Fostering social sustainability in dense cities: Design lessons from Singapore's social and ecological spaces

Social sustainability is often overlooked in building design, particularly in dense urban environments with limited green and public spaces. Singapore provides a unique context to examine buildings that successfully integrate social and ecological spaces, supported by progressive policies and regulations. This study investigates key factors that contribute to creating community-oriented socio-ecological environments. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) across 31 socio-ecological variables, we analyzed 30 diverse buildings in Singapore, including residential, mixed-use, educational, healthcare, and hotel buildings. Six architectural design strategies —perimeter buffers, horizontal breezeways, vertical breezeways, breezeway courtyards, breezeway atria, and green roofs— were evaluated for their impact on these factors. A composite desirability score, derived from factor scores using desirability functions and K-means clustering, was used to identify high-performing buildings. EFA revealed four key factors: enhancing environmental quality, promoting physical wellness, improving mental wellness, and increasing social amenities. Mixed-use and public housing buildings emerged as the most effective in fostering socio-ecological benefits, followed by educational and hospital buildings, with private housing showing the least impact. Notably, different design strategies contributed statistically to each factor: horizontal breezeways are linked to higher environmental quality, perimeter buffers to higher mental wellness, and breezeway courtyards to higher accessibility to amenities. These findings provide actionable insights for designing buildings that promote both social and ecological sustainability in dense urban contexts.