User experience of architectural detailing in virtual urban environment

Abstract

Architecture and urban design disciplines very much adhere to the use of representations as a tool to aid decision making process. As it is almost impossible to replicate environments in full-scale, both physical and digital representations are therefore restricted by the notions of scale and level of details. These notions are now challenged by the emergence of virtual reality (VR) technology, which allows architects to work with full-scale virtual environments (VEs). However, the taxonomy of architectural representations in VR is not properly defined as discussions in academia are mostly concerned about creating realistic impressions of space, rather than the operational side of different architectural detailing. Thus, in recognizing the operational dimensions of VEs in VR, it is vital to examine the influence of different architectural detailing on the legibility of VEs. This study aimed to suggest a guideline for users’ experience of architectural detailing in a VE for a large-scale urban simulation. This study was executed as an experimental simulation study. In a total of N=96 respondents were divided into four different treatments with n=24 respondents in each VE with a unique level of architectural detailing. They answered the questionnaire surveys and drew cognitive maps after completed navigating within the VEs using VR. Analysis methods used were primarily of content analysis, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and one-way ANOVA. The first analysis phase was environment-specific and the second phase was route and point-specific. In the third phase, the findings from previous phases were triangulated. The most and the least legible VEs were established as per different abilities of interpreting VEs. The operational dimensions of the VEs were established based on the deconstructed architectural detail components namely ‘geometric extrusion’ and ‘distinction’ as the factors influencing legibility of VEs. The operational dimensions of each VE were synthesized based on various criteria derived from the abilities of interpreting VEs. Based on the statistically significant results, the criteria were reduced to ‘understanding VE’ and ‘recalling VE’, in that order. In conclusion, there are some influences of architectural detailing on legibility but only in regards to the two criteria. The operational dimensions were also established for each criterion, which was learned from the cognitive knowledge data. Firstly, is for tasks within one viewpoint. Secondly, is for linear navigation and lastly is for full-fledged virtual exploration. This thesis also proposed two main guidelines for the user experience of architectural detailing in urban VE to be used by architects and users in the associated domain.