Analysis of Urban Public Space Design from the Perspective of Environmental Behavioral Psychology

Abstract

Urban public places are where citizens spend their daily lives and serve a multitude of objects and purposes, from social gatherings to relaxation to cultural participation. Many design values today are converging around formalism or technical rationality, excessively valuing visual acuity while overlooking users' psychological experiences. Environmental psychology suggests the social and ecological effects of human and environment dynamics exist beyond material representations, that meaning and use are formed through spatial cognitions, emotional attachments, and social interactions, and that the overall efficacy of many spaces are rationalized by their non-object perspectives. This theory supports the regularities and formalities of individuals' perceptions, interpretive actions, and behavioral choices in their environment, and can help frame a paradigm for re-structuring public spaces. Design practices must evolve beyond spatial form just being a nexus for user experience, but broaden to consider and experiment with representations of behavioral actions that satisfy a nominee of more human and inclusive urban space design.