Experiential Simulation and Environmental Psychology for Anticipating Users’ Reactions to Design Projects: An Application in Architectural Higher Education

The contribution presents an interdisciplinary approach to education developed by the authors, who belong to the field of study of urban design and environmental psychology. The presented study is part of a wider research aiming at developing a methodology for assessing, before construction, the impact on people’s well-being generated by urban design projects. The method is based on the combined use of immersive visualization and psychological survey, administered to inhabitants along the design process, for testing—and potentially re-tuning—the architectural solutions. In particular, the paper presents a case study application with a university class of architects and planners of the last year of the Master of Science. The paper outlines the general contents of the ongoing experimental research, it provides a brief theoretical framework, it describes the tools used and developed ad hoc, and it finally illustrates the case study application

Mapping the In-Motion Emotional Urban Experiences: An Evidence-Based Method

Urban settings affect the experience of people in places and the measurement of such urban experiences is the focus of this article. The ‘experiential Environmental Impact Assessment—exp-EIA©’ method and its application to the Città Studi area in Milan are presented. The method couples urban studies with environmental psychology and ICT for educational purposes with a sample of architecture students divided in two groups (N = 18). Experiential data are collected via a dedicated app installed on the participants’ mobile devices, and an automatic data processing and analysis produces spatialized results creating maps of the overall urban experience. In particular, the emotional reaction of participants through a ten-minute walking path is assessed. A group activity focused on the link between urban features and subjective evaluation of places by participants is combined with the results obtained via the application of the circumplex model of affect. Results show that the path is characterized by two main emotional experiences, passing from a pleasant to an unpleasant experience within the short walk in both groups, offering some insights on the urban design of the area. The results are part of the teaching process to increase students’ awareness about experiential design, yet the process is conceived also as a tool for professionals

The virtual environments lighting quality assessment using the virtual reality

The computer simulation field opened up new application opportunities in architecture in the last decades. In particular, Virtual Reality (VR) and Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) enable to study the subjective experience in-vitro. This paper investigates the ability of VR coupled with immersive devices in providing users with a better spatial lighting understanding. The goal is to reason about the potentiality of VR and IVE on the lighting quality assessment studies involving final users. The research was carried out by analysing and comparing data of the spatial and lighting perception of users using conventional devices frequently used by researchers in the lighting field for running experiments: screens, video projectors, and VR. Three different virtual lighting conditions in a virtual environment were presented, and a survey was administered to twenty-six participants. Results show that immersive VR allows obtaining more significant correlations between lightning variables than the other devices. Besides, the statistical analyses highlight that VR navigation with immersive devices is associated with an overall better lightning perception of the virtual model than the other non-immersive devices tested in the experimentation. The findings also show that users prefer the immersive environment

The experiential walk diary. Mapping urban experience combining architecture and psychology

The "experiential" walks represent a varied and sound approach applied in different disciplines to collect knowledge about urban contexts, paying attention both to their physical and social features. Due to the inherently interdisciplinary nature of such practices and their study objects, they represent a preferential method for developing a dialogue between urban design and social sciences. This paper contributes to this dialogue by presenting a procedure and an assessment tool designed to highlight the link between cities' environmental and psychosocial features. The method was applied in Milan in the framework of the activities of the international project CNRS International Research Group (GDRI) 'Translating Ambiances' (2014 – 2017). The results' analysis highlights some key elements of the shared perception of the Garibaldi-Repubblica area in Milan, offering a qualitative-quantitative representation of the participants' experience. We suggest different applicative uses for the proposed method, which allows obtaining comparable data from different contexts and types of participants

How Do Nature-Based Solutions’ Color Tones Influence People’s Emotional Reaction? An Assessment via Virtual and Augmented Reality in a Participatory Process

Simulations of urban transformations are an effective tool for engaging citizens and enhancing their understanding of urban design outcomes. Citizens’ involvement can positively contribute to foster resilience for mitigating the impact of climate change. Successful integration of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) into the urban fabric enables both the mitigation of climate hazards and positive reactions of citizens. This paper presents two case studies in a southern district of Milan (Italy), investigating the emotional reaction of citizens to existing urban greenery and designed NBS. During the events, the participants explored in Virtual Reality (VR) (n = 48) and Augmented Reality (AR) (n = 63) (i) the district in its current condition and (ii) the design project of a future transformation including NBS. The environmental exploration and the data collection took place through the exp-EIA© method, integrated into the mobile app City Sense. The correlations between the color features of the viewed landscape and the emotional reaction of participants showed that weighted saturation of green and lime colors reduced the unpleasantness both in VR and AR, while the lime pixel area (%) reduced the unpleasantness only in VR. No effects were observed on the Arousal and Sleepiness factors. The effects show high reliability between VR and AR for some of the variables. Implications of the method and the benefits for urban simulation and participatory processes are discussed

Interior design and social science. An applied research on the places caring and hosting asylum seekers and refugees in the city of Milan.

The capacity to help and support the most vulnerable sectors of population is a critical point for the contemporary urban societies, in a context marked by a sharp contrast between the lack of resources and the need to maintain an adequate level of welfare. One of the most problematic areas is about caring and protecting the asylum seekers and the refugees, who experiment a condition of existential displacement or dislocation (Papadopoulos, 2002) compounded by economic and psychological problems. The Italian policy about the asylum seekers has often failed to establish a global model, able to empower their conditions as requested by the international agreements. It was in fact largely characterized by an emergency policy, without any systemic perspective, and locations as abandoned schools and mobile homes were chosen randomly to answer the urgent requests of new solutions for a temporary accommodation of the asylum seekers. The result was a vicious circle of fragility, in which the most vulnerable people were hosted in the most unsupportive residential environments. A research project was developed by a multi-disciplinary group, in Milan, involving public actors, designers and environmental psychologist, with the aim of creating some practical guidelines to evolve these spaces. In particular, the challenge was to favour a process of empowerment, projecting some lo-fi design solutions able to transform an environment perceived as totally precarious in a place of virtuous temporariness, also supporting new forms of individual place attachment and identification (Low & Altman, 1992)

Emotional clustered isovist. Representing the subjective urban experience

The contribution presents a method developed by the authors that associates psychological data to clustered isovists. Often, isovists of an urban environment are calculated on a 360° angle, i.e., reporting what is potentially visible from a specific point of view. If associated to a 360° isovist, these subjective reactions are related to the entire potentially visible panorama, losing the crucial relationship between the point of view and the relative angle of view generating the emotional reaction, that it is instead possible to highlight with partial isovists. Our method adopts partial isovists correlated to psychological data applied in the ‘Città Studi’ neighboorhood in Milan (Italy) using a set of 360° pannable panoramic photos coupled with a psychological questionnaire. In each observing session, the position of the observer and the direction of gaze were recorded. The data collected were clustered and analyzed using a machine learning method designed ad hoc. The results show that the emotional connotations of a place can diverge even by rotating the direction of gaze while standing in the same position. Moreover, it was possible to identify a relevant change in the emotional response between the landmark of the studied area and other neighbouring places