Outdoor Green Spaces Research Articles

My garden – my mate? Perceived restorativeness of private gardens and its predictors

There is a large body of knowledge on the restorative potential of public green space, but studies on private gardens are rare. This study was aimed at exploring perceived restorativeness of private gardens and its predictors. In an online survey, 856 respondents rated the perceived restorativeness of private gardens, attached outdoor green spaces and living rooms with green elements. Characteristics of the garden, sociodemographic data, personal characteristics, and the relationship between user and garden were surveyed. Results indicated that the private garden scored highest on perceived restorativeness. A multiple regression analysis explained 52.2% of the variance of the perceived restorativeness of private gardens. The garden–user relationship qualified as the strongest predictor of the restorative potential. We suggest considering the significance of affective bonds in designing restorative private gardens.

Urban/Suburban Park Use: Links to Personal Identity?

Public greenspaces provide an opportunity for community members to engage with the outdoors. In many locations, however, parks are under used. In an effort to gauge the potential for outdoor interaction and ecosystem education, we conducted a survey of residents from a central New Jersey, USA, county. Our correlation analysis indicated that park use could be related to socioeconomics and in particular education, environmental literacy, pet ownership, outdoor enjoyment and preferred environment. Variables relating to mood and other personal characteristics were more strongly associated with individual identity characteristics. Through multivariate analyses, we offer an organizing framework that can help tailor outdoor greenspace improvement/restoration and programming to identity categories. These categories are a combination of where an individual lives, enjoyment of the outdoors, education and socio-economics, sense of community, institutional trust, and pet ownership.

Modelling Spatial Distribution of Outdoor Recreation Trips of Urban Residents

Outdoor recreation is one of the most important leisure activities of urban residents, with urban greenspace accruing the highest value of benefits among all greenspaces in the UK. However, access and trip-making to outdoor greenspaces by urban residents remain poorly understood. Existing trip-making prediction models that have been established for assessing the recreation benefits of outdoor greenspaces have dealt separately with visits to urban and rural greenspaces. This makes it difficult to assess greenspace strategies when considering them as a whole infrastructure. Meanwhile there is a risk of misjudging the value (e.g. double counting) when they are summed mechanically. This research aims to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of predictive models of outdoor recreation travel. An output of the research is a new model with two components: (a) predominantly local trips and (b) predominantly non-local trips. The resultant model is able to make an assessment that seamlessly combines urban and rural greenspaces. It also links the spatial distribution of visits to key spatial factors, such as distribution of population, location of recreational sites, transport accessibility and travel time. The resulting quantification of the impacts of policy interventions provide a robust basis for decision making.

Contact with nature in educational settings might help cognitive functioning and promote positive social behaviour / El contacto con la naturaleza en los contextos educativos podría mejorar el funcionamiento cognitivo y fomentar el comportamiento social positivo

This research investigates the positive effects that contact with nature in educational settings has on pre-school children. Several studies have shown that contact with nature promotes many beneficial outcomes. In a study conducted in Italy, we tested the hypotheses that exposure to nature in educational settings promotes psychological restoration, strengthens children’s cognitive and affective resources and increases the quality of children’s social interaction. Children’s performance in structured activities and behaviour in free play were assessed through systematic observation, after time spent in outdoor green versus indoor space, respectively. The participants were 39 children from four different childcare centres in the Rome area. Findings confirm the hypothesized pattern, suggesting that contact with outdoor green spaces positively influences children’s cognitive performance, affective states and social behaviour.

Changes in negative air ions concentration under different light intensities and development of a model to relate light intensity to directional change

The purpose of this research was to determine changes in negative air ion (NAI) concentrations produced by plants grown under different light intensities. NAI concentrations were observed and analyzed in an outdoor green space with five plant species ( Aloe arborescens, Clivia miniata, Chlorophytum comosum, Opuntia brunnescens, Crassula portulacea) and A. arborescens was then grown under controlled-light conditions in an enclosed space for the subsequent light intensity experiment. (1) Two peaks in NAI concentration were observed over the course of 24 h in the outdoor green space: one occurred between 9:00 and 10:00 AM; the other was at approximately 8:00 PM. (2) Among the five plant species, A. arborescens produced the highest levels of NAI and responded most effectively to light with an increase in NAI generation. Accordingly, it was chosen as the model plant for studies on the changes in NAI concentration under different light intensities. (3) In enclosed-space experiments, isolated from sunlight and under controlled-light conditions, the concentrations of NAI varied with changes in light intensities. (4) Using regression analysis, a logistic model was developed showing that changes in NAI concentrations as a function of illumination intensity followed an exponential relationship.

SKYSCRAPER FUTURE VISIONS

This paper addresses two skyscraper visions: Tokyo’s Sky City and the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid. Prompted by the dearth of land and growing urban problems in Tokyo, these skyscraper visions offer alternative built forms with revolutionary technologies in building materials, construction methods, energy generation, and transportation systems. They are designed to be self-sufficient with homes, offices, outdoor green spaces, commercial establishments, restaurants, hospitals, trains, cars, and conceivably everything that hundreds of thousands of people need during the course of their lifetimes. The promise is that creating such vertical cities would relieve Tokyo from overcrowding and replace the urban concrete jungle on the ground with super towers straddling expansive green spaces or the water of Tokyo Bay.

Nearby Nature and Long-Term Care Facility Residents

As the population in North America continues to age, long-term care facilities for housing the elderly are likely to become even more important. Because one of the primary foci of these facilities is on sustaining and enhancing quality of life while eventually helping patients and families cope with the dying process, both the physical and social environments are critical to the facilities' success and the users' well-being. Healing, or restorative gardens and other designed green spaces have been suggested by many academics and practitioners as important components of these environments, yet there has been relatively little systematic research on the use and benefits of nature in this context. Do elderly residents of long-term care facilities benefit from access to outdoor areas? What are the design characteristics that are most important for this unique population? Forty elderly residents of three different urban long-term care facilities were interviewed about the importance of outdoor green spaces and views within the facility, their use of the facility's outdoor spaces, benefits they derive from those spaces, and barriers to using the spaces. Facilities differed both in terms of the amount of nature in their outdoor spaces and in the design of, scale of, and access to those spaces. Results show that overall residents place a high value on access to green spaces and derive a number of benefits from these spaces, yet they spend relatively little time in these settings. Barriers to greater use of outdoor spaces included physical limitations, lack of staff assistance, and design issues. Implications for the value of nature spaces in long-term care facilities are discussed, along with specific design recommendations.