Enhancing Place Attachment Through Natural Design in Sports Venues: The Roles of Nature Connectedness and Biophilia

With the rise of green building and biophilic design, how sports venues enhance users’ place attachment through natural design features has become a critical interdisciplinary research topic in architecture and environmental psychology. This study adopts an integrated perspective of environmental psychology and architectural psychology to investigate the impact mechanism of natural design features (natural visibility, integration, and interactivity) on place attachment. Using a maximum likelihood-based structural equation model with a sample of 1022 users of waterside sports venues, this research pioneers the construction and validation of a parallel mediation model involving nature connectedness and biophilia. The findings reveal that (1) natural visibility, integration, and interactivity all significantly and positively influence place attachment; (2) nature connectedness mediates the relationship between natural design features and place attachment; and (3) biophilia also mediates the effect of natural design features on place attachment. This study makes a groundbreaking contribution by uncovering the dual-path “perception-emotion” mechanism through which natural design elements influence users’ psychological responses. The results provide empirical support for the refined application of nature-embedded strategies in architectural design and offer direct guidance for enhancing the social sustainability of high-density urban waterfront public spaces.