Effects of Permeability on Perceived Enclosure and Spaciousness

This article suggests that the ranges through which people can see through or move through environments are extremely important.The label corresponding to this theory is permeability theory. Eight hypotheses are generated from permeability theory using two responses (perceived enclosure and perceived spaciousness) and four properties of the physical environment (permeability of boundary, amount of light, horizontal area within a boundary, and boundary depth). Empirical data from 4 experiments, 54 environments, and 130 participants indicate that permeability theory correctly predicted 6 a priori hypotheses and also correctly predicted that the remaining 2 hypotheses would have effect sizes too small to detect. The main determinants of judged enclosure or spaciousness are visual permeability of the boundary, amount of light, and horizontal area. Numerical guidance is provided to assist future research.