IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities
Abstract
In architectural theory and criticism, beauty and attractiveness are often conflated within aesthetic response, yet they denote separate experiential and measurable qualities regarding visual form. Conservation of heritage architecture requires systematic evaluation whilst retaining attention to human perception and culture. This study applies computation measures of visual attraction to clarify Portmeirion’s emergence as a tourist town. Extending to the integrated framework of Lee and Ostwald (2022), Visual Complexity (D) and Attractive Strength (S) are computed for five facades representative of Portmeirion’s stylistic range. Visual Attractiveness (A) is treated as the emergent property produced through this interaction within the compositional complexity and held gaze through salience-based attention modelling. Findings indicated that a facade’s appeal is not reduced to a single metric. Rather attractiveness depends on how visual information is organised to guide an observer, revealed by two distinct activations through ordered complexity or strong features which monopolise attention immediately. In the case of Portmeirion- curated as a village rather than a museum- this study presents a reproducible computational workflow to quantify perceptual triggers of attraction, without flattening interpretive richness. Therefore, findings practically provide evidence for conservation and visitor-experience within design, uncovering the specific visual features and attention patterns to clarify why places designed for everyday life, cue and encourage sightseeing behaviours. This paper contributes to the Culture & Heritage strand of the conference.
Tia Manning is an architectural designer and alumna of the University of Salford, currently pursuing a Master of Architecture (MArch). Her work explores why environments capture and sustain attention, focusing on how visual complexity, composition, and perceptual cues shape spatial experience. Using computational analysis, she studies architecture and landscapes as composed scenes that guide movement and engagement. With a focus on women’s experiences of the built environment, her research examines how architectural elements influence comfort and unease, informing safer design.
Ian W. Owen is an architect, researcher and lecturer in Architecture at the University of Salford, where he is Programme Director of the Master of Architecture (M.Arch). His research focuses on post-war architectural heritage, post-war industrial design and architecture pedagogy. His work examines questions of preservation, interpretation, representation and the evolving conditions of architectural education, while also engaging semiotics and visual analysis through particular expertise in Roland Barthes, mythology, and the cultural reading of images and objects. Working across qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry, he explores how architecture and design are critically understood, historically situated, and pedagogically framed within contemporary cultural and technological contexts. He serves as an Architectural Archives Advisory Panellist for Wales, is a member of the Editorial Advisory Group for Touchstone, the annual journal of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales, and is a Contributing Editor for Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS). His latest book is Histories of Housing: From Historical Foundations to Modern Challenges.
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Thursday 18th June, 2026