A Study on the Influencing Factors of the Cultural Image Perception in Subway Station Space: Taking the Subway Stations in the Historic Districts of Beijing as Examples

Abstract

In the new round of urbanization, subway construction has increasingly become the main axis of coordinated urban underground space development. As the engineering and technical problems are better solved, the construction and transformation of underground space turns to pay more attention to creating spatial “images” that satisfy psychological experiences, and to strengthen the “thematic” relationship between the aboveground and underground spaces. Based on the application of the theory of image creation in underground space and the coordination of urban public cultural construction, many cities have engaged in spatial practices using subways as cultural media carriers, prompting the gradual interpretation of the subway station space as a symbol for inheriting regional culture and displaying urban images. In the process of transforming the essence of subway station space design from “function”to “human-centricity”, the expression of cultural images such as the city’s regional characteristics, historical heritage, and place spirit has become the core issue in related practice and research. Although existing studies have conducted a certain degree of normative research on the environmental elements and design strategies that enhance the expression of cultural images in subway stations, they have ignored the empirical analysis of cultural image influencing factors measured from the perspective of the user’s subjective perception. Therefore, this study draws upon a literature review and analysis to extract variable evaluation indicators that characterize the cultural image of subway station space and environmental design factors, aiming to investigate in depth how the environmental design of subway station space can effectively strengthen the cultural image perception of the surrounding area. The study takes the typical historical and cultural subway stations adjacent to historical districts-Nanluoguxiang Station, Shichahai Station, Yonghegong Station, and Zhangzizhong Road Station as the research objects, while defining both the above-ground and underground parts of the subway station as the spatial research scope. It obtained the data of the users’perception and evaluation data of cultural images and related environmental elements, through 252 Likert scale questionnaires, and combined SPSS and AMOS software to systematically and quantitatively analyze the environmental design factors that affect the perception of cultural images in the subway station space and their degree of correlation, with a view to providing reasonable optimization strategies and development suggestions for relevant cultural practices on subway stations. The evaluation indicators of the questionnaire include two parts. One is the perception result of the cultural image of subway station space, including the cultural atmosphere, historical background, image taste, and regional characteristics as the evaluation indicators. Secondly, the environmental design factors affecting the perception of the cultural image of the subway station are classified into above-ground and underground spaces. The above-ground part involves 7 evaluation indicators, including spatial scale and outline, feature and style, detail elements, accessibility to tourist attractions, open space connection, landscape features, and entrance signage. Underground space involves 8 evaluation indicators, including the visual interface of subway station hall, platform area, auxiliary facilities, public art, signage system, thematic atmosphere, and spatial experience. In order to determine the environmental design influencing factors of the cultural image perception of subway station space, and to find the internal structural relationship between the variables, the research first uses exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to divide the initial 15 environmental design indicators into reasonable dimensions, and thenthe structural validity test was carried out by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and the relationship model between the common factors of environmental design and the corresponding heading items was revised. Finally, in order to establish and verify the structural model of the perception of spatial cultural images in subway stations, the research employs structural equation model analysis (SEM), taking the result of perception of spatial cultural images in subway stations as the dependent variable and the common factor of the space environment design as the latent variable to verify the variables, including the influence relationships, the degrees of association and the regression path coefficients among them. The research results show that: (1) In the evaluation of cultural image perception, the item expressing the historical heritage of the location has the highest score. In the horizontal comparison of the comprehensive evaluation of the cultural image of the 4 sample subway stations (Yonghegong Station > Nanluoguxiang Station > Shichahai Station > Zhangzizhong Road Station), the evaluation results are basically consistent with the current environmental status of the built spaces of each subway station; (2) based on the exploratory factor analysis results, the main dimensions of the space environmental design of the subway station are determined to be three aspects: Feature coordination, interface decoration, and service facilities. Based on the confirmatory factor analysis to optimize the measurement model and structural model, the correlation between environmental design factors and cultural image perception was analyzed. The three latent variables all have a significant positive impact on cultural image creation and have different degrees of influence. The degree of correlation is F1 feature coordination > F2 interface decoration > F3 service facilities, and the environmental design factors are significantly positively correlated. Therefore, if the overall design between the three can be coordinated, the cultural image expression of the subway station space can be effectively strengthened; (3) the demographic variable difference test shows that factors such as gender, age, education level, and occupational background have no obvious influence on the perception and evaluation of cultural images and environmental design factors of the interviewees, which proves that actively creating cultural images of subway station space universally applicable to all demographic groups; (4) based on the structural equation model verifing the causal relationship between environmental design factors affecting cultural image perception, the model fitting results are effective and credible. The regression path coefficients of the three latent variables of feature coordination, interface decoration, and service facilities are 0.40, 0.37, and 0.23, respectively. The correlation coefficients of the three latent variables have increased, indicating that the respondents’perception of the cultural image of the subway station space comes primarily from the recognition and judgment of the coordination of the characteristics of the historical district station area, followed by the decoration of the spatial interface in the subway station. Information transmission is affected to a certain extent by the quality characteristics of the spatial service facilities inside and outside the subway station. The more obvious the design intention of the subway station’s spatial environment, the stronger the cultural image perception. Finally, based on the results of quantitative analysis, the study puts forward the strategic suggestions and a design process for systematicallyshaping the cultural image of subway station space from five aspects: Creating an integrated human-centric space environment, coordinating the surrounding features of subway stations, strengthening the construction of underground space scenes, improving the human-centric service facilities in the station area, and cooperating to build the overall cultural image of the city.