Developing a virtual urban oasis design to reduce urban stress in warm-humid climate

Abstract

Dense cities around the world, including those in the warm-humid climate, develop very fast by urbanization. Natural sceneries are commonly limited in those cities, which some experts said links to urban stress syndrome. The urban oasis, a relatively small pocket park located in urban gaps or between buildings easily accessible to the surrounding community, is needed to reduce the urban stress. However, designing an urban oasis and building it for granted does not guarantee its therapeutic effect. Meanwhile, current advanced virtual reality technology offers the ability to explore the therapeutic impact of urban oasis design before it is built. This research reports the development of a virtual urban oasis based on its effect on human stress. The experiment adopted a virtual reality method with Unreal Engine 4 software to construct a virtual urban oasis based on preceding theoretical reviews on reducing urban stress. Three respondents wore Head Mounted Display (Oculus Rift S) submerged in the virtual urban oasis while POLAR H10 recorded their heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). The experiment found that the virtual urban oasis decreased the HR and increased the HRV by consecutively, 11% and 8%. Thus, the virtual urban oasis helped reducing stress. Keyword : Unreal engine, urban stress, heart rate variability