scholarly journals View preference in urban environments

2020 ◽  
pp. 147715352098157
Author(s):  
A Batool ◽  
P Rutherford ◽  
P McGraw ◽  
T Ledgeway ◽  
S Altomonte
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Visual Exploration ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Preference Rating ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Subjective Preference ◽  
Window Design ◽  
Indoor Spaces ◽  
Presence Of People

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.

scholarly journals The European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) Endorses the Milan Charter on Urban Obesity

Obesity Facts ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Michele O. Carruba ◽  
Luca Busetto ◽  
Sheree Bryant ◽  
Antonio Caretto ◽  
Nathalie J. Farpour-Lambert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
National Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Communicable Diseases ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Access To Treatment ◽  
Non Communicable Diseases ◽  
Health Goals

The Milan Charter on Urban Obesity highlights the challenges of urban environments as a battleground for human health, as cities are often organized to subvert public health goals, and promote rather than prevent the development of obesity and consequent non-communicable diseases. The Charter articulates ten principles which detail actions and strategies through which general practitioners, diverse medical specialists, related healthcare professionals, administrators and healthcare practice managers, policy actors – within health systems and at a national level – along with experts across disciplines, and citizens, can work in cooperation to meet this challenge and improve public health. The Charter urges the adoption of decisions that deliver the following: (i) policies which enable our cities to become healthier and less obesogenic, more supportive of well-being and less health-disruptive in general, and (ii) policies that fully support primary prevention strategies, that address social stigma, and that ensure fair access to treatment for people living with obesity. The Milan Charter on Urban Obesity aims to raise awareness of our shared responsibility for the health of all citizens, and focuses on addressing the health of people living with obesity – not only as a challenge in its own right, but a gateway to other major non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.

scholarly journals Effects of exposure to immersive videos and photo slideshows of forest and urban environments

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariba Mostajeran ◽  
Jessica Krzikawski ◽  
Frank Steinicke ◽  
Simone Kühn
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Jail Inmates ◽  
Forest Environment ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Hospital Patients

AbstractA large number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of natural environments on people’s health and well-being. For people who have limited access to nature (e.g., elderly in nursing homes, hospital patients, or jail inmates), virtual representations may provide an alternative to benefit from the illusion of a natural environment. For this purpose and in most previous studies, conventional photos of nature have been used. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, however, can induce a higher sense of presence compared to conventional photos. Whether this higher sense of presence leads to increased positive impacts of virtual nature exposure is the main research question of this study. Therefore, we compared exposure to a forest and an urban virtual environment in terms of their respective impact on mood, stress, physiological reactions, and cognition. The environments were presented via a head-mounted display as (1) conventional photo slideshows or (2) 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos. The results show that the forest environment had a positive effect on cognition and the urban environment disturbed mood regardless of the mode of presentation. In addition, photos of either urban or forest environment were both more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to immersive 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos.

scholarly journals Economic assessment of urban space and blue-green infrastructure in Singapore

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mabel Lim ◽  
Stefanos Xenarios
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Economic Assessment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Mean Value ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Greenery

Abstract The urban conglomeration has accentuated the role of urban greenery as a determinant factor for sustainable living, especially in highly dense cities. The country of Singapore has consistently attempted to develop and rehabilitate urban greenery by attempting to align the green space policy with the pursuit of better life quality. In this study, we assess the benefits arising from the rehabilitated Bishan-Ang Mo Kio (AMK) Park in north Singapore and the effects on economic welfare. The Bishan-AMK Park was initially constructed in the late 70 s as a drainage area for the avoidance of flooding incidents. In 2012, a pilot project was introduced to create a blue-green infrastructure (BGI) space for the provision of drainage and flood prevention but also for recreational and environmental improvement in the area. Yet, the benefits emerging from BGI are not well explored and still underestimated. To this extent, we evaluate selected services related to recreational, socio-cultural and tourism-related values by indicating the economic benefits from the introduction of BGI in condensed urban environments like Singapore. The findings indicate that the benefits deriving from the selected services could be within the range of US$100 million to US$220 million with a mean value of US$160 million per year by substantially contributing to human well-being. The assessment of environmental services can raise the awareness of residents and local authorities on the contribution of urban greenery to livelihoods and economic development in Singapore and similar densely populated areas.

scholarly journals Urban trees as social triggers: The case of the Ginkgo biloba specimen in Tallinn, Estonia

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 234-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riin Magnus ◽  
Heldur Sander
Keyword(s):  
Ginkgo Biloba ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Trees ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Ideal

Urban trees are considered to be essential and integral to urban environments, to contribute to the biodiversity of cities as well as to the well-being of their inhabitants. In addition, urban trees may also serve as living memorials, helping to remember major social eruptions and to cement continuity with the past, but also as social disruptors that can induce clashes between different ideals of culture. In this paper, we focus on a specific case, a Ginkgo biloba specimen growing at Süda Street in the centre of Tallinn, in order to demonstrate how the shifts in the meaning attributed to a non-human organism can shape cultural memory and underlie social confrontations. Integrating an ecosemiotic approach to human-non-human interactions with Juri Lotman’s approach to cultural memory and cultural space, we point out how non-human organisms can delimit cultural space at different times and how the ideal of culture is shaped by different ways of incorporating or other species in the human cultural ideal or excluding them from it.

scholarly journals Mental Health & Resiliency: Designing Participatory Nature Dependent Environments and Communities for a Sustainable Future

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Beam ◽  
Nawari O. Nawari ◽  
Bill Tilson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Community Planning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Natural Environments

Sustainable design trends have historically wended down a road that supports the idea of densely populated urban planning as a strategy for mitigating sprawl. Creation of dense urban areas aims at the reduction of carbon emissions. However, studies show that densely populated areas often come with a panacea of mental health, resiliency, and quality of life ails for a community.The following research explores the possibility of combining densely populated design approaches with ancient community planning methods that encourage relationship building: close contact with natural environments and social interchange. Community planning that also creates a day to day contact with nature could be a crucial strategy for both sustaining healthy ecosystems and the development of sustainable communities. The potential for integrating dependence upon nature within built urban environments, as well as the possibility of positive place-making by harvesting nature dependent cultural and social assets in communities and neighborhoods, is, therefore, a wealthy area worthy of exploration.To explore these areas, mental health research on the effects of nature on the brain, as well as the three leading determinants of social, environmental and economic well-being, worldwide, and the founding cultures of these determinants were reviewed. Resilient indigenous groups and case studies of the happiest nation, of Norway and two leading environmentally sustainable and resilient countries, Costa Rica, Cuba, and New Mexico are examined. The paper provides recommendations for improving mental health and resilience by integrating strategies for nature and community needs in urban planning and built environments design.

scholarly journals Health Benefits Derived from Forest: A Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (17) ◽  
pp. 6125
Author(s):  
Gianluca Grilli ◽  
Sandro Sacchelli
Keyword(s):  
Keyword Search ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Forest Landscape ◽  
Tree Species Composition ◽  
Therapy Guidelines ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
Length Of Visit

In this paper the scientific literature on the association between forests, stress relief and relaxation is reviewed with the purpose to understand common patterns of research, the main techniques used for analysis, findings relevant to forest-therapy-oriented management, and knowledge gaps. The database of studies was collected with a keyword search on the Web, which returned a set of 32 studies that were included in the analysis. The main findings and patterns were identified with a text mining analysis of the abstract to search for keyword patterns across studies. The analysis indicates that most studies compared rest and relaxation performances across urban and forest environments and used a combination of self-reported measure of stress or rest collected with validate scales, e.g., the Profile of Mood of States (POMS) and the Restoration Outcome Scale (ROS), and a minority-only set of these two groups of indicators. Results of this review indicate that primary studies identified a positive association between forest exposure and mental well-being, in particular when compared to urban environments, thus suggesting that forest are effective in lowering stress levels. This study found that, to date, the characteristics of forests and characteristics of the visit are little investigated in the literature. For this reason, more research with a focus on forest variables such as tree species composition, tree density and other variables affecting forest landscape should be further investigated to inform forest management. Similarly, the characteristics of the visits (e.g., length of visit and frequency) should be further explored to provide robust forest therapy guidelines.

scholarly journals Designing everyday automation with well-being in mind

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 763-779
Author(s):  
Holger Klapperich ◽  
Alarith Uhde ◽  
Marc Hassenzahl
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Press ◽  
Meaningful Experiences ◽  
Automated Processes

AbstractNowadays, automation not only permeates industry but also becomes a substantial part of our private, everyday lives. Driven by the idea of increased convenience and more time for the “important things in life,” automation relieves us from many daily chores—robots vacuum floors and automated coffee makers produce supposedly barista-quality coffee on the press of a button. In many cases, these offers are embraced by people without further questioning. However, while we save time by delegating more and more everyday activities to automation, we also may lose chances for enjoyable and meaningful experiences. In two field studies, we demonstrate that a manual process has experiential benefits over more automated processes by using the example of coffee-making. We present a way to account for potential experiential costs of everyday automation and strategies of how to design interaction with automation to reconcile experience with the advantages of a more and more powerful automation.

scholarly journals Integrating Microclimate into Landscape Architecture for Outdoor Thermal Comfort: A Systematic Review

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Jiawei Lin ◽  
Robert D. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Landscape Architecture ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
The Public ◽  
Outdoor Environments

Global climate change and urban heat island intensification are making many cities dangerously hot during heat waves and uncomfortably hot much of the time. Research has identified ways that urban environments can be designed to reduce the heat, but much of the information is too technical or has not been interpreted or communicated so as to be available to landscape architects. This study identifies ways that landscape architecture researchers have applied microclimate information in design to proactively create more thermally comfortable outdoor environments. A systematic review that assessed the growing recognition of microclimatic factors in design revealed four main approaches: principles and guidelines, strategies, mapping, and evaluation. The advantages and limitations of each have been noted, and a diagram has been developed that matches each approach with specific steps in the landscape architectural design process. The study also identified four areas where microclimate has potential for use in landscape architecture but that are currently not being very actively studied: education, modeling and visualization, policy, and ideation. Microclimatic design has the potential to enhance the health and well-being of the public through the design of thermally comfortable outdoor environments.

scholarly journals The MINDMAP project: mental well-being in urban environments

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 588-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Neumann ◽  
U. Dapp ◽  
W. Jacobsen ◽  
F. van Lenthe ◽  
W. von Renteln-Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Mental Well Being

scholarly journals Unraveling the genetic and environmental relationship between well-being and depressive symptoms throughout the lifespan

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Baselmans ◽  
Yayouk Willems ◽  
Toos van Beijsterveldt ◽  
Lannie Ligthart ◽  
Gonneke WIllemsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Genetic Predisposition ◽  
Genetic Correlations ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Phenotypic Correlation ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Phenotypic Variance ◽  
Environmental Correlations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Sides

Whether well-being and depressive symptoms can be considered as two sides of the same coin is widely debated. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the etiology of the association between well-being and depressive symptoms across the lifespan. In a cohort-sequential design, including data from 43,427 twins between age 7 and 99, we estimated the association between well-being and depressive symptoms throughout the lifespan and assessed genetic and environmental contributions to the observed overlap. For both well-being (range 31% –45%) and depressive symptoms (range 50%-61%), genetic factors explained a substantial part of the phenotypic variance across the lifespan. Correlations between well-being and depressive symptoms across ages ranged from -.34 in childhood to -.49 in adulthood. In children and adults (aged >27), environmental effects explained 51% to 59% of the phenotypic correlation, while for adolescents and young adults strong genetic influences (60%-77%) on the association were observed. Moderate to high genetic correlations (ranging from 0.60 to 0.70) were observed in adolescence and adulthood, while in childhood environmental correlations were substantial but genetic correlations small. These results suggest that environmental factors are important in explaining the relationship between well-being and depressive symptoms in childhood, while from adolescence onwards a genetic predisposition for higher well-being is indicative for a genetic predisposition for lower depressive symptoms, and vice versa. These results provided more insights into the etiological underpinnings of well-being and depressive symptoms, possibly allowing to articulate better strategies for health promotion and resource allocation in the future.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document