Environmental Aesthetics Research Articles

Building the capacity of students in creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills: Aesthetic narrative of Ayigya Township, Ghana

The study set out to investigate the environmental aesthetics present in habitual areas, specifically in Ayigya Township, Ashanti Region, focusing on picture-making tendencies for optimal skill development. A total of 346 respondents from various structures were specifically chosen to participate in the study using the Narrative Case Study Design under the qualitative research approach. Semi-structured interviews, observation, and photographic documentation were used for the data collection. The data were analysed using photographic documentary and qualitative narrative analysis. The findings demonstrated how dispersed aesthetic elements are in everyday life and how this appreciation would have a positive impact on the Senior High School student’s capacity for creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills. It is suggested that students develop alternative means of expressing their creativity. The study contends that art teachers must help students to use aesthetics in their environments to develop the tools and materials for their artistic productions.

Furnishing Nature: Textile Materiality and the Victorian Home in Alfred Hayes’s The Vale of Arden and Other Poems (1895)

This article examines the conjunction of environmental aesthetics, textile materiality, and notions of the home in the work of the British poet and translator Alfred Hayes (1857–1936). Hayes, who authored six collections of poems, has been largely neglected in studies of Victorian poetry, yet his pastoral and religious verse was popular among Victorian and Edwardian readers. Hayes was also closely affiliated with the fin-de-siècle literary scene. He contributed to The Yellow Book, collaborated with Richard Le Gallienne and Norman Gale, and was reviewed by Oscar Wilde. The essay investigates the forms and functions of Hayes’s textile references and allusions to Victorian interiors in the collection The Vale of Arden and Other Poems, which was first published by John Lane at The Bodley Head in 1895. Its lyrics weave together depictions of rural England as a home with imagery inspired by the textures of luxurious fabrics and furnishing objects, thus testing the boundaries of exteriority and interiority. The article first surveys the contents, potential influences, and material design of Hayes’s little-researched book. It links Hayes’s use of poetic form and imagery to late Victorian understandings of organicism in Arts and Crafts design and home decoration. At the centre of the article will be a close reading of Hayes’s poem ‘My Study’. The poem portrays an idyllic landscape as the speaker’s study. It alludes to conceptions of the ‘house beautiful’ and the ‘book beautiful’ as it combines ecopoetic and religious notions of nature as a domestic space and as a site of learning. The article argues that textile ecologies are central to Hayes’s negotiation of relationships between nature and artifice, enabling a distinctive fusion of traditional English pastoral and fin-de-siècle aestheticism. The eco-aesthetic meditations of Hayes’s poetry highlight conceptual links between nature and notions of the dwelling space (‘oikos’), and, at the same time, suggest that material culture, specifically the fin-de-siècle craze for beautiful objects and textures, furnished Victorian nature poetry.

Scientific Knowledge and Art in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

Scientific cognitivism, a main position in Western environmental aesthetics, claims scientific knowledge plays a major role in the aesthetic appreciation of nature. However, the claim is controversial. This study reexamines the history of United States environmental attitudes around the nineteenth century and claims art has played the main role in nature appreciation, even with the emphasis on scientific knowledge. This paper proposes a tri-stage, Scientific Knowledge-Aesthetic Value Transformation Model and argues nature appreciation is indirectly related to knowledge. Scientific knowledge plays a part in the first, pre-appreciation stage and helps build the impression of nature that bridges scientific cognition with aesthetic appreciation in the second, impression-rebuilt stage. Finally, the engagement model is required in the third, appreciation stage. This paper also presents a two-dimensional evaluation criterion to assess various approaches of nature appreciation and artworks.

Practice and Thinking of Landscape Design from the Perspective of Environmental Aesthetics

Practice and Thinking of Landscape Design from the Perspective of Environmental Aesthetics

ВПЛИВ ЄВРОПЕЙCЬКОЇ СТРАТЕГІЇ ЗГУРТОВАНОСТІ НА ДЕЯКІ АСПЕКТИ ЕСТЕТИКИ МІСЬКОГО СЕРЕДОВИЩА

The article examines the issue of the influence of the European cohesion policy on approaches to the urban environment and assessing its quality. A number of parameters that determine various aspects of urban space transformation in the context of cohesion policy are analyzed. An assessment of the already existing experience of interpreting public areas is given, both from the point of view of functional efficiency and from the point of view of their aesthetic value. Some directions of the cohesion strategy which influence changes in the value perceptions of the urban space are outlined. The purpose of the article is to determine the likely impact of the European cohesion strategy on the transformation of ideas about the aesthetics of the urban environment. Three directions related to the impact of cohesion policy on the transformation of ideas about the urban environment aesthetics are outlined. They can be defined by: anti-segregation, joint action and topo-solidarity. The first of them is related to a positive reassessment of various forms of openness and interaction. Spaces of common presence, previously separated groups, become a key factor in the value determination of the urban fabric. Elements of virtual and augmented reality, as well as temporary and portable structures, media facades, etc., can be involved in their creation. Traditional means of spatial planning can be perceived as an undesirable rudiment of the urban environment. The second actualizes the concept of aesthetics as maximum variety in a minimum area, primarily pedestrian accessibility. Therefore, homogeneous “ensembles” characteristic of the 20th century are losing their value. The third is related to the creation of city-wide symbols that would reflect the nature of a new type of city-wide solidarity. They have an inclusive nature for positive perception by representatives of the entire multifaceted urban community. It was determined that the change of ideas about the aesthetics of the city under the influence of the cohesion strategy should be considered in conjunction with other phenomena of the transition from the industrial to the information society. The ensemble and rhythmicity of the general masses, the sectoral distribution of territories are gradually giving way to mosaicism and diversity as compositional and functional components. Expanding the category of choice within the pedestrian accessibility zone, freeing the space from barriers and exclusions of various types will be combined with the desire to create universal images – symbols of a new common for all residents of the city, regardless of ethno-confessional and social background.

Exploration of PET and HDPE Plastic Waste into the Art Creating of Lampshade with Geometric Shape

Nowadays, waste has become a problem faced by people worldwide, especially in Indonesia. Wastes that are difficult to process, like plastics, can disturb environmental aesthetics, environmental cleanliness, and health. They have a power that is difficult to decipher, so the researcher applied several methods to them. Through an experimental process, this research designed the products of lighting elements for cafés made of plastic bottles in the types of PET and HDPE. Several phases in the testing process must be carried out to convert the wastes. First, data collection was then continued by the experiment process to produce design synthesis. In the design process, the researcher conducted waste collection, sorting, milling, washing, forming, and finishing processes. This research involved 3 sites for case studies, namely Blimbing Village TPS, Robbries Gallery as a place to search for data on waste processing processes, and Akarating Café as a theme and also as a place to look for observation data. The experimental process yielded lights used in a cafe having a hexagon shape with 2 different color accents and having different placements, such as hanging on the roof and sticking on the wall.

Aesthetic Appreciation of Chinese Gardens: Between Art and Nature

Gardens include not only art but also nature. According to different relationships between art and nature, this article clarifies five types of gardens: the French-style gardens, the English-style gardens, topiary gardens, Japanese gardens, and Chinese gardens. Based on this clarification, this article argues that Chinese gardens follow the lead of the essential qualities of art instead of the essential qualities of nature. With “borrowing” and “following”, the natural elements in Chinese gardens extend to the field of art. The boundaries between art and nature are erased. The aesthetic appreciation of Chinese gardens challenges the “positive aesthetics”, which is prevalent in contemporary environmental aesthetics, and endorses a “negative aesthetics”, which we can find its supports in traditional Chinese philosophy.

Environmental Aesthetics and Land Art

In this paper, the author reflects on the relationship between environmental aesthetics and land art. By considering their historical development, the author first addresses the terminology problem which prompted him to understand land art as a hypernym – i.e. a term that semantically encompasses other art practices (e.g. “Earth art”, “Earthworks”, “Site art”, “Arte Povera”, “Environment(al) art”, and “Ecological art”). Moreover, by considering certain features of land art (e.g. integration, interruption, involvement, implementation, and imagining), the author proposes a thesis according to which land art represents not only a contemporary art movement but also a new form of the aesthetic experience of nature. In the further development of this thesis, the author focuses on two aesthetic principles of land art – participation and entropy – which in the history of aesthetic theory have been almost non-existent, pushed to the margins, or completely neglected. Finally, by finding solid theoretical foundations for this thesis in Ronald W. Hepburn’s ground-breaking essay “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty” (1984), as well as some land art projects (e.g. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970), the author emphasises the strong theoretical connection between environmental aesthetics and land art.

The impact of built environment on physical activity and subjective well-being of urban residents: A study of core cities in the Yangtze River Delta survey.

In cities with high population density in China, the impact of built environment on human health is rather complicated. Physical activities are an important factor in promoting people's health. This study is aimed to explore ways of enhancing the residents' intensity of physical activities and psychological health in a limited built environment. For this purpose, this study conducted research on 1875 residents from cities in the Yangtze River Delta in China to clarify the complicated correlations among the residents' physical activities, the multi-dimensional geographic environment characteristics, and subjective well-being. First, Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS-A), International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form (IPAQ-SF), and Subjective Well-being Scale for Chinese Citizens (SWBS-CC) were used to measure built environment characteristics, intensity of physical activities, and subjective well-being. Second, the correlations among built environment, physical activities, and subjective well-being were analyzed, which reflected different effects of built environment characteristics on physical activities and subjective well-being. Third, physical activities were viewed as a mediating variable in SEM to analyze the influence mechanism of each built environment characteristic on the subjective well-being of residents. Residents with different individual characteristics may have different levels of perception and usage of built environment. The intensity of physical activities has significant positive correlations with proximity to supporting facilities, accessibility of destinations, and public security, while no significant correlation with overall environmental aesthetics and street connectivity. The residents' subjective well-being has significant positive correlations with accessibility of destinations, overall environmental aesthetics, and public security, while no significant correlation with proximity to supporting facilities and street connectivity. Physical activities not only have a direct effect on subjective well-being, but also a mediating effect on the correlations between subjective well-being and built environment characteristics. In the future, more research could be conducted on the optimization of correlations between residential built environment characteristics and physical activities as well as subjective well-being, so as to gain a deeper understanding about the impact of residential built environment on people's physical and mental health.

Elite Environmental Aesthetics: Placing Nature in a Changing Climate

Elite Environmental Aesthetics: Placing Nature in a Changing Climate

THE THEME OF LIFE IN IMAGES

The national ornaments used in the buildings and their modern interpretation, magnificent paintings and sculptures revealing various themes attract attention. In every era man has sought to express his spiritual needs.Renewed socio-political and aesthetic environment, together with the continuation of the art traditions of the past gave rise to new creative ideas, themes and artistic solutions. Reflecting the achievements of our country, preserving its prestige, explaining what qualities of creators and spiritual creators should possess, as well as people of today, became the actual subject of works of art.

Using Google Street View Panoramas to evaluate the environmental aesthetics quality of blue spaces in urban area

The water environment is considered an important element of the urban landscape. In this study, panoramas of the Google Street Map were used to evaluate the aesthetics quality of three blue spaces environment in the Tokyo, and discussed factors affecting these aesthetic qualities. The founding of the paper: 1) the environmental characteristics of the three selected UBSs are different; 2) three UBS with different environmental visual factors (SVF, BVF, and TVF); 3) the Google Street View panoramas used in the study enable viewers to perceive the differences in the aesthetic quality of different environments; 4) the most significant preference predictor for three UBS is Mystery, and “Multisensority & Nature” and “Sublimity” are two significant preference predictor for urban canal. The results of the study have practical and managerial implications for improving the environmental aesthetic quality of urban blue spaces.

Beautiful environment, beautiful heart–The role of environmental aesthetic on moral education

ABSTRACT Aestheticians pointed out that the long immersion in the beautiful environment plays an important role on the moral education. The research mainly tested the opinion and examined the influence of the environmental aesthetics on moral behaviours and immoral behaviours. Meanwhile, we also further explored the possible pathways for environmental aesthetics influencing moral education, the mediating role of moral disengagement. We invited 334 junior high school students to complete relevant questionnaires. The results found that the higher environmental aesthetics, the lower moral disengagement, and further the higher moral behaviours (the number of donations) and the lower immoral behaviours (lying behaviours). The results also found that the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between environment aesthetics and immoral behaviours. But the moral disengagement didn’t play a mediating role in the relation between environmental aesthetics and moral behaviours. These results demonstrated the effect of environmental aesthetics on moral education.

Metaverse Virtual Art Assets That Is Breaking Through the Confinement of Materials in View of Authenticity and Immortality

The conservation by the metaverse cloud computing technology that is breaking through the confinement of materials which supply the virtual art assets solve not only the debate of artwork restoration, but also the storage space for our abundant art assets. A participatory culture of the meme generation estimates that we can combine the virtual and physical artwork so as to guide the public to better understand the artwork and improve the aesthetic environment of society in the digital world. Therefore, the creator’s spirit of sacrifice for art can achieve immortality.

Water Hyacinth Management Due to Eutrophication in Water Bodies Around Pasir Panjang Village, Batam City

Water is a human need to carry out activities ranging from daily essentials to agricultural needs and others. Domestic wastewater must meet physical, chemical, and biological requirements so that humans cannot be polluted by the water, especially the water around the Pasir Panjang Village area in Batam, Riau Islands. This study aims to determine the potential use of water hyacinth for environmental health. This research was conducted by direct observation and measurement of water quality by grab sampling. Observation results show that not all residents use septic tanks as wastewater treatment results from daily activities. Some residents drain their wastewater directly into water bodies or surrounding land, resulting in decreased environmental aesthetics. Water quality testing for nutrient parameters shows that the quality standards have been met. However, further measurements are needed for total nitrogen and phosphate. Besides that, it also causes a population explosion of water hyacinth. In addition to the ability to treat water hyacinth waste, its economic potential is also analyzed. The growth of water hyacinth is sufficient and fulfills its capacity, and water hyacinth can be used for various crafts that can improve the community's welfare.

A Few Remarks Towards Environmental Aesthetics. Aesthetics of Landscapes and its Impact on Human Emotions

The following paper focuses on the current meaning of environmental aesthetics and the aesthetics of landscapes. Its purpose is to show the relationship of human artificial living to natural living and human health as well as aesthetic and social emotions depending on health landscapes. There is the terms “environmental aesthetics” and “aesthetics of landscapes” are analysed in the broader philosophical and interdisciplinary context of Norberg-Schulz’s theory of architecture, Konrad Lorenz’s theory of ethology, and Wolfgang Welsch’s transhuman aesthetics. What are the mechanisms of a human relating to a landscape? What mechanisms of our emotionality are related to a devastated or healthy landscape? These are the central questions of the following consideration. The methods used in my research are analyses, etymology, the phenomenology of emotionality, and phenomenology of the landscape. The primary and expected findings are that people appreciate and enjoy scenic landscapes to satisfy their emotionality, cooperation, and well-being. Conclusion: Landscapes create our identification, surroundings which create our feelings, experiences, and emotions. A good example of such a relationship are inhabitants of today’s uninhabited islands who were not able to cooperate, who destroyed their environment, destabilized and deforested their surroundings up to their complete extinction.

ASSESSMENT OF THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RECREATIONAL OPEN SPACES IN ABEOKUTA NIGERIA

Recreational open spaces provides recreational areas for residents and helps to enhance the beauty and environmental quality of neighbourhoods. It consists of natural and organized open spaces used for outdoor recreational purposes. This paper examines the physical characteristics of recreational open spaces in Abeokuta Nigeria. In order to achieve this, available recreational facilities of the recreational open spaces in the study area were identified.. Descriptive and Kendall Tau B’s test was used for the analysis, and result showed significant relationship between environmental aesthetics and physical characteristics of ROS in Abeokuta, This implies that the physical characteristics influences the environmental aesthetic quality of the ROS. It also establishes the fact that environmental aesthetic quality has an impact on the patronage of ROS. It is recommended that the environmental aesthetics of recreational open spaces in the study area be improved in order to enhance its patronage.

Awe experiences, the sublime, and spiritual well-being in Arctic wilderness.

Experiences of awe can carry the potential for life-transforming experiences and foster awareness of nature as a lifelong value. How these experiences emerge was investigated empirically in a pristine natural environment and analyzed informed by a bottom-up perspective with an interdisciplinary understanding of environmental aesthetics and positive psychology. A group of Arctic nature guide students (n = 34) was followed on an 8-day advanced glacier course with additional learning topics related to the Arctic landscape and history, wildlife, and how to protect a wilderness camp from polar bear attacks. After this experience, students were invited to participate in the research project and were asked to reflect on their experiences immediately after their return to civilization. Two narratives each from 27 participants were collected, which provided 54 quotations for interpretation. Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) surfaced three main themes: context, human response to encounters with nature, and transformation. The study of awe brings the tension between spirituality and well-being closer. The findings add empirical knowledge to the understanding of the contexts for these highly affective and complex feelings. The findings also add refined knowledge about the relationship between awe and the sublime. In transformation for human well-being, the role of self-knowledge or self-transcendence surfaced by wilderness experiences should not be underestimated.

Recycled art from plastic waste for environmental sustainability and aesthetics in Ghana

The study rooted in the eco-innovation theory aimed at investigating the effects of plastic waste in the Kokrobite and Bortianor communities in Accra while finding proactive ways of using recycled art from plastic waste, with post-use packages in focus to sensitize community members on the negative effects of plastic waste. Phenomenology and art studio-based research designs under the qualitative approach were adopted for the study. The study was carried out from August 2021 to July 2022. Personal interviews and focus group discussions with 72 snowball and purposively sampled study participants. The data from the study were analysed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The study revealed that the improper management of post-used plastic items in the study areas was a major factor that contributed to environmental pollution. An artistic installation was executed using plastic waste. Visually, it enhanced the environmental aesthetics in the community while philosophically serving as a sensitization tool on the effects of plastic waste. In the quest for a solution to plastic pollution, innovation from post-used plastic items is the ultimate answer. The Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment Science Technology and Innovation and the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture can organize such competitions to reward students of all levels who create innovative products from plastic waste.

Automatic classification of textile visual pollutants using deep learning networks

Urban pollution is a massive global problem, especially in industrialized and developing nations. Visual pollution is an issue concerned with the external noticeable appearance of the modern urban areas causing human health disorders, emotional distress, driving distraction, environmental hazards, etc. Amidst the plethora of different forms of environmental pollution, visual pollution deteriorates the aesthetics of an urban environment, endorsing the importance of research and assessing it from different dimensions. The main objective of this study is to initialize a new concept of automatic identification and classification of visible contaminants related to textile industries using computer vision techniques. In this work, deep learning techniques have been applied for the automatic detection and classification of three categories of textile-based visual pollutants, i.e., cloth garbage, advertising billboards and signages, and textile dyeing waste materials. Initially, 1,709 visual pollutants images were obtained through web crawling of search engines. Additionally, 954 images were collected from two local garments factories, roadside vendors and shopping malls of Bangladesh. Next, the dataset was manually annotated by an open-source labeling tool. Finally, various deep learning techniques, Faster R-CNN, YOLOv5, and EfficientDet, have been used to classify the obtained dataset automatically. The EfficientDet framework achieved the best performance with 97% and 93% training and test accuracies, respectively. The YOLOv5 approach exhibits acceptable precision with a considerably lower number of epochs. The proposed automated classification system is expected to create future visual pollution ratings for the textile industries. Consequently, the corresponding stakeholders (industry owners, government authorities, factory workers, etc.) can introduce regulatory frameworks and control the proliferation of visual pollution. The open-source images obtained by web crawling, locally collected visual pollutants dataset and implementation code of this work are available at: https://github.com/SadiaAfrin163/Textile-Visual-Pollutants-Dataset.