A study on demographic differences in visual preference evaluation in the renewal of post-1949 industrial heritage a case study of Shenyang, China

In East Asia, the industrial heritage represented by China after 1949 has become an important object for urban renewal due to its unique modern architectural features and collective memory. This research takes the Hongmei Cultural and Creative Park in Shenyang City, China as the research object. Based on the light stimulation experiment, a quantitative analysis was conducted on the differentiated effects of four demographic characteristics, namely gender, age, educational background, and permanent residence area, on the visual preferences of building physical attributes (decoration ratio, window-to-wall ratio, environmental ratio, and degree of renovation) in the renewal of industrial heritage after 1949. The study analyzed the differences in group preferences through questionnaires combined with multiple linear regression. The results show that: (1) There are significant differences in the visual preferences for physical attributes among different groups. (2) This difference can be quantified (for details, see the main text). (3) The 25%-44% transformation range is the peak of public preference. This study provides a quantitative basis for the differentiated strategies of industrial heritage renewal design after 1949 and offers an empirical reference in the East Asian context for the global regeneration of such industrial heritage.