Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

As more and more people globally move to urban areas, the need to understand how people perceive the urban setting to plan and design better urban environments, that also favor general well-being among its dwellers, seems evident. This has been recognized within environmental psychology (EP) research, which has indeed aided the understanding of human perception and experience of the urban setting. However, this type of research has, according to scientific research, commonly focused on how green settings in the urban context, like parks or green spaces are perceived. This often leaves out or separates the natural from the built. Thus, tools and frameworks aimed at supporting planners, architects and designers in the urban development process have been developed exclusively for green or built environments separately. With this thesis, the focus has been put on exploring one of these existing tools called the Perceived sensory dimensions framework (PSD framework). Firstly, the idea was to understand if a tool that was developed to assess the perception of green areas can potentially be used favorably in a mixed natural built environment. Secondly, the objective was to explore the experience of its usefulness by looking at existing literature as well as by utilizing it in a field study in a mixed environment in order to understand if it is experienced as a useful tool for assessments of urban settings and/or in the planning process of urban environments. Thirdly, the potential advantages of this framework are discussed. The result from the literature study confirms that indeed, most scientific research involving the Perceived sensory dimensions (PSDs) have been utilized in green settings predominantly, but it also suggests that the PSD framework does have potential in the assessment, and possibly planning, of other settings, as the dimensions of the framework do not necessarily only relate to green space attributes or aesthetics. Furthermore, the field study confirms that the PSDs are experienced as useful in a mixed setting, but for the tool be truly valuable for experts in urban assessment, design, and planning, continued attempts to gather and make available user experience data, and to chart applied projects and technical reports, as well as studies aiming at utilizing the tool in various settings, is desirable.