Journals Information
Civil Engineering and Architecture Vol. 11(4), pp. 2182 - 2200
DOI: 10.13189/cea.2023.110437
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Environmental Perception of Urban Spaces: Physical Versus Virtual Exploration
Nada Tarek Asadia *, Yasser Mahmoud Moustafa , Mohamed Mohamed Fikry Elazzazy
Department of Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Egypt
ABSTRACT
The study aims to investigate virtual street view imagery as a tool for auditing and comprehending urban environments. The objective is to compare the physical and virtual exploration of urban spaces in terms of environmental perception. Previous research has been criticized for limiting itself to cognitive aspects of environmental perception. Accordingly, this study adopts a more holistic conceptualization of environmental perception and considers all cognitive, affective, interpretive, and evaluative aspects. A quasi-experiment was carried out in which 38 postgraduate and undergraduate architectural students were divided into two groups to explore sections of two different streets in Cairo, Egypt. Participants of each group explored a street section physically and, on another day, the other street section virtually through Google Street View. Data collection methods included perceptual sketches, cognitive maps, semantic differential questions, and paragraph writing. In relation to cognitive aspects of perception, results suggest that physical exploration permits a more complete and accurate reading and understanding of the urban environment than virtual exploration. In particular, it was found that, through physical exploration, participants tended to acquire a greater amount of information about the environment and had a better ability to estimate distances and heights than through virtual exploration. However, in virtual exploration, probably because of reduced amount of stimuli, participants were better able to notice some specific details such as, litter, and graffiti. In relation to affective, interpretive, and evaluative aspects of environmental perception, it was found that experiencing the environment in person allows capture the ambience of the place and form clear and strong impressions about the setting much more effectively than experiencing it virtually. Results showed that, during and after physical exploration, participants had a much greater tendency to express feelings and emotions about the environment and to formulate evaluations about its different components than during and after virtual exploration. In conclusion, it is suggested that virtual street view imagery exploration of the urban environment cannot replace actual physical exploration for a comprehensive and holistic audit of an urban space. However, virtual exploration could be used as a preliminary audit of an environment to acquire an initial understanding or as a more focused follow-up exploration to check or complete information about physical characteristics captured during a physical exploration.
KEYWORDS
Environmental Perception, Urban Environment Auditing, Physical Versus Virtual Exploration, Virtual Street View Imagery
Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Nada Tarek Asadia , Yasser Mahmoud Moustafa , Mohamed Mohamed Fikry Elazzazy , "Environmental Perception of Urban Spaces: Physical Versus Virtual Exploration," Civil Engineering and Architecture, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 2182 - 2200, 2023. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2023.110437.
(b). APA Format:
Nada Tarek Asadia , Yasser Mahmoud Moustafa , Mohamed Mohamed Fikry Elazzazy (2023). Environmental Perception of Urban Spaces: Physical Versus Virtual Exploration. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 11(4), 2182 - 2200. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2023.110437.