Today, most of our living spaces in cities are apartments, small apartments with limited spatial dimensions. The significant reduction in the quantitative dimensions of apartments in urban environments due to urbanization growth, increasing land prices, and construction costs has become a concern for users and designers.
The reduction in apartment dimensions makes residential interior spaces with large and spacious areas desirable for residents. One of the spatial qualities that contributes to an enhanced sense of the interior space and creates satisfaction among apartment residents is the use of spaciousness. The focus of the present study is to understand the spatial physical components that affect the quality of spaciousness, to improve the interior space of apartment housing from the residents’ perspective. Spaciousness is a spatial quality that can be utilized to enhance the interior space of apartment housing and contribute to the desirability and satisfaction of residents within the apartment space. However, given the importance of understanding the quality of spatiality and its influential components concerning improving the interior spaces of apartment housing, research that has so far addressed this spatial concept has focused chiefly on physical components and has paid less attention to spatial components that influence the quality of spatiality. The present study aims to identify the physical spatial components that affect the quality of spatiality in apartment housing, which provide favorable conditions for residents in the interior space of apartment housing and lead to their satisfaction. Given the complex and multidimensional nature of the research topic, it can be said that this study deals with an in-depth understanding and analysis of the qualitative and value load of components related to improving the quality of the interior space of apartment housing based on the lived experience of residents; therefore, it is an exploratory study. The research approach is qualitative. A qualitative approach is practical for studying human-environmental phenomena. A qualitative approach can be employed to study phenomena such as emotions and mental processes that are challenging to understand using conventional research methods. Since the research topic aims to understand the factors affecting the quality of spatiality from the residents’ perspectives and their lived experiences, the research methodology is phenomenology. The phenomenological method is employed in the classification of methods related to the qualitative approach, which aims to understand and explain patterns among individuals based on their lived experiences. The data obtained from the interviews in the present study are analyzed using the thematic analysis (TA) approach. This method involves analyzing and describing the perspectives of the participants (in this study, the residents). Thematic analysis focuses on the context within which the data is situated. Therefore, based on this analysis method, the researcher can systematically collect people’s perceptions and interpretations with greater accuracy and sensitivity in relation to a phenomenon, utilizing a range of data. The statistical population of the study consists of 15 residents from a typical apartment building in Borujerd city, who were purposefully selected. The method used to analyze the data obtained from the interviews with residents is thematic analysis. Thematic analysis, a qualitative method in data analysis, categorizes patterns to understand users’ experiences of environmental characteristics based on their lived experiences. To explain the components of spatial quality from the residents’ perspective, a six-step thematic analysis (TA) method is employed. Semi-structured interview questions from residents of a typical apartment building in Borujerd are categorized into three levels: 1- Descriptive information to control for social, cultural, economic, and individual variables. 2- Designing categorized questions based on the components obtained from the research literature as a starting point and preliminary fieldwork, and 3- Questions related to what components make the interior space of the house appear larger (perceived larger) and the satisfaction of its residents, regardless of the components obtained from the research literature. The results of the study indicate that the use of physical spatial components —spatial dimensions, spatial properties, spatial organization, spatial details, and the characteristics associated with each of these components —leads to the desirability of the interior space for residents and contributes to their satisfaction.