Vertical living vs sustainable communities: open space design within high density urban neighbourhoods in Hong Kong

Abstract

Open space is an important urban design element with high social, environmental and economic value, and is an important determinant for building sustainable communities. In Hong Kong the open spaces allocated within vertical neighbourhoods act as extended semi-public living spaces from the otherwise tight private living spaces. This paper focuses on such open spaces which are designed and allocated for communal activity. In the case of hyper dense cities such as Hong Kong the attributes of urban compactness and mixed use, have implications on the quality of open space, impacting the residents’ satisfaction and use of such spaces. Such implications hamper the quality of open space and thereby its influence on building sustainable communities. Literature identifies some negative factors such as the lack of open space provisions, crowding, lack of privacy, lack of greenery and poor environmental quality and positive factors such as reduced travel time, better social contact and safety in open spaces. This paper tests the impact such factors have on the overall satisfaction and use of open space in vertical neighbourhoods. Questionnaire surveys are conducted in selected high density neighbourhoods in Hong Kong in order to collect data on open space evaluations by the residents. Statistical analysis is done to identify the significant variables influencing optimal user satisfaction and its implications on building sustainable communities in vertical neighbourhoods. Key