Constructing Belonging Sense In Communities For The Needs Of Inhabitants

Residential community is the material foundation for the survival of mankind. The quality of a community can deeply influence its inhabitants’living. So, what do inhabitants need from their communities? What is the connection between inhabitants’ needs and the belonging sense of community? What is the status of belonging sense in contemporary residential communities? More importantly, how do we construct a residential community with strong sense of belonging? To address these questions, the paper deployed the research with six sections.The first chapter mainly presented the reason of researching on constructing the belonging sense of residential community, and brought out the question, goal and area of the research, as well as the meaning and method of the research.The second chapter concluded and summarized the theories of constructing residential community in various stages of the process of urbanization. The paper concluded that the evolvement of a residential community has a trend of developing "material shortage" to "emotion shortage"; the development of theories of residential community, presents a trend that emphasizing "spirit place" more than "material space"The third chapter analyzed the emotional factors of the belonging sense of residential communities, and the category of inhabitants’needs, to discuss the relationship between inhabitants’ needs and the belonging sense. The paper argues that to construct communities with sense of belonging is to construct communities that can fulfill the needs of inhabitants.The fourth chapter presented five means of acknowledging the sense of belonging, as well as the methods of constructing it. The paper discussed the methods of constructing belonging sense for residential communities from five perspectives, such as sense of safety, comfort, communication, identity, accomplishment; analyzed the needed material and psychological conditions for constructing the sense of belonging; the paper then concluded that safety sense is enhanced by protections from both material and psychological realms, comfort sense is ensured by multi-pleasure that from activity and sensibility, communication sense is generated from the process that inhabitants matching with places, identity sense is derived from the exploration of local environment, and accomplishment sense is enforced by the interaction among individuals.The fifth chapter analyzed the status and problems of contemporary residential communities in terms of belonging sense, based on the results of field surveys.In the sixth chapter, the paper tries to develop the basic principles for constructing belonging sense, such as principle of satisfaction, safety, comfort, communication, identity, and participation.To sum up, the paper tries to promote the "humanity" aspect in the process of residential community construction, by providing urban planners and architects with detail references about inhabitants’psychological and behavior phenomena, and to enrich the theory system of urban planning as well as residential architecture.