Research of Young Adults’ Residential Floor Plan Preferences Through 2D Visualization and Immersive Virtual Environments: A Comparison with Quantitative Floor Plan Attributes

This study investigates young adults’ residential floor plan preferences through the Traditional 2D environment and immersive virtual environments and explores whether immersive virtual environments can more effectively identify young users’ expressed preferences under simulated pre-occupancy evaluation conditions. It further examines the relationship between subjective preferences and quantitative floor plan attributes. Eight small and medium-sized apartment units currently on the market in Fukuoka, Japan, were selected as case samples. First, a quantitative evaluation framework was established by combining space syntax analysis and principal component analysis, through which floor plan attributes were reduced to three interpretable dimensions: privacy, comfort, and functionality. Second, a within-subject experiment was conducted in which 20 young participants evaluated the same eight floor plans under both 2D and immersive virtual reality conditions using the Residential Spatial Satisfaction Questionnaire. The results show that the virtual reality condition produced significantly higher ratings for privacy, comfort, functionality, and overall satisfaction than the 2D condition. In addition, immersive virtual reality yielded greater plan discriminability and clearer group-level preference rankings, indicating that it more effectively reveals differences among alternative housing schemes. However, the preference rankings derived from subjective evaluation in virtual reality showed only limited agreement with the rankings generated by the principal component analysis-based physical framework, suggesting that objectively optimized spatial attributes do not automatically correspond to users’ expressed residential floor plan preferences. Overall, the findings indicate that current housing design logic may not fully respond to the experiential needs of potential young users, and that early-stage residential design evaluation should place greater emphasis on user-centered assessment. Compared with traditional 2D representation, immersive virtual reality provides a more effective medium for pre-occupancy housing evaluation and preference-based design decision making.