宗方 淳

People are drawn to natural settings because they instinctively associate them with providing, nurturing environments. Many studies have linked higher urban greenery ratios to social, psychological, economic, and human health improvements. While urban greenery benefits a large number of people, the monetary burden of its installation and maintenance falls typically to local governments or private entities, requiring urban designers to be able to justify the higher costs of implementation and maintenance.
 To date, there is still no precise data linking tree cover ratio and the specific effects it has on peoples’ perceptions and impressions of urban plazas or in the environment’s suitability for different activities. This study expands on the findings of previous studies to explore the effects of tree cover ratio and environment scale across twenty-three different evaluation scales.
 It used immersive virtual environments to control for confounding variables and head-mounted displays to present the stimuli, allowing participants to experience the environment in its totality as in a natural setting.
 Higher tree cover ratios improved participants’ willingness to stay and pay for goods, improved perception, impressions, and how suitable the environment was for different activities. The specific effects on five measurement scales for activities, nine measurement scales for impression and seven different measurement scales for perception are shown as well as the effects of the interaction of tree cover ratio and environment scale.The effects of sex and architectural background are also tested and discussed. Results offer designers with evidence for the definition of tree amount in relation to environment scale, based on the desired effect.

<p> 従来の学校教室は窓開け換気を前提としているため、適切な換気設備が整っていない場合が多い。換気により室内環境を向上しつつ、省エネルギーに貢献する装置として全熱交換器が挙げられる。そこで本研究では、竣工から約55年経過し、十分な換気設備が導入されていない既設校舎の隣接する同方位、同仕様の教室A、教室Bの2教室を対象として、教室Aのみに全熱交換器と透明ガラリを導入し、設備導入を実施しない教室Bとの比較により効果を検証する。</p>

Office workers' productivity might be affected by their satisfaction with not only their own workplace but also meeting area, break area and accessory spaces in and around the building. This paper investigates the relation between workers' subjective productivity and satisfaction with those spaces, statistically analyzing the data collected by the SAP that is a subjective productivity assessment system developed in Japan. Applying a statistical causality analysis to the data of 228 offices, it was revealed that, in addition to satisfactions with environmental factors in an office, satisfaction and frequency of use in other spaces considerably affect workers' easiness of four types of behavior, focusing, relaxing, communicating, and creative activity, which finally influence productivity in a building. This finding supports the significance of extending the questions from office to overall building in the SAP system.

&nbsp;In Japan, the number of condominiums constructed under the previous laws number approximately 1.5 million and they will exceed 50 years of age in approximately 2030. These aged condominiums have problems with their construction, such as inadequate seismic resistance and functional aging conditions. Moreover, the residents of these old condominiums have aged, which means a decrease in the labor force for the president of the Condominium Management Association. Therefore, the rebuilding of condominiums has become a social problem.<br>&nbsp;This study specifically focuses on the experience of rehabilitation and the awareness of seismic resistance and aging conditions, and investigates their impact on the reconstruction intentions of residents of old condominiums through online questionnaires. The number of valid responses received was 1,697.<br>&nbsp;The results demonstrate the following.<br><br>&nbsp;i) According to the questionnaire results, 32.1% of panels approve of and 18.9% of panels oppose the rebuilding of condominiums. Focusing on age, it is higher in younger the age groups, especially thirties recognize strongly. By region, the intention of panels from the central five wards of Tokyo metropolis is strong in comparison with Kansai region and suburban city. In addition, the earlier the completion of a building and the earlier the time of move-in, the stronger the intention to rebuild.<br>&nbsp;ii) For older buildings, panels have experience of discussing the rebuilding of the condominium. Their intentions to rebuild are stronger than panels who have not had the opportunity to engage in such a discussion. Moreover, panels who lacked experience of discussing rebuilding were unable to clearly indicate their intention to rebuild. Thus, it is difficult to feel that a discussion concerning rebuilding will occur in the future. Meanwhile, focusing on the intentions of permanent residents who are in conflict with the intention to rebuild condominiums, panels who want to dwell in these condominiums for a long time were raised in opposition to their rebuilding.<br>&nbsp;iii) The experience level of rehabilitation had an impact on awareness of seismic resistance and aging conditions; for example, experience of large-scale remodeling in residential units can ease awareness of facility degradation, while experience of major renovations can ease awareness of the aged building exterior.<br>&nbsp;iv) Experiences of large-scale remodeling and seismic resistance have demonstrated main effects and positive intentions regarding rebuilding. It is understood that these experiences provide recognition of the age of condominiums.<br>&nbsp;v) Awareness of aging condominiums is one of the factors that demonstrates an intention to rebuild. In particular, awareness of facility obsolescence and seismic reinforcements, which are impossible to support through major renovation, are one of the motivations for looking favorably on rebuilding intentions.<br>&nbsp;vi) Compared with the experience level of seismic reinforcements, there is a statistically significant awareness of seismic resistance. However, compared with rebuilding intentions, panels with experience of seismic reinforcements who felt anxiety regarding seismic resistance demonstrated a positive intention to rebuild.

This paper seeks to determine which physical elements of privately owned public spaces affect users' impressions, which characteristics of these elements are noticed, and what impressions they cause. The study is based on a caption evaluation and semantic differential survey of 12 public spaces in the center of Tokyo. Ten participants were surveyed for each space, and 1494 of the obtained entries were analyzed. The semantic differential survey was then cross-referenced with density measures to evaluate the effect of physical elements' densities on participants' impressions. It was found that the physical elements that caught users' attention were greenery, street furniture, the building, the sidewalk and the space itself. From all of the elements, tree coverage density was the best predictor of desire to stay and rest activities in the space. A logistic regression analysis of each activity by tree density is also provided.

This research assessed whether public space users will adopt a least-effort approach and choose a less suitable seat nearby or seek the most suitable seat, even if it is farther away from them when the decision is made. How distance assessment affects seat choice was investigated through an observational survey, which allowed the identification of behavioral patterns. Those behavioral patterns were then tested in a paired comparison experiment with 40 participants. The results showed that the effect of distance on seat choice is related to the difference in distance between the options and that a sufficient difference can cause trade-offs between distance and seat properties. The necessary difference in distance is conditioned by the activity and the seat properties.

&nbsp;An experiment was performed to clarify effects of intermittent daylight exposure in a resting-space on arousal level and task-performance in work place. Daylight flowing into the resting-space was controlled with window-blinds. Results indicated, 1) during two working sessions, 11:00-12:00 and 16:00-17:00, the arousal levels analyzed from the frequency of blink burst significantly decreases at the circadian condition more than the non-circadian condition. 2)At some working sessions of the circadian condition, the ratio of correct answer for &ldquo;Arithmetic&rdquo;, one of computer tasks, significantly decreases after the resting time more than the one before the resting time.

A comprehensive assessment system was developed in order to evaluate office workers&rsquo; subjective impression and productivity in their office environment as well as meeting space, rest space and outside space. Firstly this paper introduces the logic and the way with which questions were selected, designed as scale and presented in the web site. Secondly accumulated data was analyzed to show the validity of this system, using histogram of averaged evaluation of each question for each office. Finally it was found that evaluation construction of office productivity can be explained with evaluation of other spaces of building.

This is a study on identifying three indicators to evaluate the following senses of physical oppression and of openness in urban spaces&mdash;configuration factors, solid angles, and space quantity. These senses of physical oppression and openness were evaluated by residents and students of architecture for nine designated streets and were evaluated by residents for the streets fronting their homes in the Sangenjaya area of Tokyo's Setagaya ward. The results show that first, there is some variation in evaluating the two senses of physical oppression and openness between the two evaluated groups of residents and students of architecture; however, the results of the correlations show value in the indicators used for both residents and students of architecture. Second, these three indicators show high correlations for the nine designated streets but show weak correlations for the streets fronting residents' homes due to residents' subjective impressions. Therefore, these three indicators are valid for evaluating those senses of physical oppression and openness when objectively considering the senses of physical oppression and of openness.

There are both positives and negatives to constructing high-rise buildings in high population densities of large cities. The negative effect of oppressiveness will be the focus of this paper. Oppressiveness is defined as the negative feeling resulting from being surrounded by high-rise buildings. Building oppressiveness when combined with other urban stresses contributes towards making compact cities unsustainable. In other words these negative psychological factors of the environment are barriers to achieving urban sustainability. Therefore it is important to find ways to mitigate the negative psychological effects of high-rise buildings in order to improve the benefits of compact cities. This research assesses the psychological effect of green building façades and trees in Tokyo while taking into consideration a real urban environment. Within the context of the goal of "Green Urbanism" this research also measures and compares the effect of these two different types of greenery on residents' psychology. The methodology consisted of two experiments that were conducted in the Hongo area of downtown Tokyo. The aim was to assess the effects of green façades and trees in terms of environmental psychology and compare them. The results showed that the effect of greenery on the façade of buildings is not as positive as the effect of a tree-lined street. Trees are significantly more effective in mitigating the perception of oppressiveness. The results are important for urban designers and government policy makers.

Through the recent process of urban development, characterized by urban expansion and redevelopment, industrialized countries have witnessed a surge in the number, scale and complexity of urban structures. However, it has become difficult to keep urban space adaptable to environmental realities and our cities don't completely meet the demands of society. These demands include the sustainable upgrading of social infrastructure and the regeneration of attractive urban space that is not only safe and highly efficient, but also consciously takes into account psychological influence. In this research "oppressive" refers to cityscape featuring high-rise buildings that cause negative psychological pressure on residents. Oppression is a barrier to achieving sustainable urban development and current research is a step towards addressing this barrier. This paper tries to bring the research of oppression to the international scientific society to present parts of years of Japanese research in this field. Through various methodologies researchers have proved that cities have oppressive and depressive affects on residents but the influencing factors are not completely measured. This research discusses the key parameters of psychological health by assessing the impact of trees effect on real urban oppressive environment. This paper also compares the largeness and quality of trees' affect against other physical factors in the city environment. Two experiments were conducted, one in the real Tokyo urban environment - as a mega city and the other utilizing 3-dimensional computer software to simulate the real urban environment in an experiment room. Totally, 60 participants from the field of architecture looked at specific images and responded by filling in a pre-designed questionnaire. Results indicate that oppression which increases as building's solid angle increases is significantly influenced by the existence of trees and the sky factor. The placement of trees or planting design in the urban area is important.