Quantifying Tranquility in Urban Environments

Identified tranquil locations in cities by investigating the perceptual features of tranquility across visual and auditory modalities in downtown Hartford, CT and Central Park, NY.

The city is an incredibly lively and dynamic environment, but sometimes humans need an escape from all of the bustle. The problem is that in a city, finding a place to escape is difficult. I worked with Liz Caltagirone to capture quantitative measurements of tranquility across both Hartford, CT and Central Park to identify walking trails where people can go to find peace. We used sound level measurement devices and photographic features along with subjective human responses taken along the trails as a ground truth.

Our Project Website!