Prioritising the places and people that need it the most
'FUMapp' and cognitive navigation
Spatial application and planning based on spatial and cognitive data
The primary hypothesis of this project is that the Anthropocene crisis has brought a new perception of our built environment, which design professionals should consider designing more liveable spaces. This perception combines spatial cognitional patterns that are common for everyone. While multiple factors can affect spatial cognition and guide eye movement, this project and its application seek to highlight measurable psychophysiological cognitive patterns useful for a liveable design approach.
EU Member State, Western Balkans or Ukraine
Cyprus
National
No
Yes
Cyprus
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
2023-07-17
No
No
No
As an individual
This research aimed to design a new tool for recording the changes and needs of the urban environment. It concerns creating a spatial application (Fragmented Urban Mobility application- FUMapp) that deconstructs the urban form into parts, putting the user in the foreground of the design process.
The recording data of the 'FUMapp' are reviewing and re-examining the existing urban built environment and its spatial characteristics. They highlighted those characteristics that need to be redesigned to have more sustainable, inclusive, and liveable urban areas instead of satisfying the designer's aesthetic. The spatial data that the FUMapp displays decodes the built environment's impact on the user's health. They show how the built edges and textures of the facades, the green zones, etc., affect the navigation rate, stress levels, the use of the urban environment, and, consequently, the user's health. Accordingly, the biometrics that the application collects from each user and the data obtained from the remaining three examined urban paths present an objective picture of the points of the urban environment that must be redesigned.
Recognizing the importance of designing for areas in tension, such as the center of Nicosia, the proposal is about more than just modifying the entire examined urban environment. It identifies the points that carry the 'urban meaning' and records how its users consciously and unconsciously perceive them. Setting aside personal experience and emotional weight, it presents where designing time and money should be invested. It proposed a new methodology that can bring together the different needs of the built environment and suggest new solutions. The collected data can be analyzed by designers and doctors, biostatisticians, and economists who investigate the built environment's impact in different fields, helping them propose new strategies and approaches for inclusiveness and investments.
The recording data of the 'FUMapp' are reviewing and re-examining the existing urban built environment and its spatial characteristics. They highlighted those characteristics that need to be redesigned to have more sustainable, inclusive, and liveable urban areas instead of satisfying the designer's aesthetic. The spatial data that the FUMapp displays decodes the built environment's impact on the user's health. They show how the built edges and textures of the facades, the green zones, etc., affect the navigation rate, stress levels, the use of the urban environment, and, consequently, the user's health. Accordingly, the biometrics that the application collects from each user and the data obtained from the remaining three examined urban paths present an objective picture of the points of the urban environment that must be redesigned.
Recognizing the importance of designing for areas in tension, such as the center of Nicosia, the proposal is about more than just modifying the entire examined urban environment. It identifies the points that carry the 'urban meaning' and records how its users consciously and unconsciously perceive them. Setting aside personal experience and emotional weight, it presents where designing time and money should be invested. It proposed a new methodology that can bring together the different needs of the built environment and suggest new solutions. The collected data can be analyzed by designers and doctors, biostatisticians, and economists who investigate the built environment's impact in different fields, helping them propose new strategies and approaches for inclusiveness and investments.
Spatial Application
Biometrics and Design
Design in Crises
New methodologies and tools
Design for all
The term "sustainability" has been analyzed in multidisciplinary studies and fields. From an urban design view, although designers highlighted different stimuli of urban form -the environmental characteristics, biodiversity, energy, the economic viability of cities, and other physical dimensions of the urban in different chronological periods- they presented them in a way that could not be used as evidence for a conclusive term of 'urban liveability/ sustainability.' The thesis tried to highlight a new definition of 'urban liveability/ sustainability' in response to the Anthropocene crisis we are now facing. It defines a sustainable city with several intuitive landmarks for all parameters combined that can be reformulated according to the perceptual capacity of its users. The framework of such a city does not depend on the characteristics of the space but on the ability of these characteristics to interact with the user. In other words, a sustainable space is where each user's PeriPersonal Space (PPS) finds landmarks that act as enclaves, allowing every PPS to expand within and beyond, controlling stressors and space morphology. It is the city that produces forms. Therefore, its primary purpose is to highlight the importance of morphogenesis and not just the impact of morphology.
By revising the term, the new tool created managed to capture a vocabulary of spatial features that meet the needs of today's users. It left the subjectivity of design back and managed to record the unconscious responses to urban stimuli. Many measurements in different countries showed which design elements can be used for more sustainable cities: increased walkability, healthier residents, decreased stress levels, car use, and air pollution. Thus, the new recorded vocabulary presented how we can design not only new cities but also how to restore old ones, avoiding the increase of the building footprint on the planet.
By revising the term, the new tool created managed to capture a vocabulary of spatial features that meet the needs of today's users. It left the subjectivity of design back and managed to record the unconscious responses to urban stimuli. Many measurements in different countries showed which design elements can be used for more sustainable cities: increased walkability, healthier residents, decreased stress levels, car use, and air pollution. Thus, the new recorded vocabulary presented how we can design not only new cities but also how to restore old ones, avoiding the increase of the building footprint on the planet.
As designers, we design for the user. However, the past urban designs have yet to deal with the essential perceptual capacity of their users. Strict concrete corners, vast unstructured squares, etc., are only a few of the urban design elements that concern design elements that increase stress and prevent the user's biome experience in the space, as demonstrated through this research. This research raises the question of how we can design for the user when we need a tool that understands them. Detecting the gap suggests the design tool instead of a new design proposal. It divides the user's experience in the built environment of four cities into experimental stages. It records behavioral reactions to it through motion sensors, visual observation, heart rate sensors, position change, and the conscious reaction of the users with the help of three-dimensional visualization of the existing, allowing the correlation of the user's experience with their unconscious aesthetic understanding. The measurements of participants from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds present another issue of the Anthropocene crisis: the issue of migration movements. Never before has design been called upon to be so open to the simultaneous reception of multiple cultures and civilizations. This need forces a new approach to understanding the definition of aesthetics. Aesthetics is not only about beauty. It is about understanding and embracing the harmony that can bring about social coexistence without tensions. Through this research, the urban environment presents a combination of textures, greeneries, and transparent and natural materials that demonstrate lower stress and tension measurements in the navigation rate of its users. Aesthetics and experience are thus identified through FUMapp, become independent of place, and become tools of cultural identification and inclusion.
The increasing conquest of cities by roads and cars affects their survival as economic and social metropolises. The COVID-19 pandemic and the migratory flows due to the wars strongly presented the pathogens that lead to the death of cities today. Reducing pedestrian paths that would lead to lower traffic speeds needs to be studied. This research observes the fixation points of users' gaze during navigation, showing the strong correlation of reduced navigation speed with the observation of city points related to the economy (shop windows, cafes, food trucks, and crafts shops, etc.). It shows the need to redesign the tactile surfaces of cities (relaxation points, navigation floors, sitting areas) for people with mobility problems and all users. It creates a vocabulary where green spaces cannot exist alone as meeting points. The FUMapp shows that the simple reference to participatory planning without the essential recording of the points of influence of navigation and coexistence will not be able to yield sustainable cities.
On the contrary, recording the city's points that cause a change in the navigation course, increased heartbeats, etc., for all participants, regardless of origin and background, produces a standard design model where the user is at the center. It promotes the inclusion and in-depth understanding of design crises by presenting the spatial elements of designing a city for all today. Finally, the feedback dynamics and re-execution of measurements and experimental processes emphasize the need for an up-to-date design process. In other words, this research presents not only the final result but also the research methodology, which, by repeating it, could produce a non-static urban design that could meet future economic and design needs.
On the contrary, recording the city's points that cause a change in the navigation course, increased heartbeats, etc., for all participants, regardless of origin and background, produces a standard design model where the user is at the center. It promotes the inclusion and in-depth understanding of design crises by presenting the spatial elements of designing a city for all today. Finally, the feedback dynamics and re-execution of measurements and experimental processes emphasize the need for an up-to-date design process. In other words, this research presents not only the final result but also the research methodology, which, by repeating it, could produce a non-static urban design that could meet future economic and design needs.
This project was open to all. It was not just for a specific group or society. Therefore, citizens who used and lived in the city of experiments could participate. Through an open invitation, they were invited to the starting point of the experimental path, navigated the selected urban path, and answered the questionnaire about it at the end. During the navigation, the participants were familiarized with various forms of sensing recording. Their measurements, conscious (questionnaire, marked stimuli in 3D visualization - video) and unconscious (heart rate, navigation rate, points of interest, points of change of direction, points of stress expression), were disclosed to each participant at the end of the experiment. Explaining their results helped them understand their fixation points in the urban environment in which they live, explaining why others caused them discomfort. FUMapp's experimental process and the vocabulary it created helped participants better understand their environment and increase urban movements. This contributed to more intense daily commutes to cities, more time outside private property, and the development of a neighborhood micro-economy that benefited the growth of all small businesses. The increase in pedestrian traffic in the survey areas gave the society metrics about the health of its population. More specifically, in Nicosia, measurements were given to a group of psychologists investigating the impact of the green line on health, while in Athens, the heart measurements of the participants were presented to the Athens Medical Association. In combination with the materiality of the ground during navigation, a team of doctors is now investigating the relationship of tactile navigation surfaces with orthopedic and cardiovascular problems. So, the importance of the FUMapp does not only concern the modification of the design result but also its impact on other areas, such as health, which is directly linked to sustainable design.
This project was implemented as part of my doctoral research thesis. Directly engaged were the project's academic advisors, Miltiadis Katsaros, Sotirios Kotsopoulos, and Luis Emilio Bruni, who gave their advice throughout the project regarding the inclusion and objective analysis of the results from their positions as professors and researchers in the academic institutions National Technical University of Athens, Aalborg University Copenhagen, MIT University. In addition, direct help was provided by the University of Cyprus through Professor Theochari Theocharide and his students, who provided advice related to the knowledge field of programming an application. The research was of immediate interest to local scholarship bodies in Cyprus, who provided annual grants for the implementation of the project to research design and its relevance to the daily life of a city in crisis like Nicosia. These bodies were the Athanasios Ktorides Foundation and Sylvia Ioannou Foundation. All of the research was approved by the bioethics committees of the countries where the experiments were carried out, showing both their direct application and the importance of caution affecting the participants' health. The participants who played a vital role in implementing the measurements came from different research fields, countries, and educational backgrounds and participated voluntarily. Finally, the companies iMotion and Pupil Labs contributed by purchasing the eye recording software and the recording glasses that were part of the recording system. Thus, through the above-involved bodies, the importance of the project is presented even before any recording and result. After the recording, the use of the results by municipalities, urban designers, academic researchers, economists, doctors, and psychologists showed the importance of the tool that was produced.
This research brings scientists from three fields together for the first time: urban design, cognitive sciences, and computing sciences. It is important to mention that architects and designers have never accessed technological eye and attention-recording tools before. Although urban designers produce the cities' space, access to the process of understanding it and the way to influence the user was a field of research by perceptual psychologists. The opportunity to decode the existing is given through the tool that this research introduces, as well as the possibility of recording results in a real-time environment outside of laboratory environments. Patterns related to spatial memory are now easily observed, and the design process is sterilized from the aesthetic preference of the designer, leading to capturing the existing and not the representation of a fictitious hypothetical environment projected in unrealistic conditions.
Additionally, computational science is introducing a design tool that produces a vocabulary of spatial patterns. This characteristic allows FUMapp to be easily changed in significant crises. In the age of big data, integrating urban planning with computational science provides faster data analysis that affects planning sustainability. Finally, the collaboration of the three fields in an application allows the introduction of a new design methodology that, despite using computational methods and applications, manages to put the user at the center of the design.
Additionally, computational science is introducing a design tool that produces a vocabulary of spatial patterns. This characteristic allows FUMapp to be easily changed in significant crises. In the age of big data, integrating urban planning with computational science provides faster data analysis that affects planning sustainability. Finally, the collaboration of the three fields in an application allows the introduction of a new design methodology that, despite using computational methods and applications, manages to put the user at the center of the design.
This research advanced the role of computing and cognitive sciences in sustainable urban design, building a new innovative methodological approach through new technologies. By incorporating evolutionary technological tools within the formulation of the design problems, the experimental process was designed to highlight the importance of real-time observation and reported spatial data by which the design process can be updated. Moreover, it addresses the shift from a single-dimensional design solution to a multisensory and multidisciplinary one that can be connected to the crises and needs of the design era. It emphasizes the design strategies for collecting standards in biomedical and social-behavioral human subjects research that could be applied in new design proposals. In addition, this study negotiated multiple theories related to interdisciplinary patterns of urban planning. The thesis highlights the structure, morphology, livability, psychophysiological experience, and other crucial terms for design.
The methodology designed moved away from previous approaches of trusting the designer’s assumptions for human reactions in the built environment to one where recorded data and metrics are highlighted as the more efficient guidelines to design liveable spaces. Prioritizing the recorded data over the existing principles of design is vital in allowing for the update of the design process and the extraction of any adaptable design solutions that could give more human-centric, liveable solutions within any crisis. By identifying unconscious reactions to the existing environment and geometric patterns influenced by various external or internal forces, this research highlights spatial patterns that were challenging to recognize in the degree of responsiveness to their users’ needs. Thus, the shift from one man’s design to a collective conscious-based design appeared as the key to a generative design model for sustainability and inclusivity.
The methodology designed moved away from previous approaches of trusting the designer’s assumptions for human reactions in the built environment to one where recorded data and metrics are highlighted as the more efficient guidelines to design liveable spaces. Prioritizing the recorded data over the existing principles of design is vital in allowing for the update of the design process and the extraction of any adaptable design solutions that could give more human-centric, liveable solutions within any crisis. By identifying unconscious reactions to the existing environment and geometric patterns influenced by various external or internal forces, this research highlights spatial patterns that were challenging to recognize in the degree of responsiveness to their users’ needs. Thus, the shift from one man’s design to a collective conscious-based design appeared as the key to a generative design model for sustainability and inclusivity.
After an in-depth literature search, the FUMapp spatial tool was designed. The study was designed to capture the optical response of the participants in the specified public spaces. It aimed at tracking participants' eye movement in the presence of specific architectural challenges in the urban environment. The experiment used two settings: the "real" environment and the identical "virtual" clone. The real environment was a short walk of about 1 km through a specific street at the center of four cities. This walking path was familiar to the participants. The virtual environment was a 3D video map that was accessed with the aid of a mobile phone application. Like in Arbib (2015), the real environment was selected suitably to determine the features of the embodied virtual environment.
Furthermore, following the ideas of Brom et al. (2012), we used the virtual environment to offer an allocentric experience of the walking path: an experience that centers the participants' attention on an external object other than themselves. Accordingly, the virtual video map interaction facilitates the disclosure of the memorized elements that the participants can recall from the real walk. Hence, two tasks are distinguished: walking and recollection tasks. First, the walking task is to stroll from location A to location B through a specific street while wearing eye-tracking spectacles and skin sensors. Second, the recollection task is the underlining on the video map of the elements the participants can recall from the scene. The participants were informed about the details of the walking task with the eye-tracking device at the beginning of the experiment based on specific predesigned manuals. The recollection task was presented to them only after completing the walking task. After recording, the analysis was run through the iMotions software and imported back to the FUMapp, creating a spatial vocabulary database.
Furthermore, following the ideas of Brom et al. (2012), we used the virtual environment to offer an allocentric experience of the walking path: an experience that centers the participants' attention on an external object other than themselves. Accordingly, the virtual video map interaction facilitates the disclosure of the memorized elements that the participants can recall from the real walk. Hence, two tasks are distinguished: walking and recollection tasks. First, the walking task is to stroll from location A to location B through a specific street while wearing eye-tracking spectacles and skin sensors. Second, the recollection task is the underlining on the video map of the elements the participants can recall from the scene. The participants were informed about the details of the walking task with the eye-tracking device at the beginning of the experiment based on specific predesigned manuals. The recollection task was presented to them only after completing the walking task. After recording, the analysis was run through the iMotions software and imported back to the FUMapp, creating a spatial vocabulary database.
The suggested application (FUMapp) could be involved in the design process as an informational tool rather than a design one. The exclusivity of its use as the producer of forms carries risks to which earlier design strategies have succumbed -that of the mindless uncritical use of multiple applications as another Manifesto of the designing process. However, it could engage the planning process through its use as a tool to critique and assess the significance of both spatial and behavioral data and patterns. In this way, the design result can be changed. For example, in cases of a desire to create less stressful roads, it could be used to identify the spatial elements associated with stress and provide design guidance to planners. Urban designers and architects previously designed spaces, the success ratio of which was determined by the time a user spent there. On the other hand, the same space makes up for the mood and emotions, dealing with the sub-conscience of the users in the space. Thus, beyond the research methodology, the tool’s adaptability to many questions is illuminated.
This project and its application contribute to three fields: morphogenesis creations within the existing urban environment, evolutionary scanning of human perception, and computation of urban patterns and spatial stimuli in a database. Having that in mind, the produced spatial glossary could drive future design proposals, expanding the morphology of the space in multiple dimensions and fields. This answers questions related to the sufficiency of space for future generations, yet simultaneously answering how to optimize the design to adapt quickly and respond to each environmental crisis and condition. The experimental process could also be used for other research questions, highlighting those spatial patterns that could answer them every time and prioritizing the quality of the designed space over quantity.
This project and its application contribute to three fields: morphogenesis creations within the existing urban environment, evolutionary scanning of human perception, and computation of urban patterns and spatial stimuli in a database. Having that in mind, the produced spatial glossary could drive future design proposals, expanding the morphology of the space in multiple dimensions and fields. This answers questions related to the sufficiency of space for future generations, yet simultaneously answering how to optimize the design to adapt quickly and respond to each environmental crisis and condition. The experimental process could also be used for other research questions, highlighting those spatial patterns that could answer them every time and prioritizing the quality of the designed space over quantity.
This project has shown that a change in urban design strategies and planning proposals was observed every time a significant social, historical, etc., crisis happened. Although the need for a change in design methodologies and strategies was identified in all crises, they have mostly stayed the same. It recognizes the need to reformulate and redefine how we plan in big crises and introduces a planning approach that responds to today's crisis: the crisis of Anthropocenism. More precisely, the thesis is focused on the analysis of questions of three primary domains: the development of urban design strategies based on users' reactions (urban), the spatial computational application of the recalling spatial information processes in design (computation), and the recording of cognitive reactions in the real environment (cognition). Through the questions of this project, topics such as the role of the user in design, the way to deal with the economic and health crisis through the navigation achieved by design, how the rehabitation of the "multinational" urban space is happening now, how can the sustainability be supported through the reduction of new building structures but also with the understanding of the meaning of space, the data-driven urban intelligent and its role in the every-day life of users. The project's recordings presented design solutions that came from users from all over the world. The concepts of global and local in this work have been joined. The metrics are carried out locally by participants, both locals and immigrants. The personal experience and users' recordings are translated into spatial data, allowing the locating of elements that produce neighborhoods in a global field and vice versa. For example, in Nicosia, at the point of the green line, the project recommends a redesign approach with green spaces that are less vast and have clearly defined boundaries and uses.
The impact of the work produced was enormous both on the design community and the participants themselves. As for the designers, they were given design data related to average navigation speed (4-5 km/h), materiality (natural materials and colors show a reduction in navigation speed and more significant anchor points with a positive sign on the city's sustainability, in contrast with anomalous floors that cause a decrease in speed but a negative sign for sustainability), users' perceptual ability (spatial stimuli memorization points helpful for navigation especially for people with disabilities or disorientation problems) and different observation patterns (change of position to adjust visual angle). Understanding that spatial elements such as food trucks caused permanent displacement and slowed the navigation rhythm provided strategic placement points in the urban fabric to increase mobility and economy. As for the participants, the project helped them understand the tactile surface, their sight routine, and their Peripersonal space. In general, the data recorded could be divided into:
1. The level differentiation (stairs, underground sanitary facilities),
2. The intense color diversity (dark windows in white walls),
3. The sensory modification of stimulus intake,
4. The variation of the tactile surface and
5. The differentiation of the schematic correlation.
The research presented innovation to the amount of data collected in the built environment. The way the project has been composed avoids the standardization or copying of design patterns of earlier methodologies that exclude walkability and inclusivity from urban design variables. Finally, it focuses on immigrants, and adaptability should characterize future cities to have a socioeconomic impact and a crucial role in sustainability's problem-solving.
1. The level differentiation (stairs, underground sanitary facilities),
2. The intense color diversity (dark windows in white walls),
3. The sensory modification of stimulus intake,
4. The variation of the tactile surface and
5. The differentiation of the schematic correlation.
The research presented innovation to the amount of data collected in the built environment. The way the project has been composed avoids the standardization or copying of design patterns of earlier methodologies that exclude walkability and inclusivity from urban design variables. Finally, it focuses on immigrants, and adaptability should characterize future cities to have a socioeconomic impact and a crucial role in sustainability's problem-solving.
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