Welcome to your plaza: Assessing the restorative potential of urban squares through survey and objective evaluation methods

Subiza-Pérez, Mikel; Vozmediano, Laura; Juan, César San

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2019.102461

Cited by 29 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Fornara and Troffa [19] Restorative potential of different urban environments Italy Hidalgo et al [20] Restoration and preference Spain, Italy Karmanov and Hamel [9] Restorative potential , natural vs. urban environments The Netherlands Lindal and Hartig [21] Restorative potential of residential areas Iceland San Juan et al [10] Restorative potential of urban squares Spain Scopelliti and Giuliani [22] Restorative potential, natural vs. urban environments Italy Scopelliti et al [22] Restorative potential, natural vs. urban environments Italy Staats et al [23] Preference and restoration of urban activities-in-environments Sweden, USA, NL Stigsdotter et al [24] Restorative potential, natural vs. urban environments Denmark Subiza-Perez et al [25] Environmental characteristics and restoration Spain…”

Section: Authors Topic Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generally, studies interested in this concept will often use the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS [34]) in order to assess a environment's restorative potential [10,17,[19][20][21]24,25,[35][36][37]. This scale was developed with the objective of capturing the type of restoration described by the Kaplans for ART and, as such, it is comprised of several questions, each accounting for a different aspect of restorative experiences (specifically Being Away, Fascination, Coherence, and Compatibility).…”

Section: Theories Of Physical Social and Psychological Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This finding was also supported by Scopelliti et al [36] who compared the perceived restorativeness potential of a completely built historical plaza and that of a large public park and found that the more natural environment generally scored higher. Generally, it seems the presence of vegetation can still significantly improve the restorative potential of an urban environment [10,21,25].…”

Section: Review Of Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recreational places for leisure and/or walking such as urban parks, squares and public open spaces designed in order to be used by citizens with such aims. These are considered mixed environments with various degrees of greenness such as in the studies by San Juan et al [10] and Subiza-Pérez [25], who also specifically investigated public squares as centres of a city's social life.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Biophobia and Urban Restorativeness

Patuano¹

2020

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Natural areas are now known to be important resources for the health and wellbeing of urban dwellers, through, for example, the opportunities they provide for cognitive and emotional restoration. However, urban populations have also been found not to engage with these spaces and to display some form of biophobia which may hinder them from perceiving any of these benefits. This concept of biophobia is thought to entail both our innate physiological responses to the perceived danger from non-human threats such as spiders and snakes and our cultural attachment to material comfort. The word is often used with derogatory connotations, even if it is part of an evolutionary mechanism honed over thousands of years to keep humans alive. This review presents the current state of knowledge on urban biophobia as well as evidence of instances in which built and mixed urban environments were found to be more restorative than natural ones for the urban population, in order to assess any connection within the two. A series of recommendations for further research but also for the practical implementation of natural areas in cities capable of attracting a wide variety of people regardless of their fears or preferences are also formulated. Only by investigating the psychological and physiological responses of urban dwellers to their daily environments can we hope to design interventions which will remain relevant for the modern world.

show abstract

Section: Authors Topic Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theories Of Physical Social and Psychological Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Review Of Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Biophobia and Urban Restorativeness

Patuano¹

2020

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Limitations of this cross-sectional study includes the lack of investigation of the detailed characteristics and physical design features within the squares (e.g., seating elements, public art works), which have been shown to influence user satisfaction and the length of occupation of the space (Gehl, 1987;Project for Public Spaces, 2008;Subiza-Pérez, Vozmediano, & San Juan, 2020). In addition, actual walking routes of participants to access the squares were not recorded.…”

Section: Limitations and Strengthsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the relationship between spatial configuration, diversity and user behavior: A Post Occupancy Evaluation study in Istanbul’s peripheral districts

Torun

Yeşiltepe

Erten³

et al. 2020

DRArch

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is a robust tool to systematically evaluate the effects of design decisions on spatial performance and to identify the relationship between the space and its users. Although there is a growing body of POE research on complex buildings, such as hospitals and education spaces, studies on the POE evaluation of public open spaces are limited. More importantly, few studies have investigated public squares designed at the periphery and how they are used. This study aims to identify the extent to which spatial configuration of public squares is related to users' behavior (i.e., modes/distances of access, level of satisfaction). For this purpose, we focused on four peripheral urban squares located in Istanbul, Turkey. The methodology applied in the study includes a synthesis of three types of expertise: 1) behavioral mapping of urban squares (through the analysis of patterns of use based on direct observation), 2) cognitive evaluation of spaces based on perceived factors (through user questionnaires), and 3) quantifying urban public spaces objectively (through the methodology of space syntax and urban morphology). The results identify associations between objective characteristics of public spaces designed at the peripheral districts, patterns of use and users' perception of these areas, to a certain extent. For example, the variety and intensity of activities within the square as well as the length of occupancy are highest for Avcılar square, which is most integrated within its urban surroundings with reduced average block size. An important finding is the association between the average street connectivity levels of these squares with their pedestrian catchment areas. In other words, the more integrated a public urban space is with its surroundings (800mt buffers), its users will access this space on foot from a larger distance. Based on these findings, spatial configuration as measured by space syntax measures appears to be an explanatory measure assessing the potentiality of public open spaces for bringing users together, hence, creating a lively, well-used space. However, the results also point to some disagreements between the perceived (users' evaluations) and objective (syntactic analysis) measurements, which indicate that both types of measurements are needed in POE research of public spaces.

show abstract

Third place and psychological well-being: The psychological benefits of eating and drinking places for university students in Southern California, USA

Lee

2022

Cities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Welcome to your plaza: Assessing the restorative potential of urban squares through survey and objective evaluation methods

Cited by 29 publications

References 67 publications

Biophobia and Urban Restorativeness

Biophobia and Urban Restorativeness

Measuring the relationship between spatial configuration, diversity and user behavior: A Post Occupancy Evaluation study in Istanbul’s peripheral districts

Third place and psychological well-being: The psychological benefits of eating and drinking places for university students in Southern California, USA

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About