Spatial Experience Research Articles

도시재생 공간의 장소성이 방문자 만족 및 구전 의도에 미치는 영향

The objective of this study is to empirically analyze the effect of the placeability of urban regeneration spaces on visitor satisfaction and oral intention. To this end, a survey was conducted on urban regeneration visitors in Daejeon, and the following main results were derived. First, among the places, place by historical and place symbols, place by the use of materials and objects, and place by Hodogic spatial experience were all found to have a positive effect on visitor satisfaction. Second, it was found that the satisfaction of visitors to urban regeneration spaces had a positive effect on oral intention. Third, among the places, place by historical and place symbols and place by the use of materials and objects were found to have a positive effect on visitor satisfaction. Fourth, it was found that the placeability of urban regeneration spaces had a positive effect on oral intention through visitor satisfaction. This study will be able to provide basic data for visitor satisfaction in planning urban regeneration of the old city center.

Application of a Biomimetic Approach in the Design Exploration of the Indonesian Red Cross Memorial Covid 19 Volunteer Monument, Tangerang Regency

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) and a national disaster by the Indonesian government since March 2020. The high speed of the virus' spread has caused an enormous multidimensional crisis in terms of health, social, and economic aspects all over the world, including Indonesia. As of May 8, 2023, Covid-19 has infected 6,787,354 people, with 161,459 of them having died. Among the many victims, there are also many volunteers who have fallen while serving the community in dealing with the pandemic. To commemorate the fallen volunteers, the Indonesian Red Cross of Tangerang Regency plans to immortalize them through a monument in the Solear area, Tangerang Regency, Banten. This monument is intended as a place to remember the fallen volunteers for their families, colleagues, and the public. The Architecture Student Association (Gamatara) of UPH had the opportunity to contribute their design ideas in the framework of community service. The approach used in developing the design of this monument is biomimetic. Biomimetic architecture is defined as the science and art of designing buildings by imitating aspects of nature as examples, models, references, and guidelines for solving problems in architecture. In the design of this monument, biomimetic is applied to make nature an inspiration for form. This approach is used as the actualization of the symbol that the way to prevent pandemics like this in the future is through harmonization with nature. This approach can be seen as the application of metaphor, prioritizing conceptual and visual synergy. The bamboo shoot shape was chosen as an appropriate metaphor that depicts resilience and the emergence of new hope. The design exploration is directed towards combining the form and the resulting spatial experience to create a sense of place and a meditative reflection space that supports activities.

Lefebvre’s spatial triad for children: a teaching model for spatial thinking in the classroom

This paper considers the teachings of spatial thinking in two Danish school interventions with children, ages 10–13 (2018–2021), by turning Lefebvre’s spatial triad into a research-based exercise. Based on children’s responses, this paper concludes that, first, by allowing children to include their own spatial experiences, they can resonate with the complex ways in which the perceived, conceived and lived spaces, according to Lefebvre, are produced and reproduced. Second, while the conceived space of Lefebvre addresses the difficult premise that every space is always intended, it adds crucial insights into how spaces work conceptually as well as it helps children to work with spatial data. The results indicate that Lefebvre’s spatial triad can be used didactically to develop children’s spatial thinking in the classroom and in urban planning projects.

The Use of Sense of Presence in Studies on Human Behavior in Virtual Environments: A Systematic Review

Sense of presence is a key element of the user experience in the study of virtual environments. Understanding it is essential for disciplines, such as architecture and environmental psychology, that study human responses using simulated environments. More evidence is needed on how to optimize spatial presence in simulations of built environments. A systematic review was conducted to define the use of sense of presence in research on human behavior in virtual spaces. Conceptualized dimensions, measurement methodologies, simulation technologies and associated factors were identified. The study identified a diversity of approaches and the predominance of subjective measures over sense of presence indicators. Several studies noted that environmental variables and spatial typologies had significant effects on presence. The results showed that different user profiles responded to stimuli in different ways. The results emphasized the importance of conceiving the construct in interrelation with the built context. A more comprehensive and multidisciplinary orientation is required to identify principles that optimize the spatial experience in virtual environments. This will be important for disciplines that research the human experience using virtual environments.

Co-Design of a Public Space and the Implementation: Atakent (Car) Park

Citizen Design Science is a new co-design strategy for urban and architectural systems that improves the planning, design, management, and renewal of cities, urban habitats, and architectural structures, using active design tools through citizens' observation, experience, and local knowledge. The aim of this study is to describe how Atakent Parking Area is transformed into a public space design and implementation through both digital and analog active design tools in the co-design process that includes citizens' spatial experiences, needs, and desires through the method of citizen design science. The objective indicators and subjective perception applied in the study were combined in the co-design process to implement an urban design project. The experimental collaborative urban design process is realized on a democratic platform based on the tendencies and expectations of the participants. Two conceptual urban design projects were prepared with design science data including citizens' wishes, needs, and suggestions about the area, and participating citizens were asked to vote for the project democratically in the urban space. The selected conceptual design project was transformed into an implementation project in the urban area.

A multispecies cinema of apprehension

This essay theorizes the cinematic experience of apprehension accompanying representations of multispecies relations in the age of global pandemics. Globally synchronous experiences of cascading epidemics in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries have made spectators aware of the microbes that inhabit ‘us’, the animals that carry ‘them’ and the mediums (water, air, soils) that sustain all these forms of life. In this historical situation, cinematic zoonoses generate fear, anxiety and foreboding alongside creative prehensions of living as multispecies: this is the ‘pandemic viewing condition’. I elaborate the claim in three films – Prateek Vats’s first fiction film Eeb, Allay, Ooo! (2020), Amit Datta’s artistic Saatvin Sair (The Seventh Walk) (2013) and Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes (2023) – that articulate multispecies encounters as spatial experiences. On the one hand, aesthetic compositions of cinematic zoonoses lure spectators into textured cinematic milieus of multispecies encounters, even as the protective cinematic frame provides the comfort of distance; on the other, the historical contingencies of spectatorship induce projections of cinematic surrounds where the multispecies continuum surfaces sensorily, affectively and intuitively. Together the cinematic milieu and cinematic surrounds orient spectators towards their actual living milieu, an unsettling space where neither bodily integrities nor species distinctions hold any longer.

A Novel Quantitative Approach to the Spatial Configuration of Urban Streets Based on Local Wind Environment

The urban street is an important part of the urban form and serves as the primary medium for public activities within cities. The morphological characteristics of urban street space not only influence people’s spatial experience but also have an impact on the quality of the physical environment, such as the wind environment. Numerous scholars have studied the wind environment of streets with different morphological characteristics using abstract and simplified street models, uncovering certain relationships between specific morphological features and airflow patterns. However, due to the significant disparity between simplified models and reality, researchers have attempted to develop models applicable to the complex characteristics of urban street space, with the aim of exploring the relationship between street spatial features and airflow characteristics. This study explores a method to quantify the complex spatial characteristics of urban streets, using a series of parameters to describe the streets, such as average width, proportion of secondary interfaces, and proportion of opening length. Streets with different spatial characteristics in the centre of Nanjing are selected and quantified. A comparison is conducted between the parameters representing street spatial morphology and the simulation results of the wind environment in the area, aiming to assess the effectiveness of these parameter values. The results demonstrate that complex urban spaces can still be effectively represented through parameterization and confirm the validity of our quantitative representation of complex street spatial characteristics. The results could serve as a reference for urban design and urban construction.

Spatial Visualization Ability Assessment for Analyzing Differences and Exploring Influencing Factors: Literature Review with Bibliometrics and Experiment

Spatial ability, an essential skill in modern education, is on par with language and computing abilities. However, the definition and categorization of spatial ability are still unclear, requiring further development in assessment practices and research. The factors influencing spatial ability are still being explored, and assessments across different cultures and backgrounds need refinement. Results show a significant correlation between spatial visualization ability, gender, and major, with males and STEM majors scoring higher. Other factors, like students' prior spatial experience, did not show a significant correlation. These findings help identify and evaluate students' spatial visualization ability levels, guiding the design of spatial thinking courses and supporting differentiated teaching. The assessment also serves as a measure to track changes in students' spatial visualization ability before and after the course.

Plant-human entanglements in buildings: designing for care infrastructuring with office occupants and pot plants

The current outsourcing of maintenance and the use of technological devices to automatically care for plants in buildings change the spatial experience between human office occupants and plants. This caretaker system distances people from plants, inclining us to regard them more as decorative objects. The relationship between humans and plants in a building is often unidirectional, with plants providing humans multiple benefits such as improved health and well-being, and increased worker productivity. In our human-plant interaction study, we developed a layer of care infrastructure within an office building that gives agency to people as a collective to interact with and take care of other non-human beings; that is, plants. In re-imagining mediated human-building interaction, we employed technology as an ambient mediator where people, plants and technology comprised the plant care system in a typical office building. A year-long design intervention was introduced within a typical office floor using artifacts (pots, shelves, and digital system) which we fabricated for the plants. From the results of an 8 week participation experiment together with data from qualitative interviews of 6 study participants, we identified five themes: Technology, Object/Thing, Infrastructuring, Commoning, and Care. Our analysis of these themes informs a care infrastructuring approach where both humans and plants become interdependent office co-inhabitants. By entangling with technology, care, and others, we present an infrastructuring layer to mediate human-building interactions with plants.

Enhancing visitors’ experience in historical museums through applying parametric roof designs

ABSTRACT Previous research indicated that museums have historically prioritized their formal and physical features at the expense of accommodating visitors’ needs which has negatively affected visitors’ museum experience. A shortage in interactive spatial experiences in some historical museums in Egypt led to a decrease in the rate of visits and visitor’s satisfaction. Museums’ interior design has a significant impact on people’s emotions as well as their museum experience. Furthermore, prior research has indicated that parametric design can convey emotional interactive spatial experiences when applied to different interior design elements. Such elements can include the building’s roof, floor, or walls. This research aims to create a set of guidelines for enhancing visitors’ emotional and interactive spatial experiences in historical museums using parametric interior roof design solutions. The research adopted a mixed method approach. A qualitative approach was implemented by reviewing the precedent literature. This was followed by a case study in the Egyptian context and a computer-generated model of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was developed. Two parametric roof alternatives were tested along with the existing roof of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by using Virtual Reality on a sample of 67 participants. The quantitative approach was achieved by distributing questionnaires among participants and analyzing the acquired data. The results showed that the application of parametric designs could develop interactive relaxing or engaging museum spatial experiences. This study could benefit architects, interior designers, and relevant specialists in the design process to enhance the museums’ spatial emotional interactive experience by using parametric design.

Co-evolution of Smart Small Vehicles and Human Spatial Experiences: Case Study on Battery-Sharing Electric Two-Wheelers Experiment

Small-format mobility services have been introduced in many cities to promote sustainable urban development. In some cities, these services are primarily seen as entertainment rather than significant transport modes. Research has studied the roles of experiential/hedonic and functional/instrumental motivations in users’ adoption intent for such services. However, there is still a limited understanding of how actual spatial experiences of mobility travels shape travel behaviors. This study explores the role of spatial experience in mobility travels. Specifically, the research question revolves around whether better spatial knowledge leads to better spatial experiences, thereby satisfying users’ functional/instrumental and experiential/hedonic values for mobility trips. Additionally, we examine how spatial knowledge affects travel behaviors regarding trip chaining and vehicle charging. To assess road users’ spatial knowledge, we use sketch maps to examine changes after three months of using battery-sharing two-wheelers. A mixed-methods approach and multiple data sources are employed to provide deeper insights, including sketch maps, questionnaire surveys on attitudes, and a panel data analysis on activity-travel patterns. The results indicate that spatial experience significantly influences perceived values and, consequently, travel behaviors. Improved knowledge leads to greater satisfaction with mobility travel. Furthermore, an interaction effect is found between cognitive distance and cognitive direction concerning users’ satisfaction with the driving range and charging issues of electric vehicles.

Migration, abjection and visibility: the photographic projects of Sam Ivin, Melanie Friend and Yetunde Adebiyi

ABSTRACT This paper examines the work of three photographers addressing the experiences of migrants awaiting decisions upon, or denied residency applications by the UK government. While Sam Ivin’s Lingering Ghosts portraits convey the emotional and embodied impacts upon migrants awaiting notification of asylum requests, Melanie Friend’s images of Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) investigate the spaces of exclusion and detention within the UK border control system. The paper concludes by examining Yetunde Adebiyi’s images of protests outside Yarl’s Wood IRC, Bedford and alternative communities for “non-legal” migrants in Liverpool. These images are put in the context of a process of “social abjection” , whereby migrants have been increasingly marginalised through negative media and government policy, ultimately diminishing or denying citizenship to certain groups within society. This raises issues of mobility justice , in that individuals’ experience of mobility is in sharp contrast to that of UK citizens and impacted by multi-scalar entanglements of other (im)mobilities. Individuals’ bodily and spatial experience of, and agency over (im)mobility is related to their visibility, and agency over being visible. By exposing the relative experiences of mobility and visibility the photographs provide a potential site of advocacy for mobility justice but can also draw attention to the unequal experiences of citizenship of subject, photographer and viewer. By suggesting that photographs constitute and engender a social relationship between these parties, the paper proposes that photographic projects might offer a potential “civil contract” between those with very different experiences of mobility, visibility and citizenship.

A Study of the Emotional Impact of Interior Lighting Color in Rural Bed and Breakfast Space Design

In architectural spaces, the ambiance created by lighting plays a significant role in influencing people’s emotions, often relying on the use of color and light. However, previous research has primarily focused on urban architectural spaces, with relatively less attention given to rural environments, especially the interior spaces of rural accommodation. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of colored lighting within rural accommodation interiors on people’s emotions and visual perceptions. Additionally, the study aims to establish an emotional dimension model to map the experimental results onto eight basic emotions, utilizing the PAD model for quantitative analysis. To achieve this goal, the researchers recruited 90 participants and divided them into six groups, each experiencing different combinations of indoor lighting scenes with varying colors. Participants evaluated their emotions and visual perceptions. The study results indicate that the combination of cool and warm white light with colored light significantly influences the arousal level of participants but has a relatively lower impact on pleasure levels, dominance and relaxation levels. In comparing the emotions experienced after exposure to cool and warm white light followed by colored light, warm white light elicited more positive emotions. Furthermore, colored light following cool white light diminished the sense of warmth in light, while yellow–blue light enhanced visual comfort and blue–red light increased attraction. Overall, the effect of colored lighting in rural accommodation interior spaces on improving negative emotions was relatively weak. Conversely, the combination of warm white light with blue–yellow or green–yellow light had a more significant effect on enhancing visual perceptions and reducing participants’ anxiety. This research provides valuable insights and references for designing the lighting ambiance in rural accommodation interiors and lighting design, with the potential to enhance the spatial experience of rural accommodations.

The possibility of radical resources and participation in architectural education: autobiographical spatial narratives

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the pedagogical field of architectural education by conceptualizing autobiographical spatial narratives as possible radical resources and avenues for participation. It seeks to advance a critical approach to the dominant canon of course contents and hidden local dynamics of exclusion and discrimination in architectural education.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology is based on conceptual and critical analyses of feminist, postcolonial and radical architectural pedagogies, relating those with broader feminist pedagogies that question exclusion and discrimination mechanisms from the perspective of the radicality of emotions. As a second step, three experiments intentionally designed in academic courses to open space for autobiographical spatial narratives are analysed to extend the theoretical discussion into the specific local dynamics of exclusion and discrimination that have largely been ignored to date in Turkey.FindingsDifferent pedagogical approaches and self-experiments have revealed that autobiographical spatial narratives are a type of resource that accommodates students' diverse spatial experiences including forcible displacement. Sharing that multiplicity creates opportunities for participation in the classroom and studio where different individualities, backgrounds and identities are made visible. These potential resources and participation are open to emotions and affects, are collective and transformative and, therefore, are radical.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough research on architectural pedagogies is still limited, the current literature is constantly being empowered by new studies from various geographies and localities. The present study may facilitate future comparative readings and further research on radical architectural pedagogies, particularly within the Global South, where complex local dynamics might share commonalities dominated by the Western canon. It may also open new discussions on discrimination and the exclusion of silenced individuals in architectural education in Turkey and elsewhere. In the scope of this paper, however, the practical experiences and observations based on two years in architectural education may be too limited for a comprehensive analysis of the applications of autobiographical spatial narratives.Originality/valueThis paper offers novel strategies for creating inclusive, intersectional and decolonized perspectives for knowledge production and more equal spaces in architectural education.

Coming into view: Engaging gentrification and displacement beyond aversive racism

Reflecting on Bloch and Meyer's exploration of displacement-by-gentrification and their use of “aversive racism” to address a lack of serious engagement with race and racism in gentrification studies, I offer a conceptual tour of both gentrification and displacement, specifically how some scholars have defined both terms and used them to explore various dimensions of socio-spatial shifts. Then, I clarify the incompatibility of aversive racism and a Black geographic framework, since Black geographies place Black agency at the center of spatial production and emphasizes Black spatial experiences in the expression of Black spatial imaginaries and geographic visions of society.

Redrawing the Map of World Philosophy Based on the Spatial Experience: A Perspective from the Phenomenology of Space

The phenomenology of space is linked to the body experience, where the situatedness (Befindlichheit) plays the fundamental attribute of existence, and space becomes a structural element of meaning construction, while the space itself is constructed and extended by way of intersubjectivity or Mitsein in this process. The phenomenology of space, which is portrayed through embodiment, situatedness, meaning construction, and Mitsein, poses a new requirement for the writing of the history of philosophy in the age of globalization, which is to break the Western-centric perspective and to discuss the pluralistic philosophy based on the differences of the spatial experience. By redrawing the map of world philosophy in an intercultural perspective, the pluralistic philosophical traditions can establish the new self-understandings and self-positionings, in order to respect the diversity of human civilization, to unite the common values of all mankind, and to build a human community with a shared future.

From Centre to Suburbs: Investigating How Transit Maps Streamline Residents’ Spatial Representations

ABSTRACT Representations we hold of our cities are acquired not just through direct spatial experience, but also through maps, potentially including schematic maps like transit maps. Following Beck's pioneering work, transit maps include practical schematic modifications, with scale changes that usually result in an expansion of central regions while compressing the peripheries. But it is not yet clear whether such a distortion exists in the minds of residents, and whether it could be due to cognitive biases, or to the transit maps' influence. Here, after showing that the centre–periphery segmentation is stronger in Parisians' minds than in Londoners', we investigated reference and segmentation effects in the way residents placed landmarks on a blank background. Those effects indeed explained part of centre–periphery distortions that were found, but some angular and scale changes could still only be explained by transit maps, confirming they indeed streamline residents' spatial representations.

The influence path of community green exposure index on activity behavior under multi-dimensional spatial perception.

The purpose of this research is to reveal the internal relationship among community green space, space perception, and activity behavior response to supplement the lack of research results on the binary relationship between green space and behavior. Nine residential community green spaces and 398 residents were selected as the research objects. Thematic clustering and factor identification were used to determine the spatial dimensions of community green space that residents were concerned about. The analysis of the green exposure index, spatial perception evaluation, and activity behavior survey were combined to determine the influence of the green exposure index on spatial perception and activity behavior and its internal correlation path. According to research data, the community green view index (GVI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) negatively affected the perception factor, while the perception factor positively affected the activity frequency. The SEM model shows that the green exposure index stimulated activity behavior through the intermediate effect of the internal perception path of perceived landscape quality, perceived workability, and perceived accessibility. Spatial perception as the basis of the instantaneous emotional reaction process may affect people's choices for activities but be unable to extend the duration of the activities. The internal association among community green space, spatial perception, and physical activity behavior develops on the basis of spatial patterns at certain scales. This study provides a theoretical basis for understanding the spatial experience and residents' behavioral needs, evaluating the quality of urban green space scientifically, and promoting the optimization of community green space structure.

Grid cells in rats deprived of geometric experience during development

The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is part of the brain's network for dynamic representation of location. The most abundant class of neurons in this circuit is the grid cell, characterized by its periodic, hexagonally patterned firing fields. While in developing animals some MEC cell types express adult-like firing patterns already on the first exposure to an open spatial environment, only days after eye opening, grid cells mature more slowly, over a 1-to-2-wk period after the animals leave their nest. Whether the later emergence of a periodic grid pattern reflects a need for experience with spatial environments has not been determined. We here show that grid-like firing patterns continue to appear during exploration of open square environments in rats that are raised for the first months of their life in opaque spherical environments, in the absence of stable reference boundaries to guide spatial orientation. While strictly periodic firing fields were initially absent in these animals, clear grid patterns developed after only a few trials of training. In rats that were tested in the same open environment but raised for the first months of life in opaque cubes, with sharp vertical boundaries, grid-like firing was from the beginning indistinguishable from that of nondeprived control animals growing up in large enriched cages. Thus, although a minimum of experience with peripheral geometric boundaries is required for expression of regular grid patterns in a new environment, the effect of restricted spatial experience is overcome with short training, consistent with a preconfigured experience-independent basis for the grid pattern.

Mapping the empty space: Spatial experience and relationship in drama therapy practice

This clinical commentary takes up Peter Brook’s (1968) notion of the empty space as the precondition for theatre, exploring the distinct nature of the empty spaces of digital and in-person drama therapy practice in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Spatial experience in drama therapy is explored through considerations of relationship, body memory and the effects of digital therapy on clinical practice. The commentary describes a sense of dislocation in experience, memory and relationship when bodies are not together in space, proposing a series of strategies to acknowledge and mitigate these effects.