## 1 Introduction
Good landscapes can influence auditory perception and mitigate noise annoyance [24; 25; 26]. A study on the effects of visual factors on noise suggested that the architectural styles of ancient religious buildings and good landscapes can induce quietness [27]. Green open spaces in residential areas were found to largely influence soundscape evaluations, acting as moderators that released noise-related stress [28]. In public open spaces, some works found that human activity was one of the main determinants [29; 30]. In summary, landscapes, and sound sources are of critical importance to a soundscape's quality, although the behavior status of a person can have an impact. To evaluate soundscapes, many descriptors have been studied and evaluations of annoyance and comfort have been emphasized the most [31; 32]. According to ISO 12913-2, a soundscape can be assessed by an individual through the perceived affective quality of the present surrounding acoustic environment, which includes eight affective attributes: pleasant, vibrant, eventful, chaotic, annoying, monotonous, uneventful, and calm. Although annoyance evaluation is included in ISO/TS 12913-2 [33], acoustic comfort evaluation is excluded. However, in this ISO, an overall evaluation of the surrounding sound environment is also required, which is much closer to an acoustic comfort evaluation, as studies on public open spaces indicated that both are highly correlated [34]. In addition, acoustic comfort is one of the descriptors used to evaluate soundscape quality [35] and it has been found that it can be categorized as a component of the pleasant descriptor. Soundscape evaluation can be influenced by multiple factors, such as acoustic and psychoacoustic factors, perception attributes, cultural backgrounds, and features of the physical environment [36]. In addition, the sound source has an essential influence on a soundscape's evaluation, and the spectrum and semantic meanings play a role. Moreover, the landscape and the events occurring at a site cannot be ignored when studying soundscape evaluations. There is increasing acknowledgment that soundscapes have a significant impact on the quality of public open spaces, which is even more important in high-density cities, such as Chinese metropolises. Although extensive soundscape evaluations have been carried out in public open spaces [13; 17; 22; 28; 34; 37], there is still a research gap in evaluating soundscapes and influencing factors in high-density residential areas. Previous works have studied soundscapes in urban high-density residential communities and indicated that the dimensions of relaxation, communication, and quietness were significantly positively correlated with soundscape quality. Broad research is needed as additional factors have not been investigated. In this study, three research questions were evaluated:  
**RQ1. **: _What is the perceived quality of the soundscape in a public open space in a high-density residential community?_
**RQ2. **: _How do acoustic factors and psychoacoustic parameters affect the perceived quality of the soundscape?_
**RQ3. **: _Do spatial functions affect soundscape perception?_  
This paper thus explores the soundscape types, subjective evaluations, and influencing factors of an open space in a high-density residential area. A typical residential open space, the overseas Chinese town (OCT) ecological square, Shenzhen, China, was selected as the study site to represent a high-density residential area. It was selected because it is often used by inhabitants of the OCT community and is open to the public. In this study, the soundscape descriptors of annoyance and acoustic comfort were applied and evaluated to reflect soundscape quality. These two descriptors were chosen because they are significant indicators that are often used to describe soundscape quality in public open spaces. Furthermore, they are crucial descriptors that predict the value of a soundscape [38; 39].