In Japan, various projects are promoting “vibrancy creation” as part of urban walkability initiatives. These efforts aim to enhance the appeal of cities and create lively downtown areas. However, most current approaches focus on physical place-making and street design that encourage consumption behavior, while concrete guidelines for achieving spatial vibrancy remain unclear.
This study focuses on the psychological and physiological aspects of pedestrian comfort within crowded spaces. We hypothesize that vibrancy is not only generated by spatial design but also by how pedestrians adapt to the presence of others when crowd density is within a tolerable range.
To explore this, we analyzed passive sensitivity toward simulated “vibrant spaces” using biometric sensors and the Semantic Differential (SD) method. Participants’ physiological responses were measured with ECG and EEG sensors while they observed crowd-like scenes at varying interpersonal distances.
The biometric data indicated that physiological stress remained low in vibrant conditions. However, EEG beta activity tended to increase, suggesting a higher level of concentration when observing vibrant spaces. Notably, distances between 3,000 mm and 5,000 mm elicited the highest engagement, implying that this range may be optimal for perceiving vibrancy. According to SD evaluations, “crowdedness” showed the strongest impression scores across all categories, highlighting its importance in pedestrian experience.
This study was conducted under controlled laboratory conditions to minimize environmental noise. Future work will involve field experiments to examine how environmental factors influence both impression and physiological responses in real public spaces. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of how people adapt to crowded environments and may provide design guidelines for creating psychologically comfortable and vibrant urban spaces.