ABSTRACT
University landscapes can either aggravate or alleviate rising student stress, yet few studies quantify how individual campus spaces contribute to psychological restoration in hot semi-arid contexts. This pilot study assessed perceived restoration across the five most frequented outdoor and semi-outdoor settings at Manipal University Jaipur. Thirty undergraduates (70 percent female; mean age = 20.7 years) completed the 26-item Perceived Restoration Scale (PRS) for every site they had visited in the previous two weeks. Six reverse-worded items were recoded, and component and Overall PRS scores were computed. Results show outdoor, vegetation-rich environments consistently elicited stronger feelings of fascination, being-away, extent, and compatibility than the indoor reference space, regardless of how often or why students visited. Shaded microclimates, visual contact with greenery, and reduced ambient noise emerged as common restorative cues. These insights underline the importance of integrating canopy cover, diverse planting, and acoustically buffered niches into campus planning, especially in water-stressed climates where outdoor comfort is easily compromised. The findings add context-specific evidence to Attention Restoration Theory and offer design recommendations for biophilic, mental-health–supportive campuses in arid and semi-arid settings.
