Use of Common Areas and Their Association with the Physical Environment in a High-Rise Housing

Abstract

Extensive use of information and communication technology and overall dynamics of smart cities may hamper the use of common areas in a residential environment. Hence gaining knowledge of types of use of common areas in a modern residential environment in cities and also the association (if any) between the attributes of the physical environment and the types of use becomes necessary. This research investigates the common areas of high-rise group housing complexes in the city of Kolkata in India, providing opportunities for a chance encounter and a range of usage as perceived by the households. A face to face interview for users’ opinion, along with space syntax analysis, systematic on field inventory, assessment and behavior observation, followed by a series of hierarchical linear models (HLM). The result shows that both objective and perceived attributes of the physical environment have a significant association with uses of in-door and outdoor spaces.