Public open spaces make crucial contributions to the livability of communities and promote physical and mental health. Soundscapes play an important role in the overall physical comfort of public open spaces. However, owing to insufficient studies of high-density situations, soundscapes are ignored in public open spaces in high-density residential areas. This paper presents a case study of a soundscape in the overseas Chinese town (OCT) of Shenzhen, China. Through in situ observation, four distinct soundscapes were easily identified by performing soundscape conceptualization according to the ISO. In terms of the four identified soundscape areas, subjective evaluations of acoustic comfort and annoyance and their influencing factors were thoroughly explored. The results reveal that the natural soundscape had the best evaluations, whereas the artificial one did not have the worst result. It is interesting to note that acoustic factors do not always significantly influence a soundscape’s evaluation. A non-acoustic factor such as the spatial function may play a role as it is related to the context of an individual perceiving an acoustic environment. This study provides first-hand empirical evidence for understanding soundscapes and the influencing factors present in high-density residential public open spaces. The results provide useful knowledge for enhancing soundscape quality in such spaces.

Rapid urbanization causes acute contradictions of road traffic noise on residents' health. Although many works have been done in this field, specific investigations of how to get a design of residential area to correspond road traffic noise is still limited, especially in a high population dense area. This paper, therefore, focused on high-rise residential blocks, researching relations between design variables and distribution of road traffic noise. In the study, a typical high population dense city, Shenzhen was employed as study case. Based on noise map simulation, design element, block layout, design of individual buildings was proved important in traffic noise impact. The results discovered that the noise reduction effect is relatively significant when the building setback is within 30 - 40 meters of setback curb. To minimize traffic noise impact, flexible layout of board point perimeter type might play an important role. Lowering building heights with increasing the number of building rows, two-story podiums around high-rise buildings, and the addition of balcony railing plate could result in significant noise reductions. Focusing on design elements, this work developed an overall evaluation to improve acoustic environment of high-rise residentials based on noise map simulation, and provided significant contributions in responding road traffic noise.