Coupling measurement of historic districts’ spatial morphology and public perception: a case study of Shen’ao Village, Tonglu, Hangzhou, China

This study reviews the multidimensional research perspectives and methodologies concerning spatial morphology and spatial perception in historic districts. Addressing the lack of integrated methods and analytical techniques that leverage multimodal social media data in existing studies, it proposes an innovative approach for measuring the relationship between spatial morphology and public perception in historic districts. The Shen’ao Historic District in Tonglu County, Hangzhou, is selected as the case study, and Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City is adopted as the theoretical framework to analyze and assess the district’s spatial morphology and public perception. By combining multimodal social media data with machine learning and deep learning techniques, two machine learning models are developed to examine the influence of spatial morphology elements on public perception. The main findings are as follows: ⑴ The spatial image elements of the Shen’ao Historic District are consistent with its spatial patterns; ⑵ Spatial morphology elements derived from multimodal social media data exert pronounced visually driven, hierarchical, and nonlinear effects on public perception; ⑶ Public perception of historic districts is shaped by the synergistic interaction among multiple spatial elements and the integration of spatial narratives.