed. (Source: Authors).

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ited urban spaces for Qatari respondents, receiving42%, 38%, and 34% respectively. In contrast, SouqWaqif (Figure 8), the Corniche, and Katara CulturalVillage were identified as the most visited by Arabexpatriate respondents, receiving 23%, 22%, and20% respectively. Both groups agreed on the leastvisited urban spaces: Education City and theMuseum of Islamic Art Park. In essence, theseresults reflect the preference of both groups to visit-ing urban spaces that are closer to their residence.Since the majority of Qatari respondents live in thenorthwest or southwest part of the city, they usuallyvisit urban spaces like Katara Cultural Village andAspire Zone that are in close proximity to wherethey reside. As Arab expatriate respondents tend tolive closer to the centre core, their two most visitedplaces, Souq Waqif and the Corniche waterfrontarea, are also closer to the centre; however, KataraCultural Village rated as the third most visited urbanspace, is just a few kilometres further north of thecentre (Figure 9).

In generic terms, there is no clearly definedarea for Qatari respondents of a significant denseconcentration representative of their interests withregard to their perception of home zones and homeranges (Figure 10). The Qatari respondents aremore distributed and reside further away from thecentre core, around the peripheries of the city inareas where their requirements are more easily metwith the availability of larger properties, biggerhouses and more private space. In contrast, forArab expatriates, home zones and home rangesare much more clearly defined and are larger insize and area as evidenced in the cumulativeresponses (Figure 11).

Home ranges indicative of residential seg-regation are evident in Khraitiyat and south of theAl Waab area; these areas are more exclusive to

Qataris while the Al Sadd area, the Al Waab area,and the city centre are more typical residence areasfor most Arab expatriates. Some areas, however,are more inclusive, with a fair mix of Qatari andArab expatriates; these include Mamoura,Gharrafa, and Dahil Al Hamam. The latter twoareas, however, have recently witnessed the intro-duction of new residential compounds that accom-modate a considerable segment of expatriates, thusmaking them more mixed than they were a fewyears ago. In contrast to the results of mapping

Figure 9. Most visited public spaces by Qatari vs. Arab expatriates respondents. (Source: Authors).

Figure 10. Cumulative mapping of Qataris’ reactions to

geographical location and movement across the city.(Source: Authors).

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home ranges, work location for Qataris seems tobe closer to the city centre while for Arab expatri-ates it is more varied and may be distributedaround the centre, and the Al Sadd area, as well asin other parts of the city. This pattern may reflect thefact that most Qataris work in the ministries andgovernment institutions located in the centre or inclose proximity to it, while the expatriate Arabs workin more diverse areas and neighbourhoods locatedin various parts of the city and its peripheries.

In the category based on cultural back-grounds as to which routes are most frequentlyused to reach work areas or access most visitedurban spaces, no major differences were found. D-Ring Road and Al Shamal Road/The DohaExpressway appear to be the arteries most oftenused by both groups to reach their work areas. Inaddition, for Qataris there is heavy usage of AlWaab Street to reach their most visited urbanspaces. Arab expatriates, however, appear to havea preference for the Corniche route to reach theirmost visited urban spaces. This may be due to thefact they often work and reside in closer proximityto these spaces.

CONCLUSIONS

The lack of previous empirical studies to exploreurban spaces in the city of Doha (Ahmadi, 2008;Salama, 2011), which this work could have builtupon, represents one of the limitations of thisresearch. However, the findings generated fromimplementing cognitive mapping and attitude sur-vey combined have helped contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the inhabitants' spatialexperience of the city of Doha.

By establishing a knowledge base derivedfrom direct experience of inhabitants includingmovement patterns and the rhythm of geographicallocations within the city, the various aspects of howcertain areas work within the urban structure of thecity can be elucidated. A number of factors appearto contribute to recognize-ability of places. Thisincludes a) proximity, where nearby places tend tobe more familiar to people than places that are dis-tant; b) size, where large places tend to be betterknown such as the Aspire Zone than small places;c) location, where places on the border such as thewaterfront promenade are better known thanplaces in the interior, especially if they have no dis-tinctive features; d) character, where places with adistinctive form and character such as KataraCultural Village are more easily recognized; and e)social-cultural aspects, where places with an impor-tant history or cultural distinction are better knownsuch as Souq Waqif or the Museum of Islamic Art-MIA.

The findings of implementing cognitivemapping based survey reveal that inhabitants havedifferent experiences of the city and its urban openspaces and that their mental images and experi-ences determine the degree to which they react tothe qualities of those spaces. Such qualities can beseen as factors impacting the liking, visiting, andpassing by of spaces. In generic terms, urbanspaces in Doha appear to be favoured by mostrespondents: certain spaces, however, have poor orsubstandard attributes, which need improvement inorder to enhance user experiences.

While offering important insights, it shouldbe noted that the preceding aspects pertinent to theurban environment of Doha do not represent thefull spectrum of issues related to the dialectic rela-tionship between people and their environment. Inthis respect, introducing the concept of the qualityof urban life should be seen as a necessity whereissues related to satisfaction, well being, happinessare understood with relevance to the spatial quali-ty of public spaces and the overall experience of theurban environment of the city. Whereas futuredevelopment plans of the city may appear toaddress specific groups and cater to specific age

Figure 11. Cumulative mapping of Arab expatriates’ reactions to

geographical location and movement across the city. (Source:Authors).

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groups or cultural backgrounds, a more responsiveand inclusive approach to the design of urbanspaces needs to be put in place.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study is developed as part of a comprehensivefunded research project of the National PrioritiesResearch Program, QNRF-Qatar NationalResearch Fund (NPRP 09 - 1083 - 6 – 023).

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Author(s):

Prof. Ashraf M. SalamaProfessor of Architecture and UrbanismHead, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning,Qatar University.Email: asalama@qu.edu.qa

Ahood Abdullah Al-MaimaniPostgraduate Student - Master of Urban Planning andDesign, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning,Qatar University.Email: 200662469@qu.edu.qa

Fatima Abdulla Khalfani Postgraduate Student - Master of Urban Planning andDesign, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning,Qatar University.Email: 200464524@qu.edu.qa