Using space syntax to analyze stress perception in open public space

This article contributes with preliminary data on how selected properties commonly used in Space Syntax research relate to users’ ratings of stress and spatial qualities in open public spaces (OPS). First, by conducting a literature research in the fields of Space Syntax and environmental psychology, a set of syntactical properties is extracted, which have been associated with health and stress-related measures in previous research. Second, the result of data construction from a sample of 22 OPS in Darmstadt, Germany is presented. Specifically, the sample is described with street network characteristics including global and local integration and connectivity, as well as isovist properties including total area, perimeter, vertices number and density, openness and roundness. In the third step, the constructed data is paired with city dwellers’ ratings (n=134) of the sample regarding to stress perception and urban design qualities using a set of bipolar adjectives (e.g. max. stressful / max. relaxing, spacious / narrow). Significant relations have been found between global (r=N) and citywide (r=3000m) integration values and users’ ratings of OPS as being stressful, relaxing, safe as well as being exposed to traffic. A weak relation can be found between the vertices density of an OPS’s isovist and participants’ ratings of safety. Overall, the results indicate that line-based measures such as global and city wide integration may be valid measures to analyse stress perception in outdoor spaces. Selected point-based measures, which had been previously paired with cognitive measures in indoor settings, need to be subjected to further research to analyse the perception of outdoor settings, for which this article contributes with preliminary data