Serwa Karimi - Professor of Architecture, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Islamic Azad University of Mahabad

The main purpose of this study is how humans perceive urban views and compare it with video ecology and the degree of compatibility and overlap of these two perspectives in understanding space. The method of this research is based on phenomenology. How each person perceives and describes a space. For this purpose, a number of volunteers were selected from Mahabad. These people chose city facades and explained their perception of them. Participants' descriptions of perceived negative and positive emotions were classified and the main themes were identified. The data were then compared with videoecology theory. The results show high overlapping of these two perspectives in defining space from the observer perspective. Factors that cause positive and negative emotions in observers are completely covered by videoecology results. But this research shows that phenomenological theory has a more comprehensive view of the factors affecting the cognition and perception of space than the videoecology method. Phenomenological results show that the perceiver pays attention to both physical and spiritual factors of space. The reason for this could be a psychological perception. This is because the perception of space causes a wide range of emotional reactions in humans and thus explains things that are not seen in the physical dimension.

videoecology, phenomenology, perception, urban facades.