Public art and its influence on urban space happiness: a qualitative content analysis

Introduction:
In recent decades, enhancing citizens’ happiness and well-being has become an increasingly important concern within the study of urban environmental quality and the design of public spaces. In this context, public art extends beyond its conventional role as an aesthetic and decorative element and can be understood as an environmental and socio-spatial intervention capable of influencing citizens’ experiences through changes in the perceptual, functional, psychological, and social qualities of urban space. Despite the growing body of research addressing the relationship between public art and well-being, the specific mechanisms through which distinct attributes of public art contribute to happiness in urban spaces remain insufficiently integrated into a coherent and design-oriented analytical framework.
The Purpose of the Research:
This study aims to identify, categorize, and explain the components of public art that contribute to happiness in urban spaces and to elucidate the relationships among these components. It further seeks to develop a conceptual framework and translate the resulting evidence into a design-oriented guideline for the creation and enhancement of happier urban spaces.
Methodology:
A qualitative research approach was adopted using qualitative content analysis of the literature, based on an integrated deductive–inductive analytical logic within Mayring’s methodological framework. The primary corpus comprised 50 national and international scholarly sources published between 2000 and 2026, selected from peer-reviewed studies addressing public art, urban design, happiness, well-being, and environmental quality. Foundational theoretical literature was also incorporated to establish the contextual conceptual framework and the initial deductive categories. The data were analyzed through three successive stages of open, axial, and selective coding. In addition to identifying concepts and thematic categories, the frequency and conceptual overlap of the extracted categories were examined to determine the most recurrent and analytically significant components.
Findings and Discussion:
The findings indicate that the contribution of public art to urban happiness can be conceptualized through two interrelated levels of influence: individual and collective. At the collective level, three principal dimensions were identified: aesthetic–functional, social–security, and economic–tourism dimensions. These dimensions contribute to positive urban experiences by enhancing visual and functional environmental quality, generating place memory and identity, strengthening place attachment and participation, facilitating social interaction, reducing perceived insecurity, and creating opportunities for economic activity, tourism, and urban vitality. At the individual level, three complementary dimensions were identified: cognitive–affective, perceptual–environmental, and psychophysiological dimensions. These encompass mechanisms such as stimulating creativity and curiosity, improving environmental perception, enhancing perceived safety and comfort, reducing stress and anxiety, and fostering positive emotional states. Accordingly, public art operates through a multilevel pathway in which the physical, perceptual, symbolic, and social characteristics of the urban environment are translated into individual psychological and affective experiences and, subsequently, into broader collective outcomes.
Conclusion:
The findings demonstrate that public art should not be regarded merely as a decorative or beautification-oriented component of urban space; rather, it can function as a multidimensional environmental and socio-spatial intervention for enhancing citizens’ happiness and well-being. Empirical evidence from field-based and experimental studies further supports the role of selected artistic interventions in reducing stress and anxiety and improving individuals’ psychological experiences of urban environments. On this basis, the proposed conceptual framework establishes a systematic relationship among objectives, components, strategies, design approaches, and specific design actions, thereby enabling the translation of theoretical findings into tangible urban design interventions. The framework can provide an evidence-informed basis for assessing and designing happiness-supportive urban spaces and for formulating cultural, public-art, and urban-design policies aimed at enhancing citizens’ well-being and the experiential quality of urban environments.