Understanding Aesthetic Experiences of Architectural Students in Vertical and Horizontal Campuses

The typological features of university campus areas are shaped according to their locations in the city. Campuses in city centers carry great potentials for students' cultural, intellectual and artistic activities, especially for those from faculty of architecture and design, with close relations to the city. In big metropolitan cities, it is hard to reserve land for campuses therefore they emerge as vertical settlements. On the other hand, campuses built on the periphery mainly feature horizontal planning characteristics due to availability of land. The aim of this paper is to develop an approach for measuring architecture students' aesthetic experience of vertical and horizontal campuses in relation to sense of place theory. Recently, emerging technologies in cognitive science, such as brain imaging techniques, activity maps, sensory maps, cognitive mapping and photo-projective method etc., have enabled advanced measurement of aesthetic experience. In this exploratory research, using ‘photo-projective method', students will be asked to interpret and draw ‘cognitive maps' of the places that they are happy to be (defined place) or to see (landscape) on the campus. Based on students' impressions and experiences, it will be possible to compare aesthetic experience on vertical and horizontal campus. Thus, a comprehensive approach for improving campus design according to users' aesthetic experiences and sense of place rather than building technology, law, development and finance driven obligations will be introduced.