Research On Scales Of Exterior Space In Urban Low Rise High Density Housing Communities

People are always trying to create perfect environment to live in. Society has been through numerous changes, political alternations and technological inventions have deeply shaped the forms of contemporary residential developments with various trends; and geographical differences may also cause the diversity of residential building forms. However, despite the uncertainty of presentative features among various home developments, there is one factor that is universal and almost remains unchanged:it is the scale of living space, which is derived by human scale. What kind of space form can better meet the human needs for living, and how do scales influence the quality of residential spaces? These are the central points of this research.The paper uses both domestic and overseas correlative theories as conferences, integrates design approaches and planning principles with knowledge from various subjects, such as sociology, psychology, human behavior and ecology, to look for feasible exterior spatial scales of housing developments that can serve contemporary lifestyle the most. First, the paper described the concept and structure of low-rise high density housing, presented its evolvement history as well as contemporary conditions, and estimated its prospect in future; the paper then analyzed the constitute of exterior space of low-rise high density housing, summarized the critiques towards domestic projects, and indicated how important of scale is to the quality of the exterior space of low-rise high density housing; from perspectives of ecology, function and anthropology, the paper researched the scales of public spaces in low-rise high density housing projects, argues that spatial scale should determined by dwellers'needs for outdoor activities, and the pattern of human behavior; the paper discussed the methods and scales of traffic spaces in low-rise high density housing communities, in the contents of motor vehicle traffic, non-motor vehicle traffic, and vehicle-pedestrian sharing traffic; in terms of transitional space, the paper researched entrance space, boundary space, fringe space, and impenetrable space, reviewed the interrelationship among their forms, functions and scales.