The Impact of Physical Components of Public Spaces on Promoting Social Interactions Case Study: District 22 of Tehran

Establishing an appropriate level of social interaction in the environment as one of the components affecting the quality of life is influenced by the characteristics of the man-made environment. What most human and environmental research on interactions has examined is collective interactions in the public sphere. Environmental design and space organization is an influential factor in the amount of social interactions. This issue has been tested for many years; the way of organizing residential environments is no exception, but due to the close relationship between people and these environments, the need to pay more attention to them is felt. For this purpose, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of effective components on the promotion of social interactions in terms of physical and perceptual-psychological in public spaces of residential complexes. Meanwhile, the main question raised in the present study is which of the physical and perceptual-psychological characteristics can be effective in significantly increasing the level of social interactions in the collective areas designed in residential complexes and whether there is a dialectical connection between these categories or not. In fact, it seems that in residential complexes, the main purpose of construction and the main approach of designers in determining the location pattern of blocks, has been the emphasis on housing and residential use in general. Therefore, by focusing on the issue of housing, residential use, and in general, the quality design of private spaces, as it should be, the design of collapsible public spaces, the creation of multi-functional spaces, and finally the creation of grounds for cohesion and social identity, have not been considered or at least the mentioned issues have not been in the center of attention and at the top of the goals of the designers of residential complexes. At the same time, one of the requirements for creating quality residential spaces is to pay attention to creating collectible, lively and guaranteeing public interactions, along with proper and principled design of private spaces. Meanwhile, based on the studies conducted in this study, clearly that some components and physical and perceptual qualitative characteristics can be effective in the occurrence of social interactions in public spaces of residential complexes. Accordingly, the novelty of this study is to measure the impact of each physical and perceptual components in strengthening social interactions and also to examine the quality level of these components in each studied residential complexes in this research thus, by creating a meaningful link between theory and practice, to provide a basis for the most important executive strategies effective on increasing the quality level of the studied components in residential complexes and finally, a usable theoretical and practical framework for emphasizing collective life alongside private life and the creation of collectible public spaces that support the emergence of social interactions in the residential complex design process; prepare for designers. Adaptation of public places in residential complexes, besides improving the quality of the residential environment, can greatly increase the interactions and social relations between residents. If these spaces meet the individual and social needs and desires of the residents, part of the living activities can be transferred from the indoor space to the outdoor space of the complexes and the living deficiencies in the small residential units can be compensated. Understanding this issue, the main issue of the present study is the role of physical and perceptual-psychological components of public spaces in promoting social interactions in residential complexes in District 22 of Tehran.

The present research is quantitative-qualitative and has an applied nature and the method of doing it is descriptive-analytical. The statistical population of the study is the residents of Parsia, Baran and Erfan residential complexes in the 22nd metropolitan area of Tehran. The sample size was calculated based on Cochran's formula equal to 359 people. The method of data collection is field-library method (observation and researcher-made questionnaire). SPSS software and structural equation modeling in AMOS environment were used for data analysis.

Findings showed that there is a significant relationship between physical variables and social interactions with a coefficient of 0.315. Also, there is a significant relationship between the two perceptual-psychological variables with the social interaction variable equal to 0.666. The significant relationship between the two physical variables and the perceptual-psychological variable was calculated to be 0.590. The factor load of the regression coefficient of the effect of physical and perceptual components on social interactions is 0.567 and 0.736, respectively.

According to the research findings, the effect of the above variables on social interactions is confirmed at a high level. Based on the results of modeling structural equations, it was determined that the physical components are the sequence of open and semi-open spaces, form and function, environment, color and light used in spaces, scale and dimensions of public areas and location components, respectively, are the most important components of social interaction in residential complexes. By examining each of these components and the application of strategies and related executive strategies in the public spaces of residential complexes, it is expected that the level of social interaction of residents will soar.