The experiential walk diary. Mapping urban experience combining architecture and psychology

The “experiential” walks represent a varied and sound approach applied in different disciplines to collect knowledge about urban contexts, pay-ing attention both to their physical and social features. Due to the inherently interdisciplinary nature of such practices and their study objects, they represent a preferential method for develop-ing a dialogue between urban design and social sciences. This paper contributes to this dialogue by presenting a procedure and an assessment tool designed to highlight the link between cities’ envi-ronmental and psychosocial features. The method was applied in Milan in the framework of the activ-ities of the international project CNRS Internation-al Research Group (GDRI) ‘Translating Ambiances’ (2014 – 2017). The results’ analysis highlights some key elements of the shared perception of the Garibaldi-Repubblica area in Milan, offering a qualitative-quantitative representation of the par-ticipants’ experience. We suggest different applica-tive uses for the proposed method, which allows obtaining comparable data from different contexts and types of participants.IntroductionThe urban practices of ‘experiential walk’, which includes several types of walks such as sound walks, smell walks, commented walks, and the ‘ex-periential walk diary’ here proposed, is particular-ly useful for studying the social and urban context staring from people’s observations in motion (Thi-baud, 2001; Thibaud, 2013; Piga, 2017; Radicchi, 2017; Piga, Siret, & Thibaud, 2021). The phenome-nology of the urban environment and its immate-rial (e.g., Thibaud, 2011; Pallasmaa, 2014) and emo-tional meanings (place identity) (e.g., Twigger-Ross et al. 2003), connect the disciplines of urban design and planning with those of environmental psy-chology (Boffi & Rainisio, 2017). This paper aims at contributing to this fruitful dialogue by propos-ing an interdisciplinary methodological approach based on a qualitative-quantitative tool designed ad hoc by the authors.The pilot case study, here presented, has been ap-plied in Milan within the framework of the inter-national project CNRS International Research Group(GDRI) ‘Translating Ambiances’ (2014 – 2017). The International Ambiance Network promoted the GDRI, which deals with the sensory domain with an interdisciplinary perspective and a specific fo-cus on architectural and urban ambiances. The GDRI group aimed at investigating the idea of the translation of ambiances in four central perspec-tives: linguistical, for clarifying the concept of am-biance; disciplinary, by exploring scientific bridges between different domains; in terms of senses, by experimenting with multimodal forms of expres-sion; concerning the profession, for exploring mo-dus operandi. Our contribution is transversal to the last three objectives of the research. The pro-posed methodology, i.e., the ‘experiential walk dia-ry’, investigated the ambiances of places, intended as “the physical atmosphere processed through human senses, culture and personal experience” (Piga & Morello, 2015, p. 8). The method was ap-plied to the Garibaldi-Repubblica area, precisely on the Porta Nuova district, a large-scale redevelop-ment urban area (approximately 30 hectares) (Ar-cidiacono & Piga, 2008), nowadays almost wholly transformed. The pilot was the first experimental application aiming to demonstrate the method-ology applicability in practice, but the method is relevant for different territorial contexts.The paper is structured in three main parts: the theoretical background, the methodology devel-oped by the authors, the case study application. Conclusions and future works close the contribu-tion