Project: Codesigning Healthy Public Spaces via Immersive Virtual Environments (CoHeSIVE)

Description

By 2020, the majority of the population in the Netherlands lived in the cities while about only 10% of city dwellers lived in the inner areas of large cities. Although the inner cities are engines for socio-economic, and cultural developments, they are not considered attractive and livable by all population groups such as families with young children and the elderly. Moreover, large cities in the Netherlands face challenges such as housing shortage and low air quality. To respond to these challenges, city authorities aim to optimize the use of inner cities by increasing the density, where more people can work, live and recreate. This aim creates a new challenge of developing healthy dense inner cities, especially regarding the public realm. To welcome new inhabitants and visitors that come as a result of the new dwellings and offices, it is crucial to complement urban public spaces (UPS) with new qualities according to the needs of their users to support their well-being.

The main innovation of this project is the development of a novel methodology for co-designing healthy UPS, especially addressing the needs of users via an Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) technology that is tailored for their use. This can be achieved only with an interdisciplinary collaboration, which in the current urban design practice and literature, is still limited. UMC will bring expertise for understanding the needs of users regarding the attributes of healthy UPS and participatory research. WUR will advise on the IVE technology and user requirements. TU/e will contribute with expertise in researching urban design scenarios by SPE (using IVE), preference measurement and analysis techniques.

Period	May 2022 → May 2023
Held at	Center for Living Technologies, Netherlands
Degree of Recognition	International