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Conference paper2016Peer reviewed

People's Preferences for Outdoor Affordances are Relatively Similar Irrespective of Cultural Background

Skärbäck, Erik; Grahn, Patrik

Abstract

The research question addressed in the present paper is to what extent preferences for landscape affordances differ between people who have grown up in completely different cultures and landscapes. How universal are preferences for certain sensory dimensions? Two Master’s students at SLU Alnarp, who grew up in completely different landscapes (Huanggang, China, and St. Petersburg, Russia, respectively) distributed questionnaires in their home towns, asking respondents about their use of parks and preferences for certain characteristics: serene, wild, lush, spacious, the common, the pleasure garden, festive/centre and culture. Both showed that the availability of characteristics at existing parks varied considerably. However, what people wanted from the parks was very similar despite differences in respondents’ cultural background. The two questionnaire datasets were merged into one dataset (n=309, primarily between 18-35 years of age), enabling us to analyse to what extent similarities in existing qualities and respondents´ preferences are significant. The supply of five of the eight characteristics in urban green areas differed significantly. However, the demand for certain qualities in urban green areas differed only for pleasure garden and festive/centre. The demand for all of the other six characteristics was significantly similar. The respondents in both cities wanted to experience more of five characteristics: serene, wild, the pleasure garden, spacious and lush. These five are assumed to help restore visitors from stress-related symptoms. The explanation may be that the young generation of today is not under-stimulated, but rather over-stimulated.

Published in

Series of the Institute for Landscape and Open Space, HSR University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil
2016, number: 14, pages: 367-370
Title: Bridging the gap - proceedings of the ECLAS conference
ISBN: 978-3-9523972-9-9
Publisher: HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil

Conference

ECLAS conference "Bridging the gap"