Subjective responses toward daylight changes in window views: Assessing dynamic environmental attributes in an immersive experiment

Abstract In urbanized settlements, ensuring access to the outdoor environment is essential to stimulate well-being responses indoors. Windows provide access to aesthetic and natural features and bring in clues about the time, weather, and seasonal conditions outdoors. Although dynamic environmental attributes are inherent outdoor view qualities, no studies have explored the effects induced by such dynamic conditions on individuals, limiting the extent to which these features might inform design guidelines for sustained indoor well-being. To address this gap, a virtual reality experiment was conducted to analyze subjective responses to lightness changes in outdoor views with respect to three view constructs (i.e., preference, recovery, and imageability). A novel framework for classifying, capturing, and analyzing urban views was extended to generate the view stimuli material consisting of dynamic and static scenes (i.e., panorama images and 360° videos). Attitudes toward dynamic and static views were tested with an adjusted rating instrument. Results showed significant interactions between view type and lightness change factors for the three view constructs presented in dynamic format. Mean scores for views presenting lightness variations were higher than those observed for identical scenes portraying no lightness variations. Low coefficients of variation for individual questions were found, suggesting the adequacy of the subjective instruments to evaluate dynamic views. Moderate to high positive Pearson correlation coefficients were found between three construct pairs, indicating links between the approaches to examine views. The findings in this study demonstrate that positive attitudes toward views are strongly mediated by the presence of luminous changes in these views.