Urban Blue Acupuncture: An Experiment on Preferences for Design Options Using Virtual Models
1
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, 51006 Tartu, Estonia
2
Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH3 9DF, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10656; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410656
Received: 9 November 2020 / Revised: 15 December 2020 / Accepted: 17 December 2020 / Published: 20 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Landscape Architecture Design to Promote Well-Being)
Within the BlueHealth project, funded under the Horizon 2020 European Union research framework, a number of targeted experimental design interventions created in virtual reality (VR) were used to test the effect and impact of planning and design on encouraging people to use various blue spaces. A set of designs in three different coastal landscape types—a cliff/steep slope; a sandy beach and an area of reed beds—located in Tallinn, Estonia, were used as the sites for nine different intervention designs. The designs were based on a combination of the site features and inspirations from solutions found in different locations internationally. Using 3D modelling and a Virtual Reality system, a set of nine videos, one to depict each intervention, was created and shown to a quota sample of 252 Estonian residents. Respondents were asked a set of questions associated with each option. The results were analysed statistically and qualitatively. The results uncovered key preferences for designs and revealed differences among age groups and the levels of personal interconnection with nature. However, there were problems associated with the interpretation and understanding of some of the options by some of the people due to the degree of realism of the VR representations, which may have affected the results. The project shows that VR could be a useful tool for testing design ideas as part of public participation approaches but that care is needed in ensuring that viewers understand what they are assessing.
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Keywords:
urban acupuncture; virtual landscape models; landscape design; Tallinn; nature connectedness
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MDPI and ACS Style
Vassiljev, P.; Bell, S.; Balicka, J.; Amrita, U.A.A. Urban Blue Acupuncture: An Experiment on Preferences for Design Options Using Virtual Models. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10656. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410656
AMA Style
Vassiljev P, Bell S, Balicka J, Amrita UAA. Urban Blue Acupuncture: An Experiment on Preferences for Design Options Using Virtual Models. Sustainability. 2020; 12(24):10656. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410656
Chicago/Turabian StyleVassiljev, Peeter; Bell, Simon; Balicka, Jekaterina; Amrita, Umme A.A. 2020. "Urban Blue Acupuncture: An Experiment on Preferences for Design Options Using Virtual Models" Sustainability 12, no. 24: 10656. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410656
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