There are both positives and negatives to constructing high-rise buildings in high population densities of large cities. The negative effect of oppressiveness ( 圧迫感 ) will be the focus of this paper. Oppressiveness is defined as the negative feeling resulting from being surrounded by high-rise buildings. Building oppressiveness when combined with other urban stresses contributes towards making compact cities unsustainable. In other words these negative psychological factors of the environment are barriers to achieving urban sustainability. Therefore it is important to find ways to mitigate the negative psychological effects of high-rise buildings in order to improve the benefits of compact cities. This research assesses the psychological effect of green building façades and trees in Tokyo while taking into consideration a real urban environment. Within the context of the goal of "Green Urbanism" this research also measures and compares the effect of these two different types of greenery on residents' psychology. The methodology consisted of two experiments that were conducted in the Hongo area of downtown Tokyo. The aim was to assess the effects of green façades and trees in terms of environmental psychology and compare them. The results showed that the effect of greenery on the façade of buildings is not as positive as the effect of a tree-lined street. Trees are significantly more effective in mitigating the perception of oppressiveness. The results are important for urban designers and government policy makers.
Through the recent process of urban development, characterized by urban expansion and redevelopment, industrialized countries have witnessed a surge in the number, scale and complexity of urban structures. However, it has become difficult to keep urban space adaptable to environmental realities and our cities don't completely meet the demands of society. These demands include the sustainable upgrading of social infrastructure and the regeneration of attractive urban space that is not only safe and highly efficient, but also consciously takes into account psychological influence. In this research "oppressive" refers to cityscape featuring highrise buildings that cause negative psychological pressure on residents. Oppression is a barrier to achieving sustainable urban development and current research is a step towards addressing this barrier. This paper tries to bring the research of oppression to the international scientific society to present parts of years of Japanese research in this field. Through various methodologies researchers have proved that cities have oppressive and depressive affects on residents but the influencing factors are not completely measured. This research discusses the key parameters of psychological health by assessing the impact of trees effect on real urban oppressive environment. This paper also compares the largeness and quality of trees' affect against other physical factors in the city environment. Two experiments were conducted, one in the real Tokyo urban environment -as a mega city and the other utilizing 3-dimensional computer software to simulate the real urban environment in an experiment room. Totally, 60 participants from the field of architecture looked at specific images and responded by filling in a pre-designed questionnaire. Results indicate that oppression which increases as building's solid angle increases is significantly influenced by the existence of trees and the sky factor. The placement of trees or planting design in the urban area is important.
This is a study on identifying three indicators to evaluate the following senses of physical oppression and of openness in urban spaces-configuration factors, solid angles, and space quantity. These senses of physical oppression and openness were evaluated by students of architecture for images of 3DCG modeling streets in the Sangenjaya area of Tokyo�s Setagaya ward. Heights of special buildings on 3DCG modeling images are changed and fixed images toward the special buildings and moving images showing the whole a street were evaluated. The images were analyzed using the relationship between the three indicators and the senses of physical oppression and of openness influenced by changes of buildings� height. The results show that first, three indicators show high correlation for evaluating those senses of physical oppression and of openness for both fixed and moving images. Second, as the spaces evaluated expand from part to whole, the correlation of solid angle are higher than the correlation of configuration factor and the result shows that solid angles connotes the concept of space quantity. Therefore, the solid angle is suggested as the most reasonable indicator for evaluating the senses of physical oppression and of openness in urban spaces.
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