Do different urban configurations alter pedestrians' perceptions? A morphological approach to walkability in the virtual reality urban setting.

Abstract

Given awareness of the recent planning paradigm shift to transit- and pedestrian-oriented place-making, this dissertation investigated the extent to which the configuration of urban walking pathways or urban forms influences pedestrian perceptions. To overcome current urban design research methods that exhibit limited controls over environmental samples, this dissertation has adopted a recent virtual reality technology. Within an immersive virtual reality (VR) urban setting, subjects randomly experienced four differing conditions and were then queried as to their VR walking experiences in terms of perceived walking distance, legibility, complexity, excitement, and enjoyment. This dissertation's data analysis detected the impacts on walking distance estimations of childhood experiences of the walking environment and the daily walking amount. In addition, analytical comparison of new configurational indices of urban forms with subjects' responses in the virtual reality urban settings revealed that walking distance estimations decreased, and subjects thus walked more, when walking path configurations were associated with fewer visual interruptions or when path configurations generated less environmental information. The number of visual interruptions and amount of information were measured by the newly developed Space Syntax- and entropy-based configuration indices respectively. Finally, when survey subjects experienced greater enjoyment or excitement while walking, walking distance estimations decreased and thus they walked more. The above findings were compared with previous perceived walking distance studies, comparisons that revealed three major contributions of this dissertation to urban design studies: (1) detection of the impacts of walking excitement and enjoyment on perceived walking distance; (2) introduction of new objective morphological indices that address human movement; and (3) adequacy of virtual reality (VR) experimental design for urban design research. The detection of the relationship between walking excitement or enjoyment and walking distance estimations addresses the importance of simultaneously considering both the functional and aesthetic aspects of pedestrian perceptions. In addition, introducing virtual reality technology and this dissertation's new morphological indices of urban forms to urban design research will serve as a future research tool with which much urban design thinking can be tested in a quantitative way.