BACKGROUND
The study was carried out due to the rising trend of urbanization both within the Philippines and globally. It recognized the profound transformations that urban environments manifest as they become increasingly dense and artificially dominated. It underscored the consequential impacts that these dominating features have on our daily urban lives. It emphasized the needed investigations into the perceived restorative experiences that such environments offer, particularly highlighting the challenges that urbanization and its physical manifestations pose to mental health across urban places (beyond urban parks and squares). It emphasized why other urban settings and their landscape scenes (e.g. housing, streetscapes, commercial, institutional, and transit scenes) are also worth measuring and designing diligently together with unique demographic or cultural factors to raise their restorative potentials regardless of where they are in a city or urbanizing places.
In addressing the need for restorative urban environments, the study emphasized the importance of expanding the scope of restorative environment studies from the dichotomous framing of investigations. It suggested shifting the focus to expanding the variations of urban (built) landscapes (in contrast to the traditional dichotomized studies) through their distinguishable types of scenes and demographic factors. This prompted the author –the task to try and develop an alternative measurement model to gauge the perceived restorative potential (PRP) of urban landscape scenes (ULS) more aptly as a starting point for evidence-based design, based on existing theories. This model can then be used to compare urban scene types (USTs) and demographic factors, moving beyond recent models such as the Perceived Relaxation Score (PRS) and adapting these to where it matters the most today, the growing urban contexts.
The study sought to confirm the significant roles of Environmental Visual Factors (EVFs) in influencing perceptions of restorativeness (PRP) within urban landscapes (ULS). It highlighted the notion that urban landscape scenes are comparable to natural landscape scenes to possess restorative characteristics or effects (e.g. environmental quality, complexity, affordances, fascinations, and restorativeness). Then it compared all perception differences of the five EVFs across the six USTs and different demographic factors affecting their PRP, adding to the existing literature.
Our aims and objectives focused on identifying, operationalizing, and measuring the key EVFs contributing to the perception of urban landscape scenes' potential for restorativeness or PRP. The study carefully outlined specific research questions and hypotheses concerning our proposed measurement model’s reliability and validity of the EVFs and our data’s model fit in measuring the PRP of ULS. Furthermore, comparisons across different USTs and demographic factors were also performed to extend the data and model’s use for gaining insights specific to our current data.
The significance of the study was to inform the general public, developers, architects, urban planners, managers, designers, and policymakers with an overarching goal of enhancing the well-being and quality of life within urban settings. Despite its ambitions, the study acknowledged some limitations, including its correlational and cross-sectional design, its low ecological validity, and its specific focus on urban scene stimuli from narrowly defined locations in the Philippines, affecting its potential for generalizability.
A literature review on the impacts of urban environments on mental health and the concept of restorative environments provided a foundational background for the research. Studies conducted in the early 2000s through 2014 primarily focused on the adverse effects of urban environments on mental health and identifying the negative consequences of poorly designed urban spaces. Between 2005 and 2009, the scope of research expanded to explore the relationship between various aspects of the built environment, such as green spaces and pedestrian accessibility, and mental well-being. More recent investigations from 2015 to 2021, have shifted towards a broader examination of the urban environment's contribution to positive mental health outcomes.
From this point, the study of Restorative Urban Environments –in contrast to the earlier studies of “restorative (natural) environments”, has emerged in recent years. With these developments, the conceptual framework of this study draws primarily upon earlier seminal theories such as Attention Restoration Theory (ART) by Kaplan (1989), and Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) by Ulrich (1983), while also considering ideas of ecological psychology by Gibson (1979) in our proposed measurement model to help gauge and translate into the design for urban landscapes' greater restorative potentials.
METHODOLOGY
The research design adopted a three-phase exploratory sequential design, which is a mixed-methods approach. This approach synergizes purposive (qualitative) sampling techniques and then correlational, factor, and other appropriate statistical tests (quantitative analysis) to enhance the depth of interpretations from our measurement model within the varying ULS, USTs, and demographics. An initial pilot study significantly influenced the final design, enabling both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the proposed measurement model.
Data were carefully gathered on demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, urban familiarity, education level, etc.) and stimuli ratings of the five environmental visual factors such as perceived environmental quality (PEQ), affordances (PEA), complexity (PEC), fascination (PEF), and relaxation score (PRS). All measurements were made using a 7-point Likert scale while showing variations of urban scene stimuli.
The sampling approach was strategic, utilizing purposive sampling to prequalify and select both photo stimuli and participants. This approach ensured demographic and stimuli balance and contextual relevance while randomizing survey sets and participants in seven separate sessions.
Data collection was executed through researcher-administered in-person surveys from different locations in Pangasinan, engaging a diverse pool of participants to capture perceptions of urban scenes. The survey design was carefully stratified to ensure a balanced representation of urban scenes across each survey set while mitigating participant fatigue.
Ethical considerations were paramount, with strict adherence to informed consent, confidentiality, and ethical guidelines. The study’s limitations, including concerns regarding generalizability and ecological validity, among others, were also acknowledged.
The data analysis employed both descriptive and inferential statistical methods, including Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Software tools such as G Power, AMOS, SPSS, and Excel played a crucial role in data analysis and encoding.
RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS
The collected and prepared datasets were composed of 168 participants, encompassing varying demographics. The evaluation encompassed 126 urban landscape scenes (UST) as the stimuli and was categorized into six urban scene types, yielding 3,024 observations to ensure a representative sample. Reliability analysis confirmed the internal consistency of the Perceived Restorative Potential construct with a Cronbach’s alpha of .875. However, normality tests indicated a significant deviation from a normal distribution of our data, necessitating non-parametric methods or bootstrapping for subsequent analyses. Non-parametric statistical tests and SEM in SPSS and AMOS respectively were utilized instead, due to the non-normality of our data.
However, these methods showed statistical significance and strong positive relationships among measurements of the environmental visual factors (EVFs) reflecting the manifest construct of the PRP. Correlation and factor analyses revealed significant interrelations among these EVFs, especially between Perceived Environmental Fascinations (PEF) and Relaxation scores (PRS) or the resulting perceived mental relaxation ratings, underscoring the importance of environmental fascinations and scenes’ capacity for evoking mental relaxations from urban landscape scenes (ULS).
Comparative analyses across different urban scene types (USTs) highlighted perceptual differences. Recreational landscape scenes were rated as the most restorative while transit landscape scenes were rated as the least, which is consistent with our predictions based on literature. Demographic factors such as gender, urban familiarity, and education level were found to have significant differences in EVFs affecting their ULS’s restorative potentials, but surprisingly not for age groups.
These findings imply that architectural and urban design strategies within our context should prioritize interventions in maximizing EVFs that greatly enhance the restorative potential of respective USTs, particularly on the streetscapes, housing, and transit scene types, while also considering each significant demographic factors such as gender, urban familiarity, and education levels. The findings also showed the major influence and correlation of perceived environmental fascination (PEF) and relaxation (PRS), followed by perceived environmental quality (PEQ) and affordances (PEA), with environmental complexity (PEC) having the least correlational effects in significantly enhancing the restorative potential of scenes across various urban settings.
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
The author posed critical questions regarding the reliability, significance, validity, and model fit of the proposed alternative measurement model in gauging PRP with our non-normal datasets. To address these, we employed SEM alongside traditional (non-parametric) statistical techniques due to the nature of our data. The findings revealed high internal consistency among the EVFs, underscoring their substantial reliability in measuring the PRP. The study affirmed the presence and strength of positive correlations among EVFs as indicators of PRP and further confirmed its good model fit with our data.
This confirmation came in the form of our proposed (ULS-PRP) measurement model, which was used in capturing PRP’s nuances of USTs and demographic factors. Notably, the study revealed significant differences in EVFs that are measuring PRP across the six USTs. Recreational landscape scenes were consistently rated highest (confirming previous studies) while transit landscape scenes were rated the lowest in terms of their PRP. Demographic factors also revealed significant differences among genders, urban familiarities such as ruralites versus urbanites, and education levels. It underscored the need for restorative urban environments that cater to a range of urban contexts and a variety of local population’s restorative needs.
Considering all these results and insights, the study presented some recommendations for architects, urban planners, designers, policymakers, and scholars to improve urban landscapes’ restorative potential. The study recommends that architects, urban planners, and designers should measure and translate better into plans and designs, restorative design concepts that tap into the positive environmental visual factors like quality, affordance, complexity, fascination, and mental relaxation in urban landscapes to enhance their perceived restorative potential in their ongoing transformations. It also urges policymakers to support the study and development of restorative urban environments and for public awareness initiatives to educate about their benefits. These suggestions were anchored from the empirical evidence and analytical insights gleaned from the narrow context of this research.
Acknowledging its limitations, the author called for future research to pursue longitudinal studies, and cross-cultural comparisons, explore the current indicators as higher-order constructs, and adoption of more objective measures of restorativeness, thereby broadening our understanding of restorative urban environments and their design to raise or improve their perceived restorative potentials. This would provide more mental restoration experiences to 21st-century urban dwellers and beyond.
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