Restorative Environment and Landscape Architecture

From the perspecive of landscape architecture, how to design an environment which can achieve the benefits of restorative is an important issue. Especially in the environment like hospital, health care, learning, office... There is a lot of research articles depicted the relationship between natural environment and attention restoration, stress release. These articles even pointing out the attributes of the benefits on psychological indicators like recovery, reflection and physiological indicators like heart rate, blood pressure, and brainwaves. However, from the perspective of landscape architecture, the planners and designers needs to how how to apply the research results into their projects and can produce the restorative effect in their works. therefore, how to depict the "environment" seems to be an critical theme for further studies. We need more studies to work on the environment side. Past researches have told us the nenefits of natural environment in comparisons to the urban or artificial environments. However, this is not good enough for landscape planners and designers to use on their pratical projects. Kaplan and Kaplan (ref.)tries to categories the features of the natural environment of being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility. It does give practice landscape architectures a guideline to follow. Researchers need to give criteria to designers of how to link the landscape elements, their composition, and configurations to these features to unravel the environment variables in the restorative environment.

剛冒出來的研究想法

還是個很不成熟的想法，完全沒有找過相關文獻或什麼的，可能也很無聊，不過還是提出來跟大家討論看看。

九月底參加戶外遊憩的研討會，重新聽了一次亦卉的報告；專討張維華副總來演講，提到創意生活產業……之類的在這裡不是重點，重點是經濟方面的概念。思考點是，人們從旅遊所獲得的效益（環境效益、遊憩效益、遊憩體驗、生心理…），與所付出的金錢及時間成本會不會成正比？或是，在知道可以獲得某些效益的情況下，遊客是否願意花費成本去達到或改變其遊憩地點？

相信很多人都會想出國旅遊，個人的夢想之一也是在工作前可以到歐洲自助旅行玩到過癮(雖然目前看來機會渺茫…)，但出國這件事在某個角度來看也非常勞民傷財，而且，要去哪裡？離我們很近的香港是個熱門選擇，但是若以景觀效益相關的實證研究來看，香港的環境應該不太具有恢復力；即使如此，我們能說到香港旅遊的效益比較低嗎？或許除了環境之外，遊客體驗到的是其他的收穫，或許是新奇、遠離日常生活(being away)、抑或是灑錢的快感……等等諸如此類(這方面可能許多研究已經做了只是我還沒找…)，而這些收穫應該也是可以提升遊客的生理或心理狀態。

這樣的敘述好像有點抽象，明確一點來看，香港與梅峰若共同比較的話，梅峰在環境的自然度以及花費上大勝，但遊客到梅峰旅遊對其心理效益(整體的，不侷限於ART的話)而言真的會有比較好的影響嗎？如果真的有的話，那觀光局和梅峰都會很開心，可以藉此宣導大家愛用國貨！

希望大家聽的懂我在講什麼，專討見識到惠美老師的講評，那種精確度我還差很遠很遠，請大家多多包涵！

元毓這學期的專討<國小孩童園藝活動效益評量表之建立研究>

和大家分享一下小女子本學期要做的專討內容:
研究動機
首先，近年來國內外針對園藝活動效益之研究日益趨多，代表這個議題越來越受到重視。但相關研究的園藝活動研究對象絕大部分為成年人，對孩童的研究相對較少，並且尚未發展出針對正常孩童之園藝活動效益評量表。第二，先前自然環境對於孩童效益的研究，其評量方式皆由老師、家長或其他觀察者作評估，且評估的工具是由研究者或成人擬定。因此，期評估量表是否會過度揣測孩童效益或者有一些重要效益在之中被遺漏掉。
由以上原因，引發本研究欲藉由質性訪談方式來探究這些問題。
研究目的
本研究欲藉由深度訪談，從專家、國小自然教師及國小孩童的訪談內容中，分析園藝活動對於學童影響之效益及並深入探討其影響因素。此外，並將由訪談內容萃取出的效益概念，擬訂成量表，於日後加以施測及檢驗其信效度。以期發展出適合國小孩童所使用之園藝活動效益評量表。
本研究尚未開始進行正式訪談，若大家任何建議或指導請跟我說喔!!謝謝

Restorative Component Measures

After Kaplan & Kaplan (1983) proposed restorative environment theory, the researchers have developed varies measures for the four components of restorative environments. In 1991, Hartig and colleagues published the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). The PRS used coherence to replace extent item. Later, Hartig continually conducted a series of studies in order to develop the PRS. Overall, these studies yielded a two-factors model result: a General Restorativeness Factor（includes being away, fascination, and compatibility）and a Coherence Factor. Korpela et al. (1996、2001) after found a similar factor structure with favorite and unpleasant places. Korpela suggested that further improvements using alternative item combinations and analytic strategies should be needed to refine the PRS.
Laumann et al. subsequently developed of a measure of the five restorative components with 22 items in 2001. Laumann split Being Away items into two factors: a physical being away, novelty (e.g., I am in a different place than usual) and a psychological being away, escape (e.g., I am away from my daily obligations). This empirical finding is in keeping with Kaplan and Kaplan’s original definitions of Being Away referring to either physical or psychological aspects.
However, it is interesting that since Laumann’s RCS provide a reliable measure of the 4 restorative components of nature and city environments, why the scale is not popularly used? There are so many measure tools to measure the restorative environments, how do we choose the scale to apply in our studies?
Additionally, about the translation problems, I think that Lanumann made a good example. The RCS questionnaires were first translated from Norwegian into English by one individual, then translated back by another individual. Maybe we can employ this approach to modify our Chinese questionnaires. Thus, we can diminish a misunderstanding between the English and Chinese translations.

A new measurement tool?

Most of the research that tries to measure respodents' attentional restorative effect were based on the Attention Restorative Theory (ART). Many researchers have developed the measuring tools to measure people's attention restorative effect. The scales were tested by exposure respondents to different environments, especially natural vs. urban settings. The 4 features of ART which includes being away, fascination, extent (coherence), and compatibility were adopted as the categories of the measuring scale items like the Perceived Restorative Scale (PRS). However, these items include several abstract descriptions that is hard to translate in to Chinese. The translation results come out ambiguous sentences which is hard to be understood by the respondents. Compare to the items in PRS, the attention restorative measurement scales developed by Staats 2003 are easier to translate. Instead of adopt the 4 features of the ART; the scale based its items on the recovery and reflection effect of the restorative environment. Although they carry different measuring items these items still measuring the restorative effect from the environment. Therefore, in our future studies that need to test in Chinese, the scale by Staats 2003 seems a better choice.