The Effectiveness of Public Park Management and Design for Sustainable Livelihood in Malaysian Context

Public Park is an important element for societal development because it can offer a wide range of recreational activities to reduce stress for free. In other words, it may also function as an open communal center that can build integrity and sense of belonging among the people since it acts to define the shape and ambience of a city and its neighborhood. Nonetheless, the design of public parks, especially in current urban areas are facing many problems due to factors such as unavailability of proper monitoring and management system to identify the level and trend of consumerism of public parks. Till present, there is no detailed study conducted to elucidate on the appropriateness of public parks design to meet the needs of local context. Henceforth, the objective of this paper is to study the context of existing public park in Malaysia and identify problems relating to design, management and effectiveness from user’s perception. To conduct this study, the research will adopt case study method as research strategy. Since the focus of this study is on social physical phenomenon and to understand how human social culture correlates with the design and management of public parks-two research paradigms which are interpretivism (hermeneutics) that translates human ideology and structuralism (semiotic) to read any physical structure or architectural design are adopted as research methodology. Data collection method will be from site observation, recorded documentation and questionnaires are used to gather all the evidences on the selected public parks design. Findings indicate that the design of local public parks failed to fulfill user satisfaction due to design imperfections and poor management. Therefore, this study will propose a suitable guideline as future reference to design a better and sustainable management for public park in the Malaysian context.