The relevance of the topic of the article is caused by the low quality of the architectural environment, which is determined among other things by the requirements for sufficient insolation not only of residential premises in houses, but also in the territories adjacent to them. However, more and more often there are demands to abolish the concept of insolation, leaving only the concept of illumination, which is caused by investment interests to increase the density of buildings not only by a simple increase in the number of storeys, but also by a reduction of insolation gaps between buildings. It is quite obvious that such ill-conceived decisions can adversely affect not only the health of subsequent generations, but also the gene pool of the nation as a whole. At the same time, the already low architectural quality of the mass dwelling will finally become unsuitable for a full life. In this regard, the purpose of this study is a chronological analysis of the impact of insolation requirements on the calculated building density standards and the evolution of the aesthetic appearance of mass housing at different time stages. To achieve the goal, tasks have been set related to the loss of privacy and scale to humans in the environment, the identification of insufficient greenery and places of quiet rest in an open space, which leads to the facelessness and monotony of the spatial pattern of new construction. A hypothesis has been put forward about the need to switch from multi-storey construction to low-rise buildings of comparable density with the obligatory preservation of insolation standards, which will help ensure a high aesthetic and sanitary-hygienic quality of development.
The issues of insolation, and accordingly the quality of mass residential development, were considered in the works of individual scientists and research teams, published in 2004–2023 in free print on the pages of the electronic e-library and the databases of Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), Scopus, and Web of Science.
The results of search queries include 104 links with a sample of 20 articles, the analysis of which was carried out taking into account the following main directions: the history of changes in the standards for ensuring insolation of premises in residential buildings and in the territories they formed, as well as the effect of the duration of insolation on building density injection and, as a result, deterioration of the architectural appearance of mass residential development.
The prevailing trends in reducing the time of insolation in residential premises and in playgrounds, together with the growing number of square meters per unit of territory, led to a deterioration in the quality of life in areas of new housing construction. The transition from multi-storey to low-format high-density residential buildings will help improve the architectural appearance of mass housing.
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• building density
• architectural appearance
• quality of living environment
• insolation of premises
• lighting of premises