Designers often believe that environmental design improves quality of life. Preference as an index of motivation has influences on many aspects of people. Based on a study of the relationship between actual uses and preferred outdoor environments, this research aims to deepen our understanding of place via public input and to improve the design quality of the central community garden (CCG) of high-rise flat residential areas (HRFRAs) in China. With a total of 902 respondents from six HRFRAs, the investigation was carried out in three major Chinese cities, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, in September 2006. Analysis at a general level reveals the preferred environmental patterns and significant predictors of the respondents' actual use. The comparisons at the city level indicate the territorial differences and characteristics of each city, respectively. Analysis of the results indicated that a quiet, green environment in an informal design style was the preferred environment which would improve residents' frequency of use. Of the environmental elements, waterscape and evergreens were particularly important to users. Although both of them are important to people's actual use, the effect of the prospect indicator (perspective of the CCG looking from a resident's window) was relatively weaker than the indicator of affordances, such as exercise facilities and children's playgrounds, etc. On the other hand, the results of the study explain the gap which often occurs between landscape architects' intentions and the manner in which the elements of the design actually work, in users' opinion. Landscape designers of the HRFRAs in China need to reorder the emphasis of the design aspects and adjust the contents of the environment to satisfy users' social, functional and psychological needs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:757054 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Fu, Xing-Yuan |
| Publisher | Heriot-Watt University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/32235 |
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