Abstract/Summary

The motivation behind this research comes from the three-governance policies in Malaysia, which include democratic governance (DG), sustainable development goals (SDG) and local agenda 21 (LA21), all of which soundly encourage the implementation of public participation in moving towards sustainable development. Besides, public participation also contributes to the social sustainability factor in the development and illustrates the importance of a bottom-up development policy instead of a top-down approach. Therefore, public participation's long-term significant contribution in public parks design demonstrates the necessity and urgency to establish an integrated design framework in the landscape department of the local authority in Malaysia. Public parks are known to provide several important contributions to the quality of life in urban areas, including the maintaining of the general public's mental well-being and it is found to be correlated with the presence of social interaction and engagement with one and another. The main problem statement of the research consists of the need for major transition in Malaysia’s democracy as the present design frameworks for public spaces are no longer considered appropriate, social sustainability is neglected in its definition and level of public participation in Malaysia is reported to be low in its implementation and satisfaction level. This research addresses the issues of public participation and public parks development policy in Malaysia. Therefore, this research aims to develop a Public Participation Integrated Design Framework for Public Parks in Malaysia (PPIDF). The objectives of the research are to examine the effect of variables in public participation exercise (PPE), including the development stage, method of approach, type of public and public parks design criteria on public awareness towards the attribute of public participation in designing public parks in Malaysia, to measure the weightage of variables and indicators in public participation exercise (PPE) on the development stages of public parks in Malaysia, and to develop and validate the proposed public participation integrated design framework for public parks in Malaysia (PPIDF) through expert’s opinions. The research hypotheses were constructed and tested to investigate the relationship between variables within the conceptual framework. This research adopted a quantitative analytical method throughout a a survey questionnaire, which was distributed among the public at two public parks in Johor Bahru. Consequently, four variables and twenty-two indicators were established through the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) assessment. Furthermore, the proposed framework was developed and validated through the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) assessment method. The findings indicated that the established variables and indicators are essential and significant in organising public participation in designing public parks in Malaysia. As a result, the PPIDF significantly contributes to enhancing the DG, SDG and LA21, and towards socially sustainable development (SSD) factors in the public parks design. The outcome of this research contributes to the existing public parks design theory through the implementation of public participation, with particular emphasis on obtaining direct input from the public users towards a ‘people-centred’ development approach. This research also contributes to the improvement of the current development framework by the landscape department, including the development of an empirical design based on the needs of Malaysian public parks.