Urban Design
Faeze Rahmani Jami; Maryam Mohammadi
Abstract
HighlightsIntroducing the methods of measuring emotions and emotional response in urban spaces and examining the advantages and disadvantages and the validity of each method.Developing a mixed method for measuring emotions in urban spaces.Identifying the physical and non-physical factors affecting users’ ...
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HighlightsIntroducing the methods of measuring emotions and emotional response in urban spaces and examining the advantages and disadvantages and the validity of each method.Developing a mixed method for measuring emotions in urban spaces.Identifying the physical and non-physical factors affecting users’ feelings in the urban space and their attraction and exclusion. IntroductionThe effects of emotions on all of man’s daily decisions are undeniable. Using, residing in, and leaving an urban space pertain to the users’ emotions. Therefore, it is important to measure and evaluate the users’ emotions in urban spaces. The purpose of this research is to identify the factors affecting emotions in urban spaces and prioritize them in the selected space.Theoretical FrameworkIn the first step, the literature was reviewed, and a conceptual model for measuring emotional response was then presented. Based on this model, emotions can be measured in three layers: physiological, perceptual, and behavioral. The users’ affective response in the urban space can be investigated on that basis. This case study addresses a sequence of Emamat Street in the city of Mashhad, Iran.MethodologyThe research was conducted based on a hybrid method. A biometric sensor (Empatica-E4) was used to collect data at the physiological level. Cognitive data were collected through walking interviews and videos. In addition, the speed of walking in the behavioral layer was measured. The resulting data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, and the factors affecting the emotional response in this street were finally identified. The factors identified as a result of the analysis made in the above three layers were adapted to each other. Based on the exploratory analysis made through the SPSS software, the factors affecting the emotional response were prioritized. Twenty people participated in this survey and shared their emotional responses in the selected sequence of Emamat Street, which is one kilometer long.Results and DiscussionThe results demonstrated that the users’ emotional response was pleasant. According to the results of the data in the biological layer, it was found that the part with a dominant natural character conveys more peace. Moreover, the monotonous sections, the inactive environments of the street, and the part with heavy traffic cause unpleasant emotional responses. The analysis of perceptual data indicated that the presence of greenery and retails exhibits a greater effect on pleasant feelings. The analysis of movement speed shows that in environments involving attractiveness, there is a diverse, relaxed decrease in the speed of movement over the space and the desire to stay. Based on the results, it was found that factors such as greenery, traffic, land use and activity, behavioral patterns, crowd, and noise pollution have effects on the emotional response. In order to prioritize the factors affecting the emotional response in the above space, the data were analyzed in the physiological and cognitive layers in SPSS. The results were rather the same. It can also be concluded that among the factors affecting the emotional response, non-physical ones, such as natural elements, crowd, noise pollution, and land use and activity, have greater influences than physical factors like the type of flooring and facade. Among these, the greatest effects on the desired emotional response are exhibited by the type of activity including exercise, the presence of a group of elderly people, and the existing nature, including tall trees on the edge of the park, visible vegetation, and plants and decorative flowers present over the space. ConclusionThis study was designed to identify the factors influencing the affective and behavioral response in urban spaces. We first explained the conceptual framework of the research by reviewing the literature on studies conducted in this area and examining the theories related to the emotional response in urban spaces, factors affecting emotions within the city, and methods of measuring the affective and behavioral response in the city. The research methodology was developed along with a practical test for assessing the affective and behavioral response and the experiment path given the available tools and methods used in previous projects and studies.The results obtained from the analysis of the recorded data on the heart rates of the participants in the experiment, the speeds of their movement in each sequence, and their cognitive responses revealed that factors such as vegetation, vehicular traffic, land use and activity, behavioral patterns, crowdedness, and noise pollution are effective on the affective response, and, thereby, affect people’s senses. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, the constraints ruling over urban spaces made it more difficult to perform the experiment with more participants. Obviously, conducting the experiment with a larger number of participants can bring about more reliable results. The reason for using a homogeneous age and social group was to decrease the probability of recording data outside the standard range. Naturally, doing research with a larger sample size would allow use of more diverse age groups. Based on the above findings, some suggestions are made for designing the space based on emotions, as follows.- The vegetation and greenery space has a significant impact in the creation of a feeling of peace. The variety in the color and type of vegetation may also increase the pleasant feeling. However, if the vegetation reduces visibility, it would be effective in the creation of an unpleasant feeling.- Water in the urban space beings about a feeling of naturalness and tranquility in users. However, in a space filled with crowd and noise pollution, the sound of water can increase noise pollution.- The ground floor in urban spaces obviously affects the pedestrians’ perception more than other floors. Thus, the transparency of the wall, its beauty, variety, and coherence have prominent impacts in the creation of pleasant emotions.- It is better to avoid building long, rigid, inactive walls. If there are such spaces, the ground for creating activity at certain intervals should be provided.- The street-crossing areas should be designed in parts of the route with sufficient visibility for drivers and pedestrians; moreover, the pedestrian lanes need to be clear.- When there is a potential for overcrowding, the movement and activity interference should be minimized to reduce the resulting crowdedness and arousal.- The context for the emergence of desirable behavioral patterns such as exercise in the park should be provided in all directions, and a certain space for undesirable behaviors should be predicted as well.AcknowledgmentWe are grateful to all the persons for scientific consulting in this research paper.This article is extracted from the first author's master thesis in titled "Identification of physical and non-physical factors affecting pedestrians' emotional response in urban streets and presenting solutions (Case study: Emamat street of Mashhad)" which was defended at the University of Art under supervision of Dr. Maryam Mohammadi.
Urban Design
Esmat Paikan; Mohammad Reza Pourjafar; Ehsan Ranjbar
Abstract
Highlights
- The curvature in the street makes it more exciting, and greater variety in curvature causes more arousal and pleasure.
- Streets with medium enclosure (1:2 and 1:1) exhibit the most desirable values of size and enclosure.
- The presence of a square or a prominent building, the permeability ...
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Highlights
- The curvature in the street makes it more exciting, and greater variety in curvature causes more arousal and pleasure.
- Streets with medium enclosure (1:2 and 1:1) exhibit the most desirable values of size and enclosure.
- The presence of a square or a prominent building, the permeability of the street, and the variation in its landscape increase the pleasantness and arousal.
- The three-dimensional rhythms of the street walls exhibit greater pleasure and arousal than the two-dimensional rhythms.
- The portable EEG devices (MindWave MW001 headset) are suitable for evaluation of environmental design interventions in the field of architecture and urban development.
Introduction
The environment can cause positive and negative emotions in citizens. Emotions are important due to their impacts on people’s behaviors, because emotions make up a main component of social behavior, and extraction of emotional responses is one of the best ways to understand different fields of experience and perception. Nowadays, mental health problems and the emphasis on increasing social interactions have led to more and more concern for the subject of emotions, but the impact of physical-spatial factors has received less attention from the conducted studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the physical-spatial measures of urban streets on pedestrians’ emotional responses by placing the individual in a pseudo-real environment. Moreover, this study makes possible the use of a new neural measurement tool in urban studies and evaluates its accuracy.
Theoretical Framework
The review of previous studies demonstrated that the environmental parameters that can affect emotion include non-physical human factors on the one hand and physical ones on the other. The physical factors that make up the subject of this research can be divided into two categories: 1- non-artificial factors, i.e. green space, and 2- artificial factors, which include the size and enclosure of the space, the shape and form of the space, the characteristics of the surfaces including architectural style, the color and texture of materials, and the variation in spatial sequences. Given the number of studies conducted on the effect of natural factors and certain characteristics of surfaces in the field of architecture, the present research examined four physical parameters.
Methodology
Ten of the most important physical-spatial variables that make up different states and types of the spatial structure of an urban street, which can affect the individual emotions of pedestrians, were selected for investigation and used to design 18 tests. The research was conducted with a combined method consisting of: 1- a self-report method of Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) images and 2- a neurological method using electroencephalography. In the EEG method, the single-channel MindWave MW001 headset, produced by Neurosky, was used as the instrument. The research population included 50 students of Tarbiat Modares University. The research was conducted with the help of controlled experiments using the mobile digital 3D modeling technique, which makes it possible for people to navigate the virtual street in the city. After the data extracted by the health and Stroop tests were confirmed, the data analysis was made using a quantitative-statistical method.
Results and Discussion
The findings regarding the shape and form of the space demonstrated that people feel more pleased in curved streets than in straight streets, and there is greater arousal in streets of the former than the latter shape. However, the level of control in a straight street is higher than that in a curved or spiral street. As for the size and enclosure of the urban space, the results indicated that there is greater pleasure in a street with medium enclosure (1:2 and 1:1) than in one with low or high enclosure (1:4 and 1:1.2), but streets with medium enclosure exhibit less arousal. Spaces with less enclosure cause people to have more control over the space. The results also demonstrated that the pleasure and arousal experienced by people is increased by the existence of the square as a spatial element and a landmark building as a physical element, permeability in the spatial structure of the street and brokenness in the path, and variation in the landscape of the street. It was only in the street with physical retraction and protrusion that no effect on arousal was observed, although the level of pleasure should increase. Moreover, the results indicated that the pleasure in the street with the curved corner was greater than that with the other forms. However, the shape of the street corner exhibits no effect on the arousal. Furthermore, the walls that are completely three-dimensional exhibit greater pleasure and arousal than those featuring walls with two-dimensional and three-dimensional rhythms. Finally, the walls that are completely two-dimensional have the least pleasantness and arousal. There is a higher level of control in the street with 2D rhythms than in that with 3D rhythms. The results also showed that visual permeability in the physical structure of the street increases the arousal and control of the space, but it has no effect on the pleasure. Another result of this research is that there is 75% conformity in the results obtained from the two methods of SAM and EEG, which demonstrates that the data (EEG) extracted from the device can extract people’s emotions well.
Conclusion
In general, the current research confirms the results of previous studies, but it precisely demonstrated by measuring the extracted neural data that the levels of emotional pleasure, arousal, and control are affected by the shape and form of the street, the size and enclosure of the street space, the presence of a spatial and physical element that creates attention and emphasis in the street, permeability in the spatial structure of the street, rotation along the street and perspective change along the path, two and three-dimensional wall street rhythms, and the shape and form of the corners of the street intersection. However, physical indentations and protrusions exhibit no effect on arousal, and visual permeability has no effect on pleasure. In addition, the results showed that the EEG data extracted from the headset (MindWave MW001) used in this study could well capture the emotions of individuals, thus making up a proper potential tool for evaluation of environmental design interventions in the field of architecture and urban planning. The results of the present study, which indicate the psychological effects of urban design of a street, help to select and design the appropriate elements and physical characteristics of the space, increase positive emotions and reduce negative emotions, and ultimately improve the mental health of citizens.
Acknowledgment
This article is taken from the doctoral thesis of urban planning with the title "Explaining the effects of the physical-spatial components of an urban street on the emotional stimulation of pedestrians with an emphasis on the use of neuroscience" which was defended by the first author with the guidance of the second author and the advice of the third author in the Tarbiat Modares University.
