Bridging the Perception Gap: Enhancing Urban Community Resiliencethrough Small-Scale Green Infrastructure Design in Seoul

Urban Community Resilience (UCR) refers to the capacity of local communities to respond to and recover from complex urban crises. Green infrastructure (GI) is an infrastructure system that mitigates urban environmental problems and promotes community health. Especially, Small-scale GI can overcome spatial constraints in dense cities and be closely integrated into daily living environments, thereby contributing to the enhancement of UCR. However, despite increasing application, empirical studies evaluating its impacts on resilience remain limited, and GI designs that fail to reflect user needs may act as constraints on strengthening UCR.

This study aims to clarify the relationships between GI and UCR and to derive community-centered design strategies for small-scale GI to enhance UCR. Through a system-based analysis, key variables influencing UCR enhancement are identified, and the perception structures across different community groups are analyzed. Path coefficient analysis is then conducted to verify the significance of perception-change pathways for each group. Finally, perception gaps across stakeholder groups are comparatively analyzed to derive integrated design strategies.

This study focuses on the “72-Hour Urban Regeneration Project,” a citizen-participatory initiative in which small-scale GI is designed and constructed through public engagement and examines perception differences between designer and user groups. The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) is constructed based on indicators derived from previous studies to identify key variables and feedback structures between GI and UCR, and PLS-SEM models are developed for each community group based on these key variables. Second, path coefficients are estimated and their statistical significance is tested using group-specific survey data. Third, significant perception pathways are compared and analyzed to derive design strategies for small-scale GI implementation.

The analysis results indicate that GI improves quality of life through environmental benefits and enhances UCR by expanding social capital through community participation and network formation. Especially, place attachment was identified as a pivotal mediating variable that fosters emotional bonds through satisfaction with place-based experiences and encourages sustained participation, thereby continuously strengthening UCR. Based on the survey results, path coefficient analysis showed that GI experience enhanced UCR in both groups; however, differences in participation patterns and levels of temporal exposure led to variations in the significance of relationships among variables. While designers’ experiences in creating GI spaces induced place attachment and strengthened participation, users with intermittent exposure lacked sustained social interactions, which weakened pathways from attachment to participation due to a lack of social connections, which limited the enhancement of UCR. Therefore, the results indicate the need for design strategies that encourage repeated experiences and sustained visitation by users.

This study identified perception differences between designers and users in a Seoul-based public project and structurally analyzed relationships among key variables to derive small-scale GI design strategies for enhancing UCR. Perception gaps between groups arise from differences in use patterns, time exposure, and related factors, indicating the potential for unmet user needs. Therefore, this study emphasizes the necessity of establishing design strategies that address user demands, promote continuous participation, and ultimately contribute to strengthening UCR.