Cite this article
(2023) ‘Bibliometric analysis of water at the intersection of environmental psychology and biophilic design’, Architecture Papers of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU, 28(1), pp. 17-35. https://www.doi.org/10.2478/alfa-2023-0003
SUMMARY
Environmental psychology is one of the fields that examine human relationships with nature. Another concept that attempts to describe humans’ instinctive connection with the natural world is biophilia. Biophilic design is a field that examines the human-nature relationship. Environmental psychology and biophilic design are the fields that are related to architecture, built environment and natural environment. It has been seen that water can be a common intersection point of both environmental psychology and biophilic design with an architectural approach. Within the scope of this study, water –at the intersection of environmental psychology and biophilic design– is the main focus. This work is a part of an ongoing research on perceptual and affective aspects of water in terms of biophilic design.
This study seeks to explore the research related to water at the intersection of environmental psychology and biophilic design, with a view to identify current research gaps, authors, theorists, keywords, added terms, significant sources, and publications. The bibliometric analysis with science mapping techniques was found to be a fast and the most suitable method for the discovery to be made within the scope of this study. It is aimed to investigate what kind of findings there are in the literature on the approach to water in environmental psychology and biophilic design. Applying the bibliometric analysis method to the collected data can determine which fields are more recent, which authors work in these fields, which keywords are used, and which references can be used. Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases were scanned with the bibliometric analysis using the science mapping techniques. The research was based on a quantitative research design, and quantitative data was collected from the said databases. After scanning the bibliometric data of Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection, data files were transferred to VOSviewer.
The keywords environmental psychology, biophilic design, and water were used. In the documents section of the Scopus database, all fields were scanned with the code ALL (“Environmental Psychology” AND “Biophilic Design” AND “Water”) in the advanced search field. In the documents section of the Web of Science Core Collection database, all fields were scanned with the code ALL=(“Environmental Psychology” and “Water”) OR ALL=(“Biophilic Design” and “Water”) in the advanced search field. A total of 292 documents were identified, of which 139 were found in Scopus and 153 in the Web of Science Core Collection. The analyses for both searches delivered the following findings. Eight analysis types common to both databases were collected according to scan findings in all fields. These descriptive analysis types contained information about the document types, publication years, top 15 countries or territories, top 15 subject areas, top 10 sources, top 10 authors, top 10 affiliations, and top 10 funding sponsors. Moreover, the oldest document in Scopus was dated from 2007, while the oldest document date in the Web of Science Core Collection was dated from 1995.
Further, the study evaluated document types, publication years, top countries, top subject areas, top sources, top affiliations, top funding sponsors, primary authors and co-authorship, author keywords and co-occurrences, citations of documents, co-citations of cited references and cited authors based on the bibliometric data of 292 documents in total collected since 1995. The data was downloaded by scanning with the keywords environmental psychology, biophilic design, and water in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection. The concepts related to the biophilic design-environmental psychology clusters and the developments over time (current trends) by overlay visualization for the concepts were identified via co-occurrences mapping. The cited authors and cited references related to the biophilic design-environmental psychology clusters were identified via co-citation mapping. The documents’ relationship and the authors’ relationship related to the biophilic design and environmental psychology study areas was determined by citation of documents mapping and co-authorship mapping.
As a result of co-occurrences mapping, current research gaps and concepts were identified based on the findings. In the databases selected for scanning, the gaps determined by the scanned keywords are biophilic design, biophilia, emotional design, perception, architectural design. As a result of co-citation mapping, authors and references were identified. In the databases selected for scanning, the primary authors who can be examined as reference sources determined via keyword scanning are Edward O. Wilson, Florian G. Kaiser, Joye Yan-nick, Terry Hartig, Linda Steg, Rachel Kaplan, Robert Gifford, Roger S. Ulrich, Stephen Kaplan, Stephen R. Kellert, Thomas R. Herzog, Timothy Beatley. Lastly, it was revealed that the concepts derived from water at the intersection of environmental psychology and biophilic design research areas have just begun to be studied and have a growing tendency. In addition, in the approach to the relationship between space and water in architecture, biophilic design has been found to be a more recent field than environmental psychology. Consequently, the concepts identified in this study and especially the new combinations that can be established with the biophilic architecture approach allow to design new research topics.