Community Contexts
The Power of Placemaking Communication: Exploring the Role of Brand Voice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jūlija Surikova
Substantial research has been conducted on placemaking branding, but comparatively little has been done on placemaking communication, particularly the role of brand voice in impacting communities. The purpose of this study is to determine whether brand voices help places better address communities and develop stronger communication, thereby influencing relationships. By committing to this research, the author aims to fill a research gap and generate more debate on the significance of brand voice in placemaking communication. The author investigates the role of brand voice in placemaking communication using a literature review and content analysis of Facebook posts of placemaking projects in Latvia, Norway, and Estonia. Drawing on successful placemaking campaigns and branding projects, the author argues that a carefully crafted brand voice can be a powerful tool for transmitting a sense of place and meaningfully engaging communities. The possible downsides of a formal brand voice, such as the risk of oversimplifying or homogenizing a place's particular character, are also being investigated. The main contribution of this study is to provide evidence-based insights that can inform future placemaking and branding initiatives as well as contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of placemaking communication and the potential impact of brand voice on place identity. The research could offer practical assistance for placemakers and marketers who seek to create meaningful, engaging places that represent the unique character and requirements of local communities by expanding the debate surrounding the use of brand voice in placemaking communication.
Older Adults' Walking Route Stress in the Constructed Environment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session SangHyun Lee
Older adults’ walking could be easily limited by stressful interactions within the constructed environment. As older adults’ physical capabilities reduce due to aging, walking infrastructures designed for average-person pose great possibilities to cause stressful interactions, which potentially discourage older adults’ walking activities. In this regard, finding better routes with less stressful interactions could promote older adults’ walking by increasing their self-efficacy. The recent integration of AI-based data analytics and wearable sensing has advanced our understanding of the stress during daily trips. This knowledge can be leveraged as valuable input in recommending future routes with more satisfactory experience. Despite this potential, existing studies have primarily focused on identifying individual distress or geolocating stressors. To expand AI data analytics and wearable sensing in route recommendation systems, the authors propose wearable sensor-based framework to assess walking route stress. The study proceeds as follows: (1) apply the individual distress classifier to detect high stress from physical and physiological signals; (2) measure collective distress by aggregating the subject's high stress data; (3) build a multi-task learning based route-level distress model via collective distress measurements. To test this framework, mean absolute error was measured between the model predicted route stress and self-reported score using 66 subjects’ daily trips data. The results demonstrate that walking route stress could be measured within 10% error range. The proposed framework amplifies the ability of wearable sensors to assess the overall stress level along the route, which could be the basis of building routing systems to improve older adults’ walking.
Featured Engaged Body, Bewildered Eyes: The Design Strategy of Framing and Sequence For Embodied Landscape Experience View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hongfei Li
In The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, James Gibson argues that we see the world not just through our eyes but with the eyes in the head on the body moving on the ground. We “see” the world through a body fully engaged with the world. Gibson’s view aligns with embodied cognition in cognitive science and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the lived body in phenomenology. These perspectives expand the understanding of spatial experience — arguing that our perception of space is formed upon assumptions through bodily engagement with constantly changing contextual clues. In response to the unfolding and indeterminate nature of the perceptual process, designers of built environments can devise features that can effectively attend to our deep perceptual capabilities to keep us present and engaged in our experiences. This paper examines two design strategies often used in landscape designs: framing and sequence, to understand how they heighten our spatial experiences through our engaged body and bewildered eyes. Using Gibson’s ecological framework on perception, the study evaluates visitors’ experiences in two gardens: the Bloedel Reserve in the US and the Suzhou Lingering Garden in China. The analysis demonstrates that both gardens initiate dialogues between vision and motion by emphasizing their interdependences through framing and sequence, even though they differ in style and scale. By applying the theories of embodiment in phenomenology and cognitive science to landscape design practices, this paper establishes an analytical method that accounts for visitors’ perceptual experiences when examining landscape design strategies.
Religious Spaces and Language Use amongst the Zanzibari Muslim Community in Chatsworth, South Africa
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thandeka Ndaba, Maheshvari Naidu
This study explores the complex relationship between physical spaces and cultural practices within the Zanzibari Muslim community of Chatsworth, South Africa and is rooted in the emergent field of spatial humanities. It investigates how Chatsworth's physical environment, including border spaces with the neighbouring predominantly large English-speaking Indian and (much smaller more scattered) isiZulu-speaking African communities, shapes cultural practices and influences the ancestral language of the Zanzibari Muslims, Mukua. Using a post-colonial theoretical lens, the research sheds light on the intricate interplay of space, culture, and language in Chatsworth's diverse spatial dynamics. The interaction of cultures and languages in shared spaces provides a unique context for understanding the adaptation and attempts of preservation of languages in communities that are in close proximity to multicultural spaces. The study sheds light on the role of space in cultural preservation, offering insights into the dynamics of a multicultural neighbourhood and the cultural practices and language of the Zanzibari Muslim community in Chatsworth. Understanding the interplay of space, culture, language, and post-colonial legacies in contemporary multicultural societies is crucial for comprehending these dynamics. Methodologically, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics mentioned, cultural mapping techniques are employed. Qualitative Geographic Information System (QGIS) is also used to visually represent and analyse the spatial distribution of cultural practices and language within a community.
