Improving the Environmental Health Benefits of Modern Community Public Spaces: Taking the Renovation of Residential Facades as an Example

Abstract

The complications and sequelae of COVID-19 have jeopardized the well-being of residents, hindering community sustainability. Experiencing positive emotions can mitigate or counteract the negative effects of some diseases, but modern residential facades cannot effectively stimulate positive emotions among residents. Traditional culture influences people’s emotional responses. However, it is unclear what the result would be if traditional architectural patterns, one of the symbols of traditional culture, were redecorated as modern residential facades. Therefore, this paper used questionnaire research to collect data from residents of the Zhouxinyuan community in Wuxi on different types of traditional architectural patterns in assessing architectural aesthetics (N = 365) and health benefits (N = 154), using the Wilcoxon signed rank test to analyze the data for variance. The results indicate that modern residential facades decorated with traditional architectural patterns were more consistent with residents’ visual preferences and more likely to stimulate positive emotions than existing residential facades. Most importantly, modern residential facades decorated with traditional architectural patterns showed higher health benefits, especially in calming emotions (mean = 5, SD = 1.033). Based on these findings and the theory of positive experience, this paper constructs a conceptual framework for modern community public space renovation that contributes to improving the health benefits of modern communities. The framework can mitigate or counteract the complications or sequelae of the pandemic, contributing to the sustainable development of modern community public space environmental systems.

Keywords

• post-pandemic era
• modern residential facades
• community public spaces
• positive experiences
• community health benefits