DEVELOPMENT OF A STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL FROM THE INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL ASPECTS AUDITORY, VISUAL, AND THERMAL TO MULTISENSORY COMFORT IN PUBLIC OPEN SPACE

• Main Author: Putu Amanda Nitidara, Ni
• Format: Dissertations
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/67113
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Comfort is one aspect that greatly influences the use of public open spaces. In such spaces, humans are exposed to multimodal stimuli so that their perception of comfort is influenced by the various stimuli they receive. Auditory, visual, and thermal, aspects are the main stimuli commonly found in the built environment. However, the combined interaction between these three aspects and how it affects the perception of overall comfort, especially for conditions in public open spaces in Indonesia, is not fully known. This study uses the Structural Equation Modeling method to model the interaction between aural, thermal, and visual aspects in public open spaces in Bandung by observing the physical parameters of the environment and the perceptions of space users. The research was conducted by field and laboratory experiments using a virtual environment. Ecological validity, internal validity, and construct validity tests show that for the same environmental conditions, the virtual environment is able to produce the same perception as the real environment. Results of this study showed that there are four factors that describe multimodal perceptions in public open spaces, including Comfort, Visual Sensation, Aural Sensation, and Thermal Sensation. The SEM model shows several factors affect the comfort in public open spaces in the city of Bandung, among others, microclimate, wind, shading, and noise. Multimodal relationships were also seen where the strongest relationship was found between the aural-visual and visual-thermal aspects. The model also shows that the thermal aspects have the greatest effect on comfort, followed by the audio and visual aspects. The following objective parameters can influence the optimum comfort value in public open spaces: SVF maximum 50%, Tree coverage 45-55% can increase comfort, maximum air temperature 300C with a range of RH values at 65-70%, wind, L90 maximum 60 dBA.