The Impact of Integrating Chinese Cultural Elements into urban Housing Design on Residents’ Quality of Life

Abstract

Integrating Chinese cultural elements into urban housing design often faces problems such as superficial symbol application, discontinuous spatial organization, and homogenized residential experience. To address these issues, this paper proposes a design approach based on Semantic Spatial Encoding and the Residential Behavior Perception Model. The research is conducted in three stages. First, cultural spatial semantics are extracted from 10 urban communities, and correlations among architectural symbols, color systems, and human psychology are analyzed. Second, SSE is used to construct a multidimensional spatial feature matrix covering morphology, imagery, and linguistic symbols. Third, RBPM optimizes spatial design using residents’ activity trajectories and preference data. The method is applied in three pilot communities. The results show that residents’ cultural identity increases by 23.6%, psychological comfort scores rise from 3.8 to 4.5, and space utilization efficiency improves by 18.2%. The study verifies the effectiveness of semantic cultural-space design in enhancing residents’ sense of belonging and quality of life, and provides a quantifiable method for embedding cultural heritage into modern urban housing systems.