From Placement Pathways to Vitality Responses: Spatial Vitality Activation Through Installation Art in Industrial Heritage District Regeneration

Installation art has become a common intervention in industrial heritage creative districts, where it contributes to place identification, pedestrian orientation, and the everyday use of external spaces. Its spatial performance, however, is closely related to the location and spatial hierarchy in which it is placed. Taking the Zhengzhou Oil & Chemical Plant Creative District as a case study, this research examines 18 external-space units through manual pixel-level street-view semantic annotation, 320 on-site questionnaires, behavioral observation, and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). The Installation Visibility Index (IVI), Openness Index (OPN), and Visual Focality Index (FOC) were used to describe pedestrian-scale visual structure; the Subjective Perception Index (PI) and Spatial Vitality Index (VPI) were used to evaluate perceived quality and observed public-space use. The four installation art placement paths presented distinct visual profiles. Visual identification-oriented units had the highest mean IVI and FOC, whereas functional activation-oriented and spatial guidance-oriented units were characterized by greater openness. Spatial vitality followed a clear hierarchy, with mean VPI values of 0.9563 in entrance and core node spaces, 0.5201 in main-axis spaces, 0.3660 in secondary-axis spaces, and 0.2001 in edge spaces. The visual identification-oriented path had the highest grouped VPI (0.7731), although four of its six units were located at entrances or core nodes. Grey Relational Analysis indicated that users’ overall spatial perception had the strongest association with observed vitality, while installation visibility, visual focality, and openness showed moderate and broadly comparable associations. The findings demonstrate that the contribution of installation art depends on its visual organization and its coordination with spatial hierarchy, surrounding functions, and pedestrian use. The study provides a micro-spatial framework and hierarchy-responsive design guidance for installation art in industrial heritage regeneration.