How visual perception shapes our cities: a cognitive model of ageing population

Project Information

AgeCogCity

Grant agreement ID: 744835

DOI

10.3030/744835

Project terminated on 30 June 2020

EC signature date 8 December 2017

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 30 November 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 195 454,80

EU contribution

€ 195 454,80

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AgeCogCity (How visual perception shapes our cities: a cognitive model of ageing population)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2020-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In the near future, two mega-trends – rapid urbanisation of the world’s population and its ageing – are bound to collide. This two-year project investigated how visuo-spatial behaviour of different age groups contributes to urban dynamics. Elderly citizens, many of whom no longer drive, face daily challenges that urban designers have to take into account. The adaptation requires among other things appropriate tools to support planning for walking, which is arguably the most sustainable transport mode environmentally, socially, and economically. Cities’ walkability depends not only on physical settings, but also on processes of human spatial cognition, in particular visual perception. However, current state-of-the-art methods in modelling and forecasting urban systems are based mainly on economic and transportation demands and ignore the factor of spatial cognition. This project will construct a novel urban-behavioural paradigm that is able to connect built environment to the way people use it by addressing three fundamental questions:

1. What are the most important visuo-spatial properties influencing spatial cognition, wayfinding and navigation?
2. How age variations in visual abilities and urban visibility could be analysed as measurable mathematical structures?
3. What mechanisms allow cities to be generated through interactions of pedestrian movement and visual information?

These questions were answered using an interdisciplinary approach, which combines quantitative spatial modelling techniques with qualitative strategies for tracing human behaviour in Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR).

This academic work had a twofold mission: while aiming to offer necessary tools for understanding the relationships between built environment and human cognitive functions, it also shows how professionals can apply spatial cognition research to design better urban space. It will be possible to integrate the project’s results into urban planning and design as a practical contribution towards reshaping mobility and architecture of our cities in the future.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Several societal challenges such as “Health, demographic change and wellbeing” and “Smart, green and integrated transport”, are directly related to the project. It is well known that non-walkable, poorly planned urban environments are associated with physical inactivity and with air pollution. Such environments are linked to chronic illnesses including heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, some cancers, and poor mental health.

This project gave special attention to research into the links between spatial context and wellbeing of older people. It focused on understanding the emergence mechanisms involved both in walking and urban development, and therefore aimed to improve non-vehicle, pedestrian policies and tools. The project offered in-depth knowledge of age-related pedestrian behaviour and could be directly transferred to socioeconomic impact on spatial environment, preventing car-dependent urban sprawls in Europe and supporting older persons to remain active and healthy. A city that works for older people is one that would work for everybody.

As an urban designer at architectural firms in the USA and in Israel I have faced a huge gap between scientific knowledge in the field of city planning and the day-to-day practice of urban planners. Models developed in academia are based on vast knowledge of urban performance. Practical plans, on the other hand, based on intuition, assume very crude human behaviour resulting in unsuccessful efforts to determine urban evolution. From the start of my career, I was keenly interested in linking academic research back to practice, and vice versa. The predictive simulation tool proposed in this project address the needs of designers in areas where the urban realm is poor. The results of this research will lead to technology transfer from the human-focused laboratory to the prototype of an automated tool that forecasts impacts of planning. Moreover, the research, with case studies in the heart of London, is highly relevant for local urban development.

This project resulted in six high-impact papers advancing the state-of-the art in cognitive science, urban planning, and related fields.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

City planning and design is closely related to the general public’s everyday needs. Churchill once said: “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us”. It is just as true for our cities, and so that dissemination and exploitation by a border audience was a core responsibility for the researcher.
Following a Plan for the Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) we adressed the following strategies and specific activities among the relevant research, professional, and general public audiences:

Academic communities – advancing the state-of-the art in cognitive science, urban planning, and related fields
•Attending international conferences and two workshops to present my work.
•Presenting my research regularly at CASA team meetings and at other relevant venues across UCL, incl. the Bartlett School of Architecture, the School of Planning, the Space Syntax Laboratory and the Spatial Cognition Lab in the Experimental Psychology Department. Planned from the beginning of the project, these presentations provided critical feedback and allow me to share results with the scientific communities involved.

Public authorities – engaging cities to become more age-friendly by using the results in policymaking
•With support of CASA Director, Prof Hudson-Smith, who sits on the newly created Smart Cities Board in the Greater London Authority, research results are expected to be integrated into a practical output in local city planning.
•Sending overviews and policy briefs (of each of the anticipated articles) to relevant stakeholders and organizations, such as planning associations, local authorities, and senior citizen NGOs to facilitate wider dissemination.
Urban designers and smart city practitioners – using results for design and planning practical purposes
•Presenting periodical and final results at professional forums (European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing; Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I’DGO); Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) and International Conference on Age-friendly Cities in order to commit early on towards practical application.

Communication of the project activities to different target audiences:
The project and its results were promoted to various audiences using diverse measures:
•I used the UCL press office to generate media interest in reporting on scientific results in journals, newspapers, and via seniors’ contact networks.
• I joined “Sense About Science”, a charitable trust designed to help the public understand the impact of scientific findings on their daily life. Their Voice of Young Science (VoYS) programme gives early career researchers a platform to communicate with the public.
•I participated in the London Festival of Architecture to raise public awareness of the value of sustainable design for active ageing among the general public and stakeholders (Deliverable 4.8.1).
• I published research reports on the main findings, including methodological annexes on two web platforms – one exhibits my research, and another exhibits students’ work in the course I taught. In parallel with integration of the results into existing social media (Academia.edu and ResearchGate).

Principles of urban simulation

AgeCogCity

Visibility graph

Visibility analysis