Measuring River-View Visibilities of Individual Dwellings for Planning of Compact Urban Riverside Neighborhood Blocks

Line-of-sight occlusion in compact cities commonly reduces the river views of riverfront residents. This study developed a new approach to measure the river-view visibilities of individual dwellings in urban riverfront neighborhood blocks. The objective of this study is to achieve a good integration between the morphology of building groups and the ideal river-view visibility of dwellings, and to provide assistance in building and landscape design through the proposed method. First, a design case of an actual riverside neighborhood block with two initial building layout schemes was selected. The complex layout scheme led to a better building-group morphology than the simple layout scheme. Second, 3D models were built using the Rhinoceros and Grasshopper software platforms, and 3D isovists were generated on the hypothetical River Surface Curve (RSC) equipartition points. Finally, the data from the 3D isovists were used to measure the river-view visibility of each dwelling. The results show that river views were available for all dwellings with the simple layout scheme; however, the complex layout scheme was polarized, with 3% of the dwellings having no river views, and a higher number of dwellings with high-quality river-view visibilities. The optimized layout scheme was based on repeated adjustments of the river-view visibility for all dwellings. The viewpoint clouds of the river views on the dwelling exterior walls are described for facade design guidance. The river-view measurement approach can accurately and efficiently measure the river-view visibility of each dwelling in the block, which can be used in optimizing of neighborhood block design.