View preference in urban environments

A Batool,P Rutherford,P Mcgraw,T Ledgeway,S Altomonte

doi:10.1177/1477153520981572

Abstract

With people spending up to 90% of their time in indoor spaces, windows and the visual connection that they afford to the outside, can play an important role in ensuring physical and psychological well-being. This is particularly relevant in urban settings, a substantial part of our lives, whilst still being significantly understudied. What we know from other environments may not translate to cities, and there may be important differences between the expressed preferences of individuals and their behaviour. Therefore, this study sought to define suitable methods and metrics to measure view preference in urban environments. Participants were asked to observe urban views whilst three types of data were collected: subjective preference ratings; eye-tracking measures and verbal reasoning. We found that when views were preferred, the gaze of the observers was more exploratory, with a higher occurrence of fixations and number of saccades. In addition, participants tend to prefer the presence of people, well-maintained buildings and orderly presented colours. A new link was revealed between the degree of visual exploration and the preference rating of a visual scene. This characteristic pattern of oculomotor behaviour may guide the criteria for framing selected views and accordingly inform window design in buildings.

Highlights

We have become an indoor species[1]; spending most of our lives enclosed within buildings, windows often provide our primary means of connection to the outside world.[2,3] This situation is exacerbated by various phenomena that are shifting the use patterns of our built spaces, including demographic trends and technological and socio-cultural developments
To identify the key factors that influence view preference in an urban environment, this study aims to respond to the following questions: (1) What features or elements are preferred in urban views? (2) Are there characteristic patterns of gaze behaviour associated with visual preference in urban views?
A test for internal consistency of view preference was performed to evaluate the reliability of the preference rating.[75]

Summary

Introduction

We have become an indoor species[1]; spending most of our lives enclosed within buildings, windows often provide our primary means of connection to the outside world.[2,3] This situation is exacerbated by various phenomena that are shifting the use patterns of our built spaces, including demographic trends (e.g. an increasingly ageing population) and technological and socio-cultural developments. Given that people spend up to 90% of their time inside buildings,[1] most often in cities,[17] research on visual preferences within the built environment can help to address several environmental and social challenges that cities present, those relating to occupant health and well-being.[18] As such, whilst the restorative value of natural views has been well-documented,[19,20] there is a substantial need of research exploring visual preference in urban environments.[21,22,23] Research on view preferences has mostly focused on evaluating differences between natural and urban views[20,21,22,23,24] and on perceived restorativeness.[25,26] what we know about natural views only has limited applicability to urban environments This presents a gap with direct impact on the response towards the current challenges of fast-growing urbanisation

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Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion