INTRODUCTION As societies age and live longer, cities need to adapt the public space to properly attend to older people. In 2050, the UN (UNFPA, 2019) predicts that 16% of the world population will be over 65 years, contrasting with 9% in 2019. In Europe, the aging process is a trend, and data show that people over 65 years old in 2021 represented 19.7% of the total population growing to 28.5% in 2050. Furthermore, the growth of large cities is a global phenomenon and is where most of this group will live. The UN mentions that two in three people are likely to live in cities or other urban centers in 2050(UNFPA, 2019). In response, in 2007, the UN released the Age-Friendly Cities Global: A Guide(WHO, 2007), with a proposal to help cities become more age-friendly, highlighting the needs and opportunities to improve quality of life as people age. Active mobility, described as the use of walking and cycling in single trips or within a trip in combination with public transport(Gerike et al., 2016), is a fundamental part of our work, it is present in spaces studied and is a contemporary concept in search of a more sustainable urban environment. This work proposes the evaluation of architectural narratives, where real physical spaces were digitally converted and experienced in an immersive way by participants aged at least 60 years. Understand this public as actors in the design of urban public space and their perception when using immersive visualizations. Finally, create an instrument to evaluate the perception of public space using architectural immersive narratives. METHODOLOGY For the elaboration and presentation of an architectural narrative in virtual reality, it was necessary to build a structure to engage the elderly participants. Here, I explored the production of narrative for the construction of media content, considering the two types of virtual reality, real virtual reality (Huang et al., 2023; Mouratidis & Hassan, 2020), which uses omnidirectional cameras, and reality-simulated virtual environment, with 3D modeling and artificial environments(Fisher-Gewirtzman, 2018; White et al., 2023). Our work is composed of an architectural narrative(Coates, 2012; Psarra, 2009), where the attributes of physical space, on a human scale(Gehl, 2010, 2014) such as streets, sidewalks, buildings, trees, gardens, furniture, and others, in the complexity of the urban fabric, in the profusion of urban forms/cityscapes that provide and provoke sensations and feelings such as security(Cain et al., 2018; Lucchesi et al., 2021), mental health(Roe et al., 2020; Sarkar et al., 2014) and social cohesion(Chrysikou, 2018; Yu et al., 2019). Considering the need to adapt cities for this public in a short space of time, studying the architectural perception of older people in the outdoor environment is fundamental. To achieve this, I created an architectural narrative in four selected public spaces in the city of Lisbon, currently being tested with senior participants, containing a series of typological characteristics that will be categorized and classified based on authors (Mehta, 2021), tests and audits, such as NEWS(Saelens et al., 2003), BESSC (Burton et al., 2005) and UDQ(Ewing et al., 2005). This entire context takes place in a European metropolis, Lisbon, and its striking characteristics in the fusion of cultures, organized to investigate four different spaces. I do not identify historical characteristics and spaces of the city because our research explores the behavior and needs of the elderly in public space, how they use it, and their desires to reframe the space as an invitation to occupy the city's public territories. Walkability(Distefano et al., 2021; Nakamura, 2021), fear of falling(Eloy et al.,2018; Lee et al., 2018), visual comfort(Liu & Kang, 2018), presence of greenery(Firdaus, 2017), urban furniture(Walford et al., 2011), pavements(Strohmeier, 2016) and other characteristics were reported and are currently in the process of categorization and organization, as interviews about applied experiences receive thematic analysis(Clarke, 2021). The spaces studied are public roads with the presence of bike lanes, a process of change notably encouraged and requested(European Union, 2020), in the mobility and sustainable transition of large cities, which became car-dependent from the 1950s onwards(Jacobs, 1961), and in the opposite direction, are currently pursuing to become more resilient, sustainable and inclusive. Our work identified the need to construct a narrative/video structure that contains basic elements for the creation of the media, a storytelling and technical characteristics such as camera positioning, immersion time, lighting, and audio since it was defined that it would use real virtual reality(RVR). Our narrative option is linear in “physical” space, leading the participant to perceive the spaces, as a sequence of videos is presented. Based on the work of(Kim & Lee, 2022; Llinares et al., 2020; Mouratidis & Hassan, 2020), a series of short shots, lasting around 10 seconds, which progressed until reaching times between 50 and 90 seconds. The participant has a 360º range of vision, and smooth video progress that simulates a walk, in the time of a person walking slowly. Due to the chosen audience, people over 60 years old, it was necessary to adapt the experience so that it was pleasant and smooth, avoiding motion sickness, and thus providing interest in the media and video elicitation of the spaces experienced. The participants carried out semi-structured interviews after experiencing each of the spaces, where they reported their perceptions about the environments, after observing the four spaces, reported about the use of equipment and answered three questionnaires at the end, about the feeling of immersion, effort and perceptions. PRELIMINARY RESULTS Currently, in the transcription, organization, and categorization phase, points such as the enchantment in carrying out the immersive experience and perceiving themselves in “real physical” spaces, often recognized by some participants, as most of them are residents of the city of Lisbon and the metropolitan area. On the other hand, there is great resistance to the use of devices, considering that this audience is not digital native and uses technology with restrictions, is afraid to use the equipment and requires a relationship of trust. The study tested typologies in RVR and we are currently creating a panel/chart/table with the typological/morphological characteristics of these spaces and which ones were most and least well evaluated. By providing the participant with a sensorial perception of spaces, using stereoscopic glasses, we examine the limitations and advantages of using this equipment. Perceptions such as smell and tactile are not part of the experience. Vision, hearing and proprioception are predominantly the perceptions stimulated and participants reported positive perceptions, engaged and easily described perceptions about spaces, such as insecurity with bicycles and scooters, irregularities in the floor and narrow sidewalks. The presence of green areas, shading, openness and the presence of suitable furniture received positive mentions and comprise a set of information of great value for an objective of the study, which is to identify types of spaces most suitable for older people. The level of interaction in the experience is limited, since the participant can only freely view in any direction, but is led to walk in a defined direction, in the first frame he identifies the direction of the proposed route. The choice for this approach is a response to the time limitation for applying the experience (approximately 30 minutes), the training time required to perform more complex tasks, the low digital literacy of the chosen audience and the not to reward participants with financial resources as a reward. NEXT STEPS Organize the typological characteristics of the environments studied in a table format. Identify the most suitable spaces and the predominant characteristics in these spaces. The architectural requirements to advance in the construction of an architectural narrative that brings together perceptual factors in the design of urban morphology such as: streets, sidewalks, trees and buildings and their connection with perceptual factors such as openness, legibility, guidance, security, etc. Correlate with other more subjective and also important factors, namely: attractiveness, security, comfort, social cohesion and social capital. Identify the main architectural barriers and strengthen active mobility as vectors of inclusion in public space. What urban morphologies contribute to attracting visitors to public spaces? What are the main occupation factors for these territories? Empower older people to design and occupy public space, where active mobility plays a fundamental role in the quality of life of ordinary citizens in large cities and metropolitan regions. Question positivist approaches, based only on data and identify subjective factors of perception. Although we have limitations related to the senses of vision and hearing, it was decided to carry out the experiment with the participant sitted, where proprioception is applied with less intensity. Propose the use of sensors for the next narrative, in order to obtain more accurate data and the construct of the evaluation structure is validated, if possible in a psychometric way. What are the engagement strategies, through gamification, that attract these users to carry out tasks? The types of tasks and time required. Is it possible to use occasional game narratives? What are the main narrative models that lead to greater or lesser engagement for this audience. Define forms of interaction in the immersive experience that intuitively allow tasks/activities to be carried out to achieve the result. Test the tool/application, prototype and identify possible errors, such as misuse. Search for references in cognitive narratology, focus on the mental states, capacities, and dispositions that provide grounds for—or, conversely, are grounded in— narrative experiences(Herman, 2010). A cognitive structure which can be evoked by many different kinds of works , including interactive ones. Games can be both interactive and still provide coherent narrative experiences without adhering to fundamentalist notions of static storytelling (Koenitz, 2023). As a result, to prepare the instrument for evaluating public space, evaluate the possibility of formulating a narrative composed of a story in which the participant is invited to redesign an existing area or create a completely new area, according to their personal preferences. so that the space is as attractive as possible, sustainable, inclusive and friendly to older people. The aesthetics of the cognitive narrative, provided by the game and its “infinite” variations, allow participants to select the design of the space according to their personal. Here, it could be done through generative design, but in this case the subjectivity of the participant's own choices would be subjugated in the name of the algorithm's criteria-based selection. The immersive aesthetic provided by virtual reality has its own characteristics, vantages and drawbacks. In most applications/experiences, the user does not have any possibility of making interactions, such as picking up, deleting, swapping, breaking. Experiences such as those of(Johnston et al., 2023), sensitizing the individual through narratives with powerful and controversial content (intimate partner violence). Due to the interdisciplinary context, the game based scenario has a clear possibility to add the architectural perceptive context necessary to engage the audience and open infinite possibilities in the production of media content for my current research.

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