Assessing Sensory Richness in Urban Spaces: an Analytical Framework

Human experience of the urban environment comes from different sensory channels i.e., sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The depth and breadth of these sensory experiences can be investigated under the general term, sensory “richness.” Since urban studies have been dominantly concerned by the sense of vision, the overall sensory experience of richness is little in cities, let alone degraded visual qualities as well. To solve this, it is first essential to record different sensory stimuli in the city, and then assess them in terms of their shortcomings. The research objective is the introduction of a suitable method to collect information on the quality of richness of space. For this, the background of the topic and the methods used worldwide for collecting and recording urban sensory information is introduced, and its application is tested in a case study of Golshahr Street in Karaj. The suggested method of this research for assessing the quality of sensory richness is introduced as a “combinatorial method for environmental sensory assessment.” The application of this method for assessing the quality of richness in Iranian cities can better inform urban designers and improve this often-neglected dimension of cityscapes.