BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//pretalx//talks.osgeo.org//foss4g-2026//speaker//9D3UXJ BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:JST BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20000101T000000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=1 TZNAME:JST TZOFFSETFROM:+0900 TZOFFSETTO:+0900 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:pretalx-foss4g-2026-BMXX8Y@talks.osgeo.org DTSTART;TZID=JST:20260901T163000 DTEND;TZID=JST:20260901T170000 DESCRIPTION:This study aims to evaluate the walkability of the area surroun ding Shin-Yurigaoka Station for older adults\, which is located in a hilly \, suburban environment. This will be achieved by analysing the street net work as a whole using a gradient-aware network approach.\n\n In Japan\, wa lkability has become an increasingly important issue in the context of rap id population ageing. Older adults continue to go out frequently in their daily lives and walking remains one of their main modes of travel. In this context\, the ease of walking is shaped not only by distance or network c onnectivity\, but also by the physical burden of slopes. This issue is par ticularly relevant in Japanese suburban hilly areas\, where many residenti al districts have been developed on hilly terrain\, often requiring reside nts to negotiate slopes and stairways to access stations\, shops\, and eve ryday services.\n\nAgainst this background\, this study focuses on the are a around Shin-Yurigaoka Station in Asao Ward\, Kawasaki City\, examining h ow the walkability of older adults can be understood through a combined pe rspective of street network structure and slope conditions. Asao Ward is a n appropriate study area for two reasons. Firstly\, according to the 2020 Municipal Life Tables published in 2023\, Asao Ward had the highest averag e life expectancy in Japan for both men and women\, making it a notable ar ea for longevity. Secondly\, despite its hilly terrain\, a Kawasaki City s urvey found that a significant proportion of older residents in the ward r eported being able to walk for around 15 minutes or doing so in their dail y lives. This suggests that walking remains an important mode of everyday mobility for older adults\, even in areas with many slopes.\n\n This raise s a key analytical question: in hilly urban environments\, do roads that a re structurally central to the street network also function as physically walkable routes for older adults? To address this question\, the study exa mines the degree of overlap between network centrality and low-slope condi tions.\n\n In Space Syntax research\, configurational measures such as Int egration have been linked to pedestrian movement (Hillier et al.\, 1993). In contrast\, walkability is understood to be a multidimensional concept i nfluenced not only by road connectivity\, but also by factors such as acce ss to destinations\, land use and safety (Saelens & Handy\, 2008). Studies of older adults have also shown that walking and physical activity are in fluenced by neighbourhood environmental factors\, including walkability\, access to destinations\, and pedestrian infrastructure (Barnett et al.\, 2 017). These findings suggest that street-network centrality alone may not fully explain actual walkability\, particularly in hilly areas. Therefore\ , this study introduces a gradient-aware network analysis that integrates street-network centrality with topographic conditions.\n\n The analysis wa s conducted using open geospatial data and open-source software. Road netw ork data were obtained from OpenStreetMap and a 5-metre digital elevation model (DEM) was used to represent topography. To better focus on walkable public routes\, roads classified as parking areas\, private roads and indo or roads were excluded from the analysis. The study area was defined as a 15-minute walking catchment around Shin-Yurigaoka Station\, based on an as sumed walking speed of 1.0 m/s for older adults. In QGIS\, the roads were divided into 10 m segments and the longitudinal gradient of each segment w as calculated based on the elevation difference between its start and end points. In parallel\, Integration values were derived through Angular Segm ent Analysis at a radius of 900 m (R900) using DepthmapX and the Space Syn tax Toolkit. These values were then assigned to road segments at intersect ions. Integrating these variables enabled the study to construct a gradien t-aware network analysis framework\, evaluating each road segment in terms of its configurational importance within the overall network and walking difficulty due to slope.\n\n The results reveal several important patterns . Within the 15-minute walking catchment area of Shin-Yurigaoka Station\, high-integration roads — defined as the top 20% of the network in terms of integration value — accounted for 23.9% of the total road length. Low -gradient roads\, defined as having a gradient of 8.0% or less based on Ja panese sidewalk design standards\, accounted for 84.7% of the total. Roads that satisfied both conditions simultaneously — namely\, roads that wer e both highly integrated and low in gradient — accounted for 21.6% of th e total. Examining the intersection of these two conditions more closely\, it was found that 90.8% of high-integration roads were also low-gradient roads. This suggests that many of the structurally central roads around th e station have relatively gentle slopes. In contrast\, only 25.6% of low-g radient roads were classified as highly integrated. This suggests that\, w hile gentle-slope roads are widely distributed across the study area\, the y do not necessarily form the core of the street network.\n\n These findin gs suggest that the walkability of a hilly urban area for older adults sho uld be evaluated not only in terms of the physical ease of the slope\, but also in terms of the role that a road plays within the overall network. I n other words\, roads that are easy to walk on do not necessarily occupy a central or strategic position in everyday movement patterns. This is an i mportant consideration when it comes to understanding mobility in suburban hilly areas\, where the topography can reshape the relationship between u rban structure and practical pedestrian accessibility. The study also demo nstrates the value of using open street and elevation data alongside open- source spatial analysis tools to examine this issue from a reproducible an d scalable perspective.\n\n As a next step\, road data in OpenStreetMap an d QGIS will be refined to ensure the analytical network more accurately re flects the actual pedestrian environment\, including sidewalks and other w alkable links. The analysis will also be extended to a 30-minute walking c atchment area to compare the relationship between centrality and gradient at a broader spatial scale. Furthermore\, future work will validate the ga p between the analytical results and the actual physical environment in or der to examine the validity and applicability of gradient-aware network an alysis for evaluating walkability for older adults in hilly urban areas. DTSTAMP:20260717T225732Z LOCATION:Cosmos1 SUMMARY:How Does Walkability for Elderly People Differ between Hilly and Fl at Urban Areas? A Case Study of Shin-Yurigaoka Station and Nagareyama-Otak anomori Station - Hinako Terado URL:https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-2026/talk/BMXX8Y/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:pretalx-foss4g-2026-UZ9V88@talks.osgeo.org DTSTART;TZID=JST:20260902T133000 DTEND;TZID=JST:20260902T140000 DESCRIPTION:The orientation of Christian churches has long attracted attent ion in liturgical studies\, architectural history\, and archaeoastronomy. In the Catholic tradition\, churches are often associated with an eastward -facing sanctuary and a westward-facing entrance\, reflecting theological symbolism linked to sunrise\, resurrection\, and the anticipation of Chris t’s return. In actual urban settings\, however\, church orientation is r arely determined by theology alone. Existing streets\, neighbouring buildi ngs\, plot geometry\, topography\, and later rebuilding campaigns can all shape the final disposition of a church building. This tension between sac red orientation and urban form makes church directionality a productive fi eld of inquiry at the intersection of religion\, architecture\, and urban studies.\n\nThis proposal investigates church orientation patterns in Mila n\, Italy\, using open geospatial data derived primarily from OpenStreetMa p (OSM). Milan is an appropriate case because it is a historic Catholic ci ty with a long continuity of ecclesiastical development and a complex urba n morphology shaped by Roman\, medieval\, early modern\, and modern transf ormations. Rather than treating churches only as isolated monuments\, this study approaches them as urban objects embedded in streets\, blocks\, and neighbourhood structures. It asks three questions: first\, whether church entrances in Milan display a statistically visible directional pattern\; second\, whether that pattern suggests the persistence of the traditional east–west liturgical axis\; and third\, how directional variation can be interpreted in relation to urban morphology and spatial constraints.\n\nT his proposal also responds to a methodological opportunity. OSM has become an important infrastructure for transportation analysis\, humanitarian ma pping\, land use studies\, and urban modelling\, yet its value for archite ctural-historical and religious-spatial research remains underexplored. By using OSM building footprints as the spatial basis for city-scale analysi s\, this proposal contributes to an emerging dialogue between open geospat ial science\, digital humanities\, urban history\, and the study of religi on.\n\nPrevious scholarship has proposed several explanations for church o rientation. One long-standing interpretation emphasizes alignment toward g eographic East as a symbolic and liturgical norm. A second associates chur ch alignment with the sunrise azimuth on the feast day of the patron saint . A third suggests that deviations from true East may reflect the historic al use of magnetic compasses during church construction. In this debate\, Arneitz et al. (2014) provide an important reassessment based on a statist ical analysis of medieval churches in Lower Austria and northern Germany. Their study compares deviations from geographic East\, magnetic East\, and sunrise azimuths associated with patrons’ feast days. The smallest mean deviations were found relative to geographic East: −5.5° in Lower Aust ria and −2.1° in northern Germany. By contrast\, deviations from magnet ic East were much larger\, at −19.0° and −14.0°\, leading the author s to reject the compass hypothesis statistically. They also found that the patron-saint sunrise model showed greater scatter and only limited explan atory value overall.\n\nEqually important\, Arneitz et al. argue that devi ations from East should not automatically be treated as evidence of altern ative symbolic rules. They emphasize that church orientation may be affect ed by neighbouring buildings\, pre-existing streets\, foundation condition s\, vegetation\, and topography\, especially in urban settings. They also note that a raised horizon can substantially shift the apparent sunrise\, complicating straightforward solar interpretations. Church orientation sho uld therefore be understood as the result of both sacred principles and ma terial-spatial constraints. This framework is particularly useful for inte rpreting Milan\, where churches are situated within a dense and historical ly layered urban fabric.\n\nThe dataset used in this proposal consists of 114 church buildings in Milan. For each case\, a web-based mapping tool wa s developed using MapLibre GL JS and Turf.js to measure entrance orientati on and automatically analyse church directionality. The analysis tool has been released as open-source software under the CC0-1.0 license\, and the resulting measurements were organized in a spreadsheet. Direction was defi ned as the azimuth from the building centroid toward the main entrance. Al though this value does not directly measure the liturgical axis or altar o rientation\, it provides a consistent and scalable proxy for analysing the public-facing directionality of church buildings in relation to the urban fabric. The azimuth values were analysed using circular statistics and vi sualized through a wind rose diagram. For exploratory analysis\, the beari ngs were grouped into 16 directional sectors to evaluate concentration and dispersion.\n\nThe results show that church entrances in Milan are neithe r uniformly distributed nor tightly concentrated around a single bearing. Instead\, the pattern is dispersed but structured. The wind rose reveals a noticeable concentration in the western to west-southwestern sectors. The two most frequent classes are W and WSW\, each with 19 cases\, representi ng 16.7% of the sample. Together\, they account for one-third of all obser ved entrance directions. Secondary peaks appear in the E sector\, with 12 cases (10.5%)\, and in the SW sector\, with 11 cases (9.6%). Circular stat istics yield a mean direction of 245.4° and a mean resultant length of 0. 283\, indicating a relatively weak but visible directional tendency rather than a strongly concentrated system.\n\nThese findings suggest that the t raditional Catholic arrangement of west-facing entrances and east-facing s anctuaries may still be partially visible in Milan at the aggregate level. At the same time\, the relatively low concentration and the presence of s ubstantial eastern and southwestern groups indicate that the city cannot b e explained by a single orientation rule. Instead\, Milan appears to conta in a mixed spatial morphology of church orientation. Some churches likely preserve the canonical east–west liturgical axis\, while others appear t o have adapted to street alignment\, constrained parcels\, public squares\ , topographic conditions\, or later phases of rebuilding and urban redevel opment.\n\nThis interpretation aligns closely with the implications of Arn eitz et al. (2014). Their work suggests that the most productive way to an alyse church orientation is not to choose between symbolic and practical e xplanations\, but to examine how these forces interact. In Milan\, church entrances should therefore be read not only as liturgical markers but also as indicators of how sacred buildings negotiate the urban environment. En trance direction becomes a meaningful variable through which one can explo re the relationship between ecclesiastical architecture and surrounding ci ty form.\n\nMethodologically\, this proposal demonstrates the value of com bining OSM building geometries\, a custom open-source web mapping tool\, m anually validated directional attributes\, and circular analytical techniq ues in an open and reproducible workflow. The approach is lightweight and transferable to other cities where church inventories and building footpri nts are available. It also opens possibilities for comparative research ac ross Catholic and non-Catholic cities\, as well as diachronic analyses inc orporating construction dates\, denominational affiliation\, or street-net work orientation.\n\nThe contribution of this proposal is therefore twofol d. Substantively\, it offers new evidence that church orientation in Milan reflects both sacred tradition and urban form. Methodologically\, it show s that open geospatial data\, OSM-based analysis\, and openly released ana lytical tools can extend church orientation research beyond isolated monum ents toward city-scale spatial humanities. In the context of FOSS4G and IS PRS-related academic discussion\, the study demonstrates how open mapping ecosystems can support new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship across r eligion\, architecture\, urban history\, and geospatial science. DTSTAMP:20260717T225732Z LOCATION:Cosmos2 SUMMARY:Between Sacred Tradition and Urban Form: An OpenStreetMap-Based Ana lysis of Church Orientation Patterns in Milan - Taichi Furuhashi\, Hinako Terado URL:https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-2026/talk/UZ9V88/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR