Background and objectives

Incorporating the diverse and conflicting requirements of street users is one primary goal of streetscape design (Kasraian et al., 2021). One crucial perspective to be considered in the design process is pedestrians’ walkability since growing evidence over the past twenty years shows the advantages of walking activities in the urban area for promoting citizens’ well-being (Doyle, Kelly-Schwartz, Schlossberg, & Stockard, 2006; Robertson, Robertson, Jepson, & Maxwell, 2012). As the key stakeholder, citizens are encouraged to actively participate in the streetscape design process to achieve more walkable and inclusive urban space (Eindhoven Municipality, 2021; European Commission, 2022; UNESCO, 2011; United Nations, 2023). However, current streetscape design approaches have hardly involved pedestrians and considered their perspectives. Four specific gaps lie in the following:

1. Pedestrians’ perceptions are usually overlooked in the design of public spaces such as streetscapes, and thus evidence-based perception-related attributes have not been sufficiently studied and considered in the streetscape design process.

2. Current Participatory Design (PD) approaches, methods and tools are mainly based on merely qualitative methods and use 2D/3D physical techniques, which has downsides in involving diverse samples, simulating realistic environments and collecting reliable data (Binder & Brandt, 2008; Leung, 2020; Plattner, Meinel, & Leifer, 2011; UN-Habitat, 2021; Urban Synergy, 2022).

3. 3D immersive tools with sensors are claimed to be significantly advantageous in creating realistic environments, accurately controlling the variables, and collecting statistically behavioural data (Birenboim, Ben-Nun Bloom, Levit, & Omer, 2021), but they are hardly employed to facilitate streetscape PD (Birenboim et al., 2021; Borgers, Brouwer, Kunen, Jessurun, & Janssen, 2010; van Leeuwen, Hermans, Jylhä, Quanjer, & Nijman, 2018).

4. Because of the lack of application of 3D immersive tools in PD, their advantages and disadvantages compared to conventional methods have hardly been studied; thus, it is unclear under what circumstances and to what extent 3D immersive tools could be effective.

In order to fill the aforementioned gaps, this research will take ‘Eindhoven Internationale Knoop XL’, an urban upgrading project aiming at inclusively densifying the Eindhoven central station area (KnoopXL, 2023), as a case study to meet the following objectives:

1. To gather local citizens’ perceptions and opinions on the streetscape walkability attributes, expanding the current theoretical framework by testing more attributes at a more detailed level and setting up an evidence base for the co-design phase

2. To review existing PD approaches, methods, and tools and identify specific gaps for the contextualised streetscape PD challenge and subsequently develop innovative quantitative/qualitative participatory methods and reflect on their effectiveness

3. To explore the potential of 3D immersive tools for the streetscape PD and iterate optimal 3D immersive PD methods

4. To compare the new methods developed in the research with other conventional methods, drawing conclusions on their pros and cons and suggesting future applications and recommendations