A study on factors influencing the spatial oppressiveness in small courtyard spaces within university residential areas

A number of obstacles in terms of the growing demand for residential spaces for students in China's education industry. Changing urban development patterns often lead to densely populated, unpleasant university residential neighborhood, posing threats to the well-being of university personnel. This study addresses the limitations of past research, focusing on a real campus's enclosed high-rise student apartment courtyard. Using three key design variables (courtyard area, building height and ground-level interface transparency), 27 sample scenarios were developed for psychological experiments. The findings indicate that while visual scene complexity has minimal impact on oppression to confined environments, building exposure and sky visibility do. People's perception of openness is determined by building exposure, sky visibility, and visual complexity. Higher visual complexity and greater sky visibility enhance the sense of openness. Satisfaction is primarily influenced by sky visibility. The study also conducts a multiple linear regression of spatial and psychological indicators and discusses the tolerance threshold for spatial oppressiveness and the spatial oppressiveness under various spatial types of samples.