Analysing mental geography of residential environment in Singapore using GIS-based 3D visibility analysis
Year: 2005
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Workshop 2. Session 2.3: Mapping home Abstract. Residences mental perception, especially spatial perceptions of their built-environment is crucial in shaping their overall quality of life and environmental perception. The increasing intangibility of mental geography may be caused by lack of empirical and quantitative approach. We will introduce an empirical and quantitative approach of analysing mental geography, based on James Gibsons direct perception theory. Gibson argued that spatial perceptions of the visible environment were constructed by ambient optic arrays, or photonic arrays reflected by environmental geometries and received by perceivers eyes. Weve developed a GIS (geographic information system)-based 3D visibility analysis, Viewsphere, capable of computing the spatial properties of ambient optic arrays, based on the volumetric amount of space occupied by the photonic arrays. Using this analysis, the perceptual quality of residential or urban open space can be measured. We argue that the spatial properties expressed by quantitative perceptual indices may represent the residences spatial perception of their residential environment. Comprehensive understanding of a residential settings mental geography may be achieved by mapping of spatial perceptions through interpolating perceptual indices from a grid of sample points. Two test cases were conducted on an environmental setting of typical Singapores public housing estate. Singapores public housing programme is well-known for its success of housing most of the nations population in its high-density, high-rise environment. Using this analytical methodology, the impact of high-density, high-rise residential environment on residences mental geography can be empirically understood.
Authors: Simon Yunuar Putra, Perry Pei‐Ju Yang
Language: English
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Singapore Millennium Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W434913070