The Role of Height Perception in Administrative Building Façade Visual Sustainability

Abstract

One of the defining characteristics of modern structural engineering feat is height. Tall buildings have been continually listed to be aesthetically pleasing with great impact in defining the immediate built environment. The affirmation of this statement was tested on university administrative building facades to identify the relationship between building height as an aesthetic perception for visual sustainability. In testing the validity of building height in aesthetic preference for future application in architectural designing, ten administrative buildings were selected from southwest Nigerian universities through the stratified random sampling technique. Quantitative data were obtained from 577 respondents, which comprised of staff and students from the ten selected universities through a close-ended structured questionnaire. Selected building façade photographs were also attached to elicit a response from respondents. The study involved identification of height as an important building façade element and also examining respondents’ perception of building façade height for visual sustainability. Data analysis was done using frequencies, percentages, mean ranking, and factor analysis. Building façade height was ranked third in terms of importance for visual sustainability, while buildings above four floors were observed to be most preferred by respondents. The findings of this study imply the need for planners and designers to ensure distinguishing the university administrative building as the tallest in relation to other campus building facades. This affirms the importance of height in the visual sustainability of this building typology and overall campus outlook.