Urban Design and Users' Preferences

Over the past years, most of architects and urban designers used to ignore the interaction between users and built environment. This neglect has emerged from the ambiguity of traditional data sources; the architectural education nature; and the limitations of database and design guidelines that consider the interaction between man and built environment. In other words,a wide range of urban designers has only aimed at arranging physical elements to contain human activities without any regards to the psychological or social aspects of users. This book, therefore, provides an approach to test users' preferences for simulated urban design alternatives. The study asserts that advanced experiential and dynamic media of visual representation, such as Virtual Reality, contribute to users' understanding and participation in early phases of environmental design. The book should be especially useful to students of architectural design and urban planning, or researchers in the fields of man-environment relationship and urban design simulation.