Conceptual Parametric Relationship for Occupants’ Domestic Environmental Experience

Abstract

Today’s architectural design approaches do not adequately address the relationship between users’ spatial, environmental and psychological experiences. Domestic environmental experience generally indicates users’ cognitive perceptions and physical responses within dwelling spaces. Therefore, without a clear perception of occupants’ experiences, it is difficult to identify proper architectural solutions for a domestic environment. To understand notions of these domestic experiences, the current study explores the theoretical relationship between spatial and environmental design factors within domestic settings which led to the concept of “Environmental Experience Design (EXD)”. Extensive data exploration was conducted using a combination of thirty keywords through different databases (e.g., Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, Mendeley and Research Gate) to categorise the relevant literature regarding thematic study areas such as human perception and phenomenology, environmental design and psychology, residential environment and design, health-wellbeing and user experiences. This study has identified theoretical associations between spatial and environmental design factors of different domestic spaces that can stimulate occupants’ satisfaction and comfort by reviewing eighty-seven studies from the literature. However, occupants’ contextual situations significantly impact domestic spaces, where spatial and environmental design attributes may be connected to diverse sociocultural factors. The scope of explanation about user context is limited, to some extent, in environmental design theories. Thus, combining occupants’ contexts with spatial and environmental design factors will be a future research direction used to explore the notion of “Domestic Environmental Experience Design”.

Domestic Environmental Experience Design

“…Pallasmaa revisited human emotional adaptation processes and interactions within the built environment [42]. Humans observe their near environments through their senses [43][44][45]. Diverse environmental design attributes influence humans' sensory perceptions in numerous ways within their built environments [3,6,36].…”

“…The domestic setting has both indoor and outdoor environmental factors that reflect occupants' needs and demands [43]. The domestic setting protects occupants from unwanted bad weather, while occupants' psychological comfort or satisfaction needs to be well maintained to enhance their wellbeing [2,33,43]. The term "domestic environment" refers to the space where occupants live and correlate with sociocultural and environmental factors that may affect their health and wellbeing [5,6].…”

“…The domestic environment has various purposes and meaningfulness related to occupants' spatial and environmental factors. Generally, a domestic environment is the combination of three types of spatial zones (e.g., public, semipublic and private) distribution [43]. The domestic indoor environment can be connected with the external outdoor environment.…”

“…The outside environmental relationship through openings, window, balcony and toilet attachment may create a spiritual connection with occupants' minds [3,6]. Domestic satisfaction or comfort depends on the occupants' needs and preferences closely related to their spatial and environmental factors in living environments [43].…”

“…Occupants' sociocultural contextual factors may impact different spaces in a domestic setting where the spatial character to be related to different sociocultural preferences. Today's architectural design approaches do not adequately address the relationship between users' context, spatial and environmental design factors as well as occupants' psychological satisfaction and comfort [43].…”