Affective evaluation of lighting in parks and gardens
Castilla, Nuriaa; Llinares, Carmenb; Cardona, Nataliac and Blanca-Giménez, Vicentea
aDepartment of Architectural Constructions, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, bInstituto de Investigación e Innovación en Bioingeniería, i3B, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, cUniversitat Politècnica de València, Spain.
Abstract:
Lighting of urban areas can become a source of inspiration, admiration, and emotion. Lighting permits to develop areas in which the user observes how the city is and also allows the user to generate personal feelings according to his/her experience. In this sense, lighting of parks and gardens has a great interest since they are one of the most used and appreciated elements of the public space of the city.
The objective of this study is to analyse the pedestrian’s affective impressions of lighting in parks and gardens and the incidence of such lighting on the sensation of perceived safety of pedestrians. A field study was carried out, a sample of 300 pedestrians assessed the lighting in situ in 19 parks and gardens in the city of València. This analysis is conducted in the frame of Kansei Engineering. The subjective evaluation scales adapted to users are defined.
The results show that pedestrian’s affective response to the lighting of a park or a garden can be collected by the factors: Singular/interesting, Planned, Glaring/powerful, Pleasant/cosy and Uniform/sustainable. From these factors, efforts to improve the lighting and perceived security in parks and gardens should be directed mainly at achieving a more planned and pleasant/cosy lighting environment.
Keywords: lighting; Kansei Engineering; gardens; parks; affective response; luminous environment.