Informal Learning and Spatial Perceptions in Cold-Climate Residential Communities

Abstract

Community public spaces support everyday interaction, leisure, and shared activities, and these routines may generate informal learning through observation, imitation, conversation, and joint practice. Research suggests that spatial affordances, comfort, accessibility, and visibility can shape such opportunities, yet this everyday learning remains underexplored.Informal learning in everyday community life is difficult to identify, and its relationship with ordinary social interaction and residents’ perceived spatial conditions remains insufficiently understood in community public spaces.Prior research mainly examines informal learning in campus settings, leaving community public spaces underexplored. It also rarely explains how everyday social interaction becomes learning, or how residents’ perceived and actual spatial conditions jointly shape that process.The study aims to explore how residents’ environmental perceptions and behaviours relate to everyday informal learning in public spaces of cold-climate urban communities.The study seeks to identify everyday informal learning forms and contexts, examine their relationship with social interaction, and explore associated spatial perceptions and environmental characteristics through multiple data sources.This study adopts an exploratory mixed-methods design. Semi-structured interviews identify informal learning events, learning processes, and spatial conditions; a questionnaire examines the distribution of residents’ experiences, social interactions, and spatial perceptions; spatial audits document objective environmental features. The three data sources are triangulated through thematic coding, descriptive statistics, and cross-case comparison.Findings identified informal learning through incidental information exposure, active inquiry, observation and imitation, involving domestic skills, childcare and exercise. Learning and social interaction showed partial overlap while retaining distinct forms. Accessibility, open sightlines and sunlight were commonly valued spatial attributes in cold-climate communities. Seating and space for group interaction were more associated with socialising, while fitness equipment,children's play settings and power access were associated with learning experiences.This study offers an exploratory account of informal learning in residential communities, clarifying its relationship with everyday social interaction and perceived spatial characteristics.Findings suggest considering spaces for observation, imitation and experience exchange when designing residential environments that accommodate everyday informal learning.The small, non-random sample limits generalisability, while the exploratory design does not support causal conclusions about spatial conditions.