Urban design assessment tools: a model for exploring atmospheres and situations

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for exploring the quality of affective atmospheres relevant to urban situations in city centre streets. This research study assumes that urban situations can shed light on how the urban form and everyday life experiences impact affective atmospheres. To examine this assumption, a snowballing technique was applied using the Google search engine and a systematic review of the SCImago database, identifying 21 books and 28 articles in 22 relevant journals. The results led to an initial urban design model exploring the perceptual quality of affective atmospheres in city centre streets. On the basis of the initial results, a model was built that proposes four dimensions and ten perceptual qualities and comprises visual, emotional (social experience), sensual (aesthetic experience) and spiritual design elements. The findings provide practical insight into the perceptual qualities of affective atmospheres through the integration of ten urban situations and five levels of urban design assessment tools. The concluding remarks highlight the role of the perceptual design dimensions shared by urban designers to present a model and framework with both reasonable and practical goals.