Limitations within the Study

It emerged that the Ruben’s hotel and Viacom building most induced the positive affect of visual comfort in pedestrians. Both buildings shared a biophilic façade design feature of a vertical green wall system and additionally had four resembling façade dimensions of: (1) surface area, (2) integrated surface planes, (3) visible integrated themes, and (4) number of visible materials used, as presented through their façade design configuration ID of 1:AV22321 (Rubens) and 1:BV22324 (Viacom). When investigating the façade feature that induced visual comfort, the majority of pedestrian in both cases voted on use of materials and in lesser capacity colour. It may be argued that the varying responses these building facades had on pedestrians were due to the buildings’ form or ratio of window to walls of the facades. However, as previously portrayed in figure 4.5, the quality of shops and services, enclosure, edges and facades, and streetscape appearance of the urban environment from which the buildings were situated also varied. As the temperature and light conditions in both scenarios were very similar, the variance in responses is implied to be from the urban environment. It is worthy to note that both buildings did not induce visual disturbance within any of the pedestrians approached, and this may a resulting from none of the pedestrians’ perceiving the buildings as disturbing in both cases.

In the case of the Blavatnik building, which was voted as disturbing in a higher capacity than the other case studies, it most induced the feeling of curiosity compared to the other buildings. When investigating the cause of this, it appeared that form was the main contribution of such result. Noting that the façade design configuration ID of the Blavatnik building was established as 1:FS4222 and the Montcalm building as 1:DX42222, it may be argued that fully deformed buildings raise more curiosity in pedestrians that that of partly-deformed buildings as both cases share other similar governing dimensions. On the hand, where the Montcalm most induced the positive affect of admiration compared to the other case studies, and this was investigated to be the result of the building’s detailing – it may be argued that a perspective altering façade feature as voiced through the façade design configuration system raises the feeling of admiration. Notably, the urban environment of Blavatnik building provided a higher quality of car restrictions, social activity, and greenery – which in turn provided urban features that might have been of restorative benefits (Bornioli et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2019). This is further instated by pedestrians’ perception of Blavatnik’s surrounding environment as peaceful.

5.2 LIMITATIONS WITHIN THE STUDY

There are limitations within the study that need to be discussed. Encompassing that of the pedestrian questionnaires – first, there are individual differences in affective feelings (Hollander and Anderson, 2020), a number of people might have heightened anxiety in everyday situations or may simply feel anxious within being in open or crowded spaces (anxiety disorders or agoraphobia). This aspect was not taken into consideration when conducting the case study pedestrian questionnaires. If that were the case, results could have differentiated responses from those who suffer from such cases and those are of neutral conditions to better understand how situational factors influence the subject matter. Second, the responses retrieved from pedestrians solely depended on subjective perceptions. While affect is a core component of human experiences with links to psychological consequences (Barrett and BlissMoreau, 2009), individuals are not always aware of their affective state (Hollander and Anderson, 2020). The study was designed without the benefits of autonomic measures (e.g., heart rate, galvanic skin response, and eye tracking). The case of obtaining only self-reported data from pedestrians hence questions the reliability of results. Third, the pedestrian questionnaire did not consider the psychological response of pedestrians from the physical stimulus of environmental properties. This presents limited understanding within how temperature, sound levels, and light,