Objective  The green space next to the residence in the residential area is the green space closest to the residents’ life and used by the residents. It not only has ecological aesthetic value and health care function, but also can shield the low-rise residents’ space of the residence, and has certain safety. By constructing the quality evaluation index of green space beside urban residential area buildings, this study analyzed the influence of construction ages and green space types on the quality of green space beside residential buildings, aiming to provide theoretical support for the scientific construction of green space beside residential area buildings in the future.

  Method  Taking green space beside residential area buildings with different construction ages in Beijing as the research object, the indicator system for quality evaluation of green space beside residential buildings was selected, and the indicator system was composed with tree species composition, spatial structure, aesthetic characteristics and plant health function. 9 of indicators were screened from 15 of primary indicators by correlation analysis. Three indices were constructed by dimensionality reduction using principal component analysis, and weights of the indices and indicators were determined by principal component analysis. Furthermore, the quality of green space beside residential area buildings in different construction ages was analyzed through the relationship between the index composite score and the selected indicators.

  Result  (1) The quality of green space beside residential buildings was dominantly influenced by three main components, which were the three indices consisting of structure, tree species composition and aesthetics effect. And the influence degree of each index on spatial quality of the green space was 30.34%, 24.27% and 22.26%, respectively. (2) The integrated score of green space in intermediate residential areas was 1.60% and 8.34% higher than that of new residential area and old residential area, respectively, but the built ages of the residential areas had no significant effect on the quality of green space beside residential buildings. (3) The quality of green space beside buildings was significantly affected by green space type, and the integrated score from high to low was the combination between house pattern, natural community pattern, regular forest pattern and close-to-houses pattern. (4) The differences of spatial scale and plant configuration were main reasons for the quality difference among green space types.

  Conclusion  The quality of green space beside residential area buildings is significantly affected by the type and structure, while it is not affected by the construction ages of the residential areas. The dominant factors which affect the quality of green space beside residential buildings are green space structure, spatial coordination degree and visual quality. Screened degree of view by plants and relative vertical green volume contribute greatly to the quality of green spatial structure; color richness and tree species diversity have positive effect on the quality of green space beside residential buildings; spatial coordination degree between vegetation and building has a positive impact on the green space quality within a certain range. Therefore, in the design and construction of residential green space, we should focus on the combination of buildings, natural group, regular forest of space types, less use or not close to the house. If the height of the residential building is certain, the width of the green space beside the house should be expanded appropriately, so as to ensure that the degree of space coordination is at a better level. What’s more, the proportion of the number of trees and shrubs is reasonably distributed in the near-natural composite planting structure, and on the basis of satisfying the spatial structure and function, it has both visual aesthetic feeling and landscape effect.