Where do People Interact in High-Rise Apartment Buildings? Exploring the Influence of Personal and Neighborhood Characteristics

Linh Nguyen, Pauline van den Berg, Astrid Kemperman and Masi Mohammadi
Additional contact information
Linh Nguyen: Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Pauline van den Berg: Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Astrid Kemperman: Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Masi Mohammadi: Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 13, 1-23

Abstract: Early studies conclude that high-rise apartment buildings present challenges for people’s quality of life, resulting in social isolation, social annoyance and anonymity for residents. Nevertheless, empirical research into factors supporting social interaction in high-rise apartment buildings is still scarce. This study aims to investigate how often and where people in high-rise neighborhoods interact, and how this is affected by personal and neighborhoods characteristics. A mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods was used including social interaction diaries and questionnaires among 274 residents, in-depth interviews with 45 residents and objective measurement of the physical environments in four high-rise apartment buildings for low in-income people in Hanoi, Vietnam. Results demonstrate that social interaction is influenced by a number of personal and neighborhood characteristics. Furthermore, most social interactions—also gathering and accompanying playing children—take place in the circulation areas of the apartment buildings. However, the use of these spaces for different purposes of interaction is found to have negative impact on people’s privacy, the feeling of safety and cleanliness of the shared spaces. The findings of this study provide information for planners and designers on how to design and improve high-rise apartment buildings that support social interaction.

Keywords: high-rise apartment buildings; social interaction; personal characteristics; neighborhood characteristics; spaces for social interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/13/4619/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/13/4619/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:13:p:4619-:d:376964

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().