Post-occupancy Evaluation And Design Elements Research Of Campus Planning In Guangzhou Region Of China

There have been many qualitative studies on assessment of planning and design of higher educationcampuses in China. Also, there have been a small amount of studies on post-occupancy evaluation ofcampus traffic and public space. As increasing number of new university campuses are being built andcompleted, mistakes made in previous projects should be corrected and avoided. The study onpost-occupancy evaluation of campus planning is exactly the solution to this. Post-occupancyevaluation needs to be conducted to verify if there is any discrepancy between the theories of highereducation campus planning and the practice and if there is any discrepancy between the “professionalviewpoint” of designers and the comments of the general users.With higher education campuses in Guangzhou as the examples, research methods that are bothqualitative and quantitative, such as measurement, software analysis and mathematical analysis, havebeen employed in the study to find out the discrepancy among findings of satisfaction assessment onhigher education campuses. Moreover, comparisons are made between subjective comments andobjective comments in order to have quantitative research on the assessment results of campusplanning that are rather perceptual and provide supportive basis for qualitative judgment. This paperdiscusses the principles in campus planning and design from the perspective of satisfying users needsby revealing the difference of campuses in different planning forms and the gap between a newcampus and an old one.In view of the history of post-occupancy evaluation of campus planning and by summarizing theexisting research findings of China and foreign countries, this paper sums up the key issues in highereducation campus planning raised by experts in this field. The issues include appropriateness ofcampus site selection and regional layout, rationality of campus scale, thoughts on local features ofcampus planning, shaping of campus characteristics as well as ecological and energy efficientmeasures taken on campus. First, an exploratory surveyisconducted in the three higher education campuses in Guangzhou to findout the characteristics and potential problems of campuses that are of different administrative natures.Open-ended and standardized questionnaires are employed in the survey, which roughly outline thefactors of satisfaction assessment on campus planning.Second, some typical campuses in China are selected for subjective satisfaction assessment andcomfort assessment. Three rounds of questionnaire surveys are conducted to collect data. Also, twotypes of questions, general questions and specific questions, are included in the questionnaire. Impactsof identify, sex and age of the respondents on the survey are analyzed. The method of factor analysis isadopted to find out the factors in the system of students’ satisfaction on campus planning and theirweightings. The method of cluster analysis is then adopted to compare the merits of the assessmentfactors and the overall satisfaction assessment. The higher education campuses included in the surveyare categorized to discover the key factors that might influence satisfaction assessment and points ofconcern of students over campus planning, which will provide clues for studies on focal problems.Third, some focal problems in campus planning are selected for further study.Through horizontal comparison among colleges and universities in Guangzhou High Education MegaCenter (GZHEMC) and comparison on their old campuses and new campuses, this paper analyzes theimpact of campus site selection on the study and living of students and exchanges among faculty andstudents from different campuses. Through satisfaction assessment on intercampus exchange andresource sharing in GZHEMC, it learns that GZHEMC only has an average performance when itcomes to resource sharing.This paper then analyzes the sizes of existing campus sites in China and foreign countries, interpretsthe codes applied to previous campus planning and collects the data of campus size in Guangdong forGIS software analysis. Based on satisfaction/comfort survey on campus size, the paper comes up withthe regression curve of satisfaction on campus size and further discusses the range of reasonableindicators for campus size. A survey is also carried out on the daily routines of college students to see if any other functionalfacilities should be added on-and-off campus. A survey is conducted on the traffic distance and thetravel time to find out the relation among the reasonableness of campus functional layout, theconvenience of traffic system and the distances among major functions on campus, so as to have thereasonable travel distance values.Literature and materials regarding campus planning in China and foreign countries are sorted from thedifferent perspectives, i.e. form of open space, mode of traffic organization and combination ofbuilding shape. Typical Chinese and foreign campuses are selected for analysis on forms. Differenttypes of campus form are then simplified and space syntax analysis is conducted on typical cases towork out the key data for comparison. Matching analysis is also conducted to subjective data andobjective data to discover the relation between the planning forms/design types of different campusesand the subjective comments students made on them. The paper then tries to find out the design factorsthat would have major influence on the subjective comments and the connection between designapproach and use. It also attempts to discover the impact of different planning forms on perception ofcampus space.Through the mental map survey, mental maps of the typical campuses are produced to analyze how thecampus image is formed. Through the questionnaire survey on the imagery public spaces on campus,types and key points of the imagery nodes on campus are revealed. Then the mental maps and thequestionnaire results are combined for the study on the formation factors of campus spatial imageryand on the matching relation between the types of campus public activity and the demands on publicspace.In view of the development trend of information technology andthe existing problems and demands oncollege/university information intelligence system, as revealed in the questionair survey, the paperdiscusses the development trend of information intelligence system in colleges and universities. Thefeatures of ecological campus planning are summarized. With the findings of the semi-open questionnaire survey, implementation of ecological and energy efficient measures taken in collegesand universities in Guangzhou is described. Moreover, ecological and energy efficient designprinciples used in green campus planning are summarized.Finally, this paper sums up planning and design principles that will help enhancesatisfactin oncampus planning, which will provide guidance to the campus planning and design practices. Itproposes a system to assess students’ satisfaction on campus planning and provides referentialindicators for campus planning satisfaction assessment and campus planning and design practices.