Urban Scape
pooria saadativaghar
Abstract
Highlights- Using the quantitative method of oppression analysis of tall buildings, one can judge the location of an urban tall building.- A quantitative study of the psychological effects of tall buildings can be a complementary method to laboratory studies in this field.- Using the EFA method, the ...
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Highlights- Using the quantitative method of oppression analysis of tall buildings, one can judge the location of an urban tall building.- A quantitative study of the psychological effects of tall buildings can be a complementary method to laboratory studies in this field.- Using the EFA method, the underlying characteristics of perceptual-psychological variables were grouped in terms of quality as pleasant, depressing, green, or remarkable. IntroductionIn recent decades, humanity has moved towards the vertical expansion of cities with the help of significant advances in technology and the construction industry and for various reasons such as population growth, scarcity, high cost of land, and profitability. This issue is expanding into most countries and is not specific to advanced, rich industrialized ones. The expansion takes place at a higher rate in developed countries and at a lower rate in developing countries. The experience of examining these buildings demonstrates that besides their benefits, they create many problems for their residents and citizens who encounter them on urban roads, which has caused people’s dissatisfaction to some extent. The country of Iran is not exempt from this issue and has experienced these high-rise constructions (although at a lower rate) for several decades.However, the regulations concerning high-rise buildings in Iran have not yet been fully compiled in all aspects of these buildings, and there are shortcomings in this field that need to be reviewed and evaluated by experts.Theoretical FrameworkThe increase in the number of tall buildings that are built in various forms in the narrow streets of cities raises the need to pay attention to these buildings. These various buildings impose many effects on the city and citizens by being established in different urban areas. The current research is based on an aspect of the perceptual and psychological effects of these buildings under the title of oppression (psychological effects) on the city and citizens, which is usually less noticed by architectural and urban planning experts in cities. This subtle, significant effect of tall buildings is felt by citizens as they walk in the city streets and see the buildings, and in the long run, living in such places can create and stimulate many psychological problems for people and endanger their mental health. The present study is aimed at this important practical issue in the field of psychology of urban environments (along with tall buildings).In fact, the present study investigates the effect of configuration-related parameters and the tall building landscape on the perceptual and psychological components by focusing on the citizens’ feeling of oppression that is created by the tall buildings in the urban landscape on a daily basis.MethodologyThe present survey discussed the impacts of the variables concerning the appearance and visible view of tall buildings in the case study on psychological variables after extracting the psychological variables affected thereby with the library-document research method. Results and DiscussionThe results reported in this section demonstrated that with an increase in the solid angle of the building, the participants who encounter these buildings undergo more suppression, and satisfaction with the oppression decreases. In order to discover the underlying properties of perceptual variables, exploratory factor analysis was used, and the results indicated that the sixteen perceptual variables could be grouped into four categories in terms of quality: pleasant, depressing, green, and remarkable. Moreover, the effect of the solid angle of the building on the depression rate in the landscape demonstrated that the landscape becomes unpleasant and depressing as the solid angle of the building increases, but the effect of trees and vegetation on this environmental quality requires further research.The rest of the study is dedicated to a comparison of the oppression of the Zagros tower (the subject of the case study) on the participants who face the tower from different streets (to the relevant international standard).The results reported in this section also demonstrated (according to the mean statistics) that the pictures taken from Beynolnahreyn Street exhibit the lowest level of oppression and the highest level of satisfaction, from the participants’ point of view. Conversely, the pictures taken between Aref and Taleghani, on Jahannama, and between Mirzadeh Eshghi and Jahannama were perceived with the highest degree of oppression and dissatisfaction. Therefore, it seems that from the perspective of the above streets, the impact of the tower on participants’ perceived psychological pressure (oppression) has received less attention.ConclusionThis method can be used as a practical tool by urban decision-makers to locate tall buildings (with the aim of psychological sustainability of the urban landscape) if further studies are carried out.AcknowledgmentI would like to express my gratitude to Dr. M. Asgarzadeh, senior researcher at Harvard University, who shared with us a copy of SPCONV and guided us throughout this study. This article is based on the research project titled "The effect of visible Configuration and scape of tall buildings from urban pathways on the perceptual-psychological reactions of people (Case study: Zagros Tower in Hamedan)" which is being conducted by the author in Department of architecture, Faculty of Civil Engineering & Architecture, University of Malayer, Malayer, Iran.
