We analyse architects and nonarchitects' emotional assessments of different districts in their own city (Valencia, Spain) by applying Kansei engineering techniques. A field study was carried out on a sample of 140 subjects (70 architects and 70 nonarchitects) who were asked to express their opinions on different areas in the city. The set of emotional impressions used by architects and non-architects to describe their sensations was obtained using differential semantics. The semantic space was described by 9 independent axis which explained 62% of the variability. Then, for each collective the set of impressions which influence the final residential or investment area decision was analysed. This relationship was obtained applying linear regression models. The results showed no significant differences between both groups so that the emotional attributes determining the choice of area were very similar for architects and non-architects. Greater discrepancies were found when the purpose of the choice was investment and not residential. Finally a neighbourhood was semantically profiled to represent and compare both collectives' perceptions. 1. Introduction There are many studies on the differences in architects and nonarchitects’ evaluations [1–13]. Some studies have analysed the categories that both collectives use when assessing buildings. Groat [2], for example, studied the differences in architects and economists’ perceptions and found that while economists classified housing on the basis of type, architects used quality of design, form, style, and historical significance categories. In this regard, in an analysis of two office blocks in Chicago, Devlin [7] observed that whereas nonarchitects tended to give descriptive assessments based on affection, architects provided conceptual, more abstract assessments. Other studies have focused on the different assessments of architectural styles. Gans [1] observed that architects preferred “high” style over “popular”, the style preferred by nonexperts. Subsequently, Devlin and Nasar [6] concluded that this was due to the different emotional assessments which the styles caused in both collectives. For nonexperts the “popular” style was coherent, pleasurable, and clean, signifiers which architects attributed to the “high” style. Fewer works have attempted to identify what specific design elements cause the different assessments. In this regard, Gifford et al. [11] analysed the relationship between the physical characteristics of buildings, the perceptions “attractive” and “pleasurable,” and the subject’s overall
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