Urban Design
mehrdad hedayatian; Alireza Einifar
Abstract
Urban open spaces play a crucial role in facilitating social interactions and enhancing urban life quality. Beyond providing a venue for daily and recreational activities, these spaces serve as focal points to strengthen social relationships, improve social cohesion, and foster a sense of place attachment. ...
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Urban open spaces play a crucial role in facilitating social interactions and enhancing urban life quality. Beyond providing a venue for daily and recreational activities, these spaces serve as focal points to strengthen social relationships, improve social cohesion, and foster a sense of place attachment. However, domestic studies in architecture and urban planning primarily examine social interactions through three main concepts: "presence," "sociability," and "environmental quality," without clearly articulating the conceptual and structural relationships among these concepts or aligning them explicitly with international theoretical frameworks. This study aims to revisit and clarify these concepts within a comprehensive conceptual framework. Initially, through keyword analysis and a systematic review of global theories, the components of social interactions were categorized into five groups: physical, activity-based, perceptual, contextual, and technological, arranged according to David Canter's place model. Subsequently, employing PRISMA guidelines and the meta-synthesis method, 32 selected domestic articles were analyzed and coded using MAXQDA software. Findings indicate that "presence" primarily aligns with physical-environmental components such as facilities, accessibility, environmental comfort, and spatial organization; "sociability" corresponds closely to activity-behavioral components, including group activities, social interactions, and collective events; and "environmental quality" is specifically associated with perceptual-psychological components like attractiveness, sense of security, psychological comfort, and environmental meaning. Additionally, contextual and technological components play moderating and facilitating roles in enhancing social interactions. The final analysis demonstrates that these three concepts, through mutual interactions, provide an integrated and practical framework for understanding and enhancing social interactions in urban open spaces. This framework offers a theoretical foundation for designing more socially engaging public spaces and sets a groundwork for future research on the social quality of urban environments.
