Analysis the effect of the built environment on children's creativity (Review the effect of the environmental characteristics on children's creativity in Tehran children centers)

The today’s world needs men and women who are creative, growing and improving in all areas of social, cultural, and economical field. According to the researchers, people have considerably higher creative abilities that can be flourished by encouraging, providing opportunities and training. So, the nature and characteristics of creative thinking have been the focus of many researchers.
Since one’s personality is formed in the early ages, creativity at that age has been the notion of many studies; however, few studies have supported the effect of the built environment on the development of creativity in children. Researches also suggest that the built environment plays an important role in the physical and emotional health of the child and development of his creativity. Child growth, on the other hand, is a result of its interaction with the environment. If this interaction is lawful and organized, it causes better growth.
Meanwhile, there are questions for which this paper tries to find answers: how the built environment affects children’s creativity and its prosperity? And what features of the built environment of Tehran’s children centers have a positive effect on children’s creativity? So the purpose of this study is to review the concepts of creativity and the effect of the built environment on the development of children’s creativity by means of content analysis in the fields of environmental psychology and architectural design.
This research has been performed based on a descriptive – analytical method using articles, studies, reports, related documents (the library documents) and observation. So with the concepts of creativity from the perspective of theorists in this field and its relationship to the built environment, environmental factors that enhance creativity can be derived. Then the environmental features that affect the creativity of children in Tehran children centers were examined. In this study, first factors affecting the children’s creativity and the environmental features which influenced these factors were analyzed. Then five children`s centers that are active with the aim of fostering creativity were randomly chosen, and the building of these centers was analyzed using the results of this paper.
This study analyzes some environmental factors such as legibility, diversity, complexity, vitality, innovation, and mystery and their relation to children’s creativity. The literature suggests, imagination, curiosity, and play have an important role in the child’s creativity.
According to what has been mentioned in relation to the children and their growth, it can be concluded that, in environment designing for children, observing the principles of environmental psychology in children’s physical and mental characteristics provides a proper context for developing children’s creativity. In this paper, environment is the physical environment, which includes open spaces and natural environments.