Design Standards to Ensure the Quality of Public Spaces in Social Housing Apartments from a Community Perspective: A Case Study of Saigon – Ho Chi Minh City

Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam is a typical mega-city with high population density coping with urban infrastructural issues. Public space is one of the most important elements of an urban area which involves creating a quality of life for people in urban areas. Public spaces are really necessary to promote public health, in addition to allocating adequate budget and resources for preventive health programs and follow-up community health monitoring (Barbarossa 2020). According to Ho Chi Minh City's housing development goal in the 2021–2025 period, “striving to develop low-cost social housing” for the low-income or middle-income community to access (Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, 2021), the city government is making every effort to improve the quality of life for all classes of people. The paper aims to explore the people's assessment of the current state of public space in their place in HCMC with the case study of four apartment residences in four different districts. It is carried on with 400 surveys and in-depth interviews with the apartment managers. Then, the case of public space in HCMC will be discussed to have a specific look into the design standards to ensure the quality of public spaces. Finally, it provides suggestions for reshaping public spaces in urban planning strategy, meet the demand for using public green space of people living in social housing apartments.