How Does the Residential Complex Regulate Residents’ Behaviour? An Empirical Study to Identify Influential Components of Human Territoriality on Social Interaction

Zahra Nowzari, Rachel Armitage and Mohammad Javad Maghsoodi Tilaki ()
Additional contact information
Zahra Nowzari: Department of Architecture, School of Art and Architecture, Azad University of Shiraz, Shiraz 7473171987, Iran
Rachel Armitage: Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
Mohammad Javad Maghsoodi Tilaki: Department of Geography, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Gelugor 11800, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-24

Abstract: Although urbanisation and urban land limitations are prevalent, residential complexes are seldom discussed as a means of compartmentalising social interactions and contributing to residents’ social interactions. Due to the spatial orientation of social interactions, semi-public spaces in these buildings are unable to host residents’ interactions due to a lack of appropriate arrangements/establishment of tangible and visible objects. The influential components, however, have rarely been identified in residential complexes. To fill this gap, using the theory of human territoriality, the current study explores the influential physical components of human territorialities in semi-public spaces in four residential complexes and investigates whether a significant relationship exists between human territorialities’ physical components and social interactions. This study collected data from 264 residents of four residential complexes with different spatial configuration layouts. Pearson correlation and Spearman’s rank correlation are used to evaluate linear and monotonic relationships between study variables. The correlation between spatial configurations of physical components and residents’ interactions confirms that spatial configurations influence residents’ use of semi-public spaces. Social interaction can, therefore, be improved through green space, brightness, accessibility, and furniture in common areas. The findings prove that residential complexes with clustered arrangements have not performed well in creating social interaction due to the lack of defined spaces and territories for people, but multi-core, mixed, and linear complexes that define several open and semi-open spaces have been more successful in the amount of social interaction of residents. This study is one of the first to identify the influential components using the integration of residents’ perceptions and spatial configuration.

Keywords: human territoriality; social interaction; semi-public space; green space; spatial configuration; accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11276/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11276/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11276-:d:1197881

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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