Abstract
In high-density cities, window-view green walls (GWs) are implemented to improve psychological well-being, but their design often ignores context. Existing research overlooks how GW geometric forms interact with ambient urban soundscapes. This study investigates this critical audio-visual interaction. We conducted a 4 (sound: between-subjects) × 4 (visual: within-subjects) experiment in Virtual Reality (N=80). Participants were exposed to four visual forms (No-GW, Triangle, Square, Rectangle) within four dominating soundscapes (No Sound, Traffic, Conversation, Ventilation), reporting their Stress and recovery results. Results revealed a significant interaction effect, showing the optimal GW shape for psychological well-being was context-dependent: rectangular forms were best for traffic dominating soundscape, square forms for conversation dominating soundscape, and triangular forms for ventilation dominating soundscape. These findings demonstrate that green wall effectiveness is not uniform; design strategies must match geometric forms to the specific acoustic environment to maximize psychological benefits.
Keywords
Green wall; Window view; Multisensory interaction; Psychological response
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.854
Citation
Li, W., Li, Y., Wang, H., and Liu, Y. (2026) Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines the Optimal Green Wall Form, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.854
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines the Optimal Green Wall Form
In high-density cities, window-view green walls (GWs) are implemented to improve psychological well-being, but their design often ignores context. Existing research overlooks how GW geometric forms interact with ambient urban soundscapes. This study investigates this critical audio-visual interaction. We conducted a 4 (sound: between-subjects) × 4 (visual: within-subjects) experiment in Virtual Reality (N=80). Participants were exposed to four visual forms (No-GW, Triangle, Square, Rectangle) within four dominating soundscapes (No Sound, Traffic, Conversation, Ventilation), reporting their Stress and recovery results. Results revealed a significant interaction effect, showing the optimal GW shape for psychological well-being was context-dependent: rectangular forms were best for traffic dominating soundscape, square forms for conversation dominating soundscape, and triangular forms for ventilation dominating soundscape. These findings demonstrate that green wall effectiveness is not uniform; design strategies must match geometric forms to the specific acoustic environment to maximize psychological benefits.