Safe & Pleasant Parks – A Co-Design Study

Description

The research centres on public parks as “third places” in which people can connect outside their work or home. However, because of their divergent perception (e.g., from leisure during the day to potential illegal activities at night), public parks occupy a special role. Additionally, we want to investigate a park’s perception of safety and pleasantness in relation to different target groups (e.g., gender, physical disability) and structural factors (e.g., population density, rurality, socioeconomic background). Inspired by citizen science methodologies, the research emphasizes an inclusive and playful approach to public park design by harnessing the motivational pull of video games as a starting point. Participants can utilize a digital city-building game for designing their own "safe” park. Importantly, this goes beyond crime prevention through environmental design by focussing on the perceptions and the needs of individuals. The goal is to evaluate individual approaches to designing subjectively safe and appealing public spaces. Depending on the individual’s characteristics (e.g., gender, physical capabilities, past experiences) different aspects of park-design can be in focus. Based on these results we will extract general design-guidelines and rules that we can use to design “prototypically safe” parks for each perspective.

Research Questions

Some research questions may be subject to change or adapted to fit the students interests. The RQs need to fit the directions of both students working on this project.  

Type of Research

Experimental research.

Data Analysis

Data analysis will involve both qualitative (e.g., via the thinking-aloud method) and quantitative data (e.g., gathered via questionnaires).

Literature

Information

This project is open to 2 students.

Are you interested in this topic for your thesis? Please contact the theme coordinator Lynn Weiher: l.weiher@utwente.nl

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This project will have you work with other students and colleagues across the University of Twente as well as collaborate with colleagues from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This is part of the ongoing project into “Safe & Pleasant Parks - Exploring the Power of Games for Co-Design and Perspective Taking “ funded by a VU-UT Grant.