Abstract

Urbanization is progressing rapidly in China. To accommodate the increasing population, high-rise residential buildings are becoming more prevalent in urban areas. But residents of high-rise buildings have little opportunity to socially interact with their neighbors, and this lack of social interaction may generate community-relevant negative outcomes, such as loneliness, reduced helpfulness, and insecurity, all of which have an adverse effect on the overall satisfaction level of the community. To address this issue, there is a need to develop strategies for community-oriented high-rise residential building designs that take into consideration China’s specific realities.

Due to the high-density living environment that is prevalent in China, it is difficult to create living environments that promote social interaction and the formation of good relationships between neighbors because the public space is typically limited to ground-floor areas. Although interior public spaces represent an important element of the space available in high-rise residential buildings and can provide useful areas in which residents can communicate with their neighbors, they are generally limited in function to traffic/circulation areas. Furthermore, in most cases, the design of these spaces is not conducive to social interaction. As such, the goal of this paper is to explore how the interior public spaces of high-rise residential buildings can be better used to promote social interaction between the occupants of the building.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

High-rise apartment buildings--Social aspects--China; High-rise apartment buildings--Design

Publication Date

Fall 2018

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Architecture (M.Arch.)

Department, Program, or Center

Architecture (GIS)

Advisor

Nana-Yaw Andoh

Advisor/Committee Member

Giovanna Potesta

Advisor/Committee Member

Dennis A. Andrejko

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

ARCH-MARCH

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