arXiv subjects

Michal Gath-Morad

Publications and source records attributed to Michal Gath-Morad.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

AffectCity: An Empirical Investigation of Complexity, Transparency, and Materiality in Shaping Affective Perception of Building Facades

Buildings shape how people feel, yet the mechanisms through which specific facade properties drive affective states remain empirically underspecified. Here we introduce the Cambridge Facade Affect Dataset (CFAD), 86 orthogonally rectified facade images annotated with continuous arousal and valence ratings from 85 participants, and establish a validated pipeline linking machine-vision-derived surface metrics to human affective responses. Focusing on three quantifiable attributes, complexity, transparency (window-to-wall ratio), and materiality (proportion of natural versus artificial surface composition), we show that perceived complexity is the dominant affective predictor, with significant positive associations for both arousal (beta = 0.507, p < 0.001) and valence (beta = 0.376, p < 0.001) and a curvilinear amplification at higher complexity levels. Transparency exhibits an inverted-U relationship with valence, while increasing surface artificiality suppresses arousal and reduces pleasantness consistent with biophilic response theory. Critically, machine-derived metrics show limited direct predictive power over affective outcomes; mediation analyses reveal that human perceptual evaluation functions as a necessary intermediate layer, with perceived materiality significantly mediating the machine-valence relationship (indirect effect = -0.205, p = 0.003). Cross-context validation demonstrates moderate stability of complexity and materiality ratings across image-based and in-situ conditions, while affective responses, particularly valence, exhibit significant context-dependence (ICC = 0.332). These findings advance facade research from descriptive morphological analysis toward predictive, perception-grounded modelling, and provide an empirically validated basis for affect-informed design of the urban environment.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

URBAN-SPIN: A street-level bikeability index to inform design implementations in historical city centres

Cycling is reported by an average of 35\% of adults at least once per week across 28 countries, and as vulnerable road users directly exposed to their surroundings, cyclists experience the street at an intensity unmatched by other modes. Yet the street-level features that shape this experience remain under-analysed, particularly in historical urban contexts where spatial constraints rule out large-scale infrastructural change and where typological context is often overlooked. This study develops a perception-led, typology-based, and data-integrated framework that explicitly models street typologies and their sub-classifications to evaluate how visual and spatial configurations shape cycling experience. Drawing on the Cambridge Cycling Experience Video Dataset (CCEVD), a first-person and handlebar-mounted corpus developed in this study, we extract fine-grained streetscape indicators with computer vision and pair them with built-environment variables and subjective ratings from a Balanced Incomplete Block Design (BIBD) survey, thereby constructing a typology-sensitive Bikeability Index that integrates subjective and perceived dimensions with physical metrics for segment-level comparison. Statistical analysis shows that perceived bikeability arises from cumulative, context-specific interactions among features. While greenness and openness consistently enhance comfort and pleasure, enclosure, imageability, and building continuity display threshold or divergent effects contingent on street type and subtype. AI-assisted visual redesigns further demonstrate that subtle, targeted changes can yield meaningful perceptual gains without large-scale structural interventions. The framework offers a transferable model for evaluating and improving cycling conditions in heritage cities through perceptually attuned, typology-aware design strategies.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2025

A Systematic Review: Affective Perception on Urban Facades

Architectural facades critically shape affective perception in urban environments. Here, affect is understood as a multidimensional psychological construct encompassing valence (pleasure-displeasure) and arousal (activation-deactivation). Despite growing interest in affective responses to the built environment, the affective impact of urban architectural facades remains under-theorized. This study conducts a systematic review of 61 works, guided by the PRISMA framework, to identify which facade attributes most strongly predict affective responses operationalized as valence and arousal. Through multi-scalar synthesis and knowledge mapping, the review highlights complexity, materiality, symmetry, and bibliophilic integration as consistent predictors of affective perception across urban, building, and detail levels. Computational tools such as eye-tracking, CNN-based analysis, and parametric modeling are increasingly employed, yet remain fragmented and often overlook intangible dimensions like narrative coherence and cultural symbolism. By consolidating cross-disciplinary evidence, this review proposes a theoretical model linking physical design features to affective outcomes, and identifies methodological gaps, particularly the lack of integrative, mixed-method approaches. The findings offer a foundation for affect-aware facade design, advancing evidence-based strategies to support psychological well-being in urban contexts.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

How built environment shapes cycling experience: A multi-scale review in historical urban contexts

Understanding how built environments shape human experience is central to designing sustainable cities. Cycling provides a critical case: it delivers health and environmental benefits, yet its uptake depends strongly on the experience of cycling rather than infrastructure alone. Research on this relationship has grown rapidly but remains fragmented across disciplines and scales, and has concentrated on network-level analyses of routes and connectivity. This bias is especially problematic in historical cities, where embedding new infrastructure is difficult, and where cycling experience is shaped not only by spatial form but also by how cyclists perceive, interpret, and physically respond to their environment - through psychological factors such as safety and comfort, physiological demands such as stress and fatigue, and perceptual cues in the streetscape. We systematically reviewed 68 studies across urban planning, transportation, behavioural science, neuroscience, and public health. Two scales of analysis were identified: a macro scale addressing the ability to cycle and a micro scale addressing the propensity to cycle. Methods were classified into objective and subjective approaches, with hybrid approaches beginning to emerge. We find a persistent reliance on objective proxies, limited integration of subjective accounts, and insufficient attention to the streetscape as a lived environment. Addressing these gaps is essential to explain why environments enable or deter cycling, and to inform the design of cities that support cycling as both mobility and lived experience.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2022

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fused Twins: A Review of Access to Digital Twins in situ in Smart Cities

Smart Cities already surround us, and yet they are still incomprehensibly far from directly impacting everyday life. While current Smart Cities are often inaccessible, the experience of everyday citizens may be enhanced with a combination of the emerging technologies Digital Twins (DTs) and Situated Analytics. DTs represent their Physical Twin (PT) in the real world via models, simulations, (remotely) sensed data, context awareness, and interactions. However, interaction requires appropriate interfaces to address the complexity of the city. Ultimately, leveraging the potential of Smart Cities requires going beyond assembling the DT to be comprehensive and accessible. Situated Analytics allows for the anchoring of city information in its spatial context. We advance the concept of embedding the DT into the PT through Situated Analytics to form Fused Twins (FTs). This fusion allows access to data in the location that it is generated in an embodied context that can make the data more understandable. Prototypes of FTs are rapidly emerging from different domains, but Smart Cities represent the context with the most potential for FTs in the future. This paper reviews DTs, Situated Analytics, and Smart Cities as the foundations of FTs. Regarding DTs, we define five components (Physical, Data, Analytical, Virtual, and Connection environments) that we relate to several cognates (i.e., similar but different terms) from existing literature. Regarding Situated Analytics, we review the effects of user embodiment on cognition and cognitive load. Finally, we classify existing partial examples of FTs from the literature and address their construction from Augmented Reality, Geographic Information Systems, Building/City Information Models, and DTs and provide an overview of future direction

cs.CY↗

arXiv2022

Experiments as Code: A Concept for Reproducible, Auditable, Debuggable, Reusable, & Scalable Experiments

A common concern in experimental research is the auditability and reproducibility of experiments. Experiments are usually designed, provisioned, managed, and analyzed by diverse teams of specialists (e.g., researchers, technicians and engineers) and may require many resources (e.g. cloud infrastructure, specialized equipment). Even though researchers strive to document experiments accurately, this process is often lacking, making it hard to reproduce them. Moreover, when it is necessary to create a similar experiment, very often we end up "reinventing the wheel" as it is easier to start from scratch than trying to reuse existing work, thus losing valuable embedded best practices and previous experiences. In behavioral studies this has contributed to the reproducibility crisis. To tackle this challenge, we propose the "Experiments as Code" paradigm, where the whole experiment is not only documented but additionally the automation code to provision, deploy, manage, and analyze it is provided. To this end we define the Experiments as Code concept, provide a taxonomy for the components of a practical implementation, and provide a proof of concept with a simple desktop VR experiment that showcases the benefits of its "as code" representation, i.e., reproducibility, auditability, debuggability, reusability, and scalability.

cs.CY↗