Influence of the medium on spatial perception

With the help of competitive funding from the Leibniz Science Campus Postdigital Participation, a pilot study was conducted in the summer of 2025 at the Spatial Analytics and Crossdisciplinary Experimentation (SpACE) Lab at ISU – Institute for Sustainable Urbanism to investigate the influence of the medium of representation on the perception of urban spaces. This is relevant, among other things, for the presentation and communication of urban design concepts and the involvement of different population groups in urban design processes. The study was conducted as part of the project ‘Nicer School Routes: Participatory School Route Design’ (NiceWay) in cooperation with the project ‘Better Streets, Better CITIES’ (BeStCITIES).

The initial results of the study were presented in a poster presentation at the final conference of the project ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on XR in Education’ (INTERXR) from 25 to 26 September 2025 at the Technical University of Braunschweig. The initial analysis results indicate that the presentation medium and individual factors such as gender, professional background and prior knowledge have different effects on the evaluation of street spaces and the experience of spatial presence.

A scientific publication is in preparation.

Team:

Dr Katja Knecht, Dr Deepank Verma, Olaf Mumm and Prof. Dr Vanessa Miriam Carlow, ISU – Institute for Sustainable Urbanism