Exploring the Use of Immersive Virtual Reality to Assess the Impact of Outdoor Views on the Perceived Size and Spaciousness of Architectural Interiors

It has been widely reported that rooms with larger windows tend to feel more spacious, and previous studies have found a significant impact of the particular external view that a window affords on people’s preferences for its size and shape. However, little is yet well-understood about how what is seen through the window affects either the subjective sense of spaciousness in a room or the apparent metric size of the interior space. We report the results of a two-part experiment with 14 participants that uses HMD-based immersive virtual reality technology to assess the impact of multiple characteristics of outdoor views on both subjective ratings of spaciousness within a room and on action-based judgments of the room size. Across four different outdoor view conditions, spanning day/night and vista distance variations, as well as three different control conditions including the use of frosted glass, substituting a 2D painting for the window, and removing the window altogether, we found no significant differences in participants’ spaciousness ratings. Comparing room size judgments in a subset of the aforementioned conditions, we found a slightly greater underestimation of egocentric distance to the opposing wall when it contained a window onto a distant vista than when the wall was blank, with intermediate results in the case that a painting, rather than a window, was present. We discuss possible explanations for these findings and outline planned follow-up studies.