The Importance of Visual Sustainability in Urban Design Strategy

With most of us now living in cities, the importance of visual sustainability in urban design strategy shouldn’t be underestimated. This research addresses interactions in urban environments-when defined as interaction types and used as a metric-because they provide an effective strategy for understanding the relationship between urban heterogeneity and how we’re visually sustained as we engage with our surroundings. Interaction type analysis is key to bridging the gap in knowledge. It lies at the heart of the challenges posed by levels of subjectivity in how we see, what we see, and the difficulty in measuring visual sustainability. The main finding of this study is the suggestion that visual interaction types are the building blocks of visual sustainability when considered in the context of urban design strategy. What difference this makes depends on the level of analysis-whether student or practitioner, commercially oriented, in terms of spatial health and well-being, or at a more abstract level, in personal development and growth. But the overarching consideration is that interaction types are able to reveal where the real city lies-and by real city is meant the city we pay attention to.