Human-Centered Design

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 29182

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Mathematics, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
Interests: architecture; artificial intelligence; biophilia; biophilic design; complexity; design; healing environments; patterns; resilience; sustainability; urbanism
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Guest Editor
The Human Architecture + Planning Institute, Inc., 43 Bradford Street, Concord, MA 01742, USA
Interests: architecture; human perception; biometrics; stress/avoidant responses; built environment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The issue will explore how the human brain is a social engagement system hardwired for attachment. Recent research uses biometrics including eye-tracking emulation software to document the characteristics of successful built environments. Instrumentation reveals how fixation points draw the human gaze pre-attentively (unconsciously) to provide these requisite attachments, whereas unsuccessful geometries stress the nervous system because they cannot define adequate fixation points. From an urbanistic point of view, the fragmentation of urban space in the 21st century is a consequence of buildings lacking measurable human qualities surrounding open spaces. Design trends responsible for cutting social engagement include the elimination of fixation points for stylistic reasons. An increasingly palpable reality of the city is as a place in which humans do not belong. Short-sighted economic policies and planning processes are transforming everyday life in cities around the world, producing a new fragmented spatial order that is aggravating socio-urban inadequacies. The analysis of urban needs requires new methods of analysis that utilize the latest scientific tools only made available in recent years.

Prof. Dr. Nikos Salingaros
Ann Sussman, R.A.
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • design
  • architecture
  • urbanism
  • perception
  • biometrics
  • eye-tracking
  • environmental psychology

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

35 pages, 3815 KiB  
Article
What Happens in Your Brain When You Walk Down the Street? Implications of Architectural Proportions, Biophilia, and Fractal Geometry for Urban Science
by Aenne A. Brielmann, Nir H. Buras, Nikos A. Salingaros and Richard P. Taylor
Urban Sci. 2022, 6(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci6010003 - 7 Jan 2022
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 28049
Abstract
This article reviews current research in visual urban perception. The temporal sequence of the first few milliseconds of visual stimulus processing sheds light on the historically ambiguous topic of aesthetic experience. Automatic fractal processing triggers initial attraction/avoidance evaluations of an environment’s salubriousness, and [...] Read more.
This article reviews current research in visual urban perception. The temporal sequence of the first few milliseconds of visual stimulus processing sheds light on the historically ambiguous topic of aesthetic experience. Automatic fractal processing triggers initial attraction/avoidance evaluations of an environment’s salubriousness, and its potentially positive or negative impacts upon an individual. As repeated cycles of visual perception occur, the attractiveness of urban form affects the user experience much more than had been previously suspected. These perceptual mechanisms promote walkability and intuitive navigation, and so they support the urban and civic interactions for which we establish communities and cities in the first place. Therefore, the use of multiple fractals needs to reintegrate with biophilic and traditional architecture in urban design for their proven positive effects on health and well-being. Such benefits include striking reductions in observers’ stress and mental fatigue. Due to their costs to individual well-being, urban performance, environmental quality, and climatic adaptation, this paper recommends that nontraditional styles should be hereafter applied judiciously to the built environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human-Centered Design)
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