The Impact on People’s Well-being of Utilizing Greenery in the Design of High-rise Residential Building Balconies

The topic of well-being in the built environment has garnered substantial attention in recent years. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were confined indoors and had limited access to nature, the importance of spaces allowing some level of outdoor interaction was more recognized. This study aims to investigate the potential impact of incorporating vegetation in the design of high-rise residential building balconies on well-being. Immersive Virtual Reality Environment (IVRE) was utilized, and an experiment was conducted with 45 participants. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three distinct groups, each group consisted of two different VR environments. The balcony with no vegetation was kept the same in all three groups. The second environment was one of the three version of the balcony with certain volume of greenery added to its design (Low-Medium-High). Participants were then interviewed based on a standard questionnaire assessing well-being in the built environment. The questions aimed at determining which balcony design was more effective in enhancing well-being. The results indicate that greenery on the balcony has the potential to influence people’s well-being. The findings indicated that balconies featuring greenery demonstrated significant impact on individuals’ well-being. In such environments, individuals reported increased happiness, satisfaction, a sense of connection to others, greater independence, and an improved ability to accomplish tasks successfully, ultimately contributing to improved mental health. Further analysis demonstrated that the volume of greenery on the balcony does not significantly impact well-being. In other words, well-being can be enhanced even with a small amount of greenery, such as a few potted plants. Moreover, the results revealed that the reported positive impacts were not significantly moderated by participants’ differences in age and gender.