Exploring the dose-response of landscape preference: A case study in Singapore

Despite pursuing greening initiatives, cities might experience excessive greenery at the neighborhood level. The intension of this research is to promote ecosystem services and avoid the mantle of so-called “green urbanism”. Hence, examining the dose-response relationship is essential to understanding the intricate interplay between residential greenery quantity and landscape preference. Drawing upon preference assessment data from multiple neighborhoods with 30 typical scenes (n = 147), we employ Kaplan's landscape preference matrix (KLPM) to quantify the spatial distribution of greenery and individuals' preference assessment from the perspectives of Mystery, Coherence, Legibility, and Complexity. Results from multiple and ridge regressions indicate that the dose-response curve follows a polynomial shape, with landscape preferences reaching a threshold as the NDVI value increased from 0.35 to 0.42. Beyond the threshold, the trend of landscape preference levels tapers off and eventually plateaus. Therefore, the conclusion of our cross-sectional experiment adequately reflects the threshold effect of landscape preference toward greenery quantity. Furthermore, the weight of Mystery, Coherence, and Legibility in KLPM all showed a positive strong correlation, but the dose-response relationship cannot be fully explained by Complexity. These results inform how designers can more effectively promote optimal doses of nearby nature to circumvent worldwide overheated "Garden City” initiatives.