Physical development of ladies park based on women's motivation (case study: Sahand ladies park)

Nowadays one of the most important issues in urban design is providing a valuable situation for women and fulfilling their physical, mental, social and recreational needs. Dealing with amenity issues of women and their active presence in society has necessitated the development of Ladies Parks in many Iranian cities. However, less attention has been paid to recognize women motivations to use such kind of parks and their effects on development of such spaces. Tabriz city is not exceptional among the Iranian cities. The present study aims to identify women motivations to go to Ladies Parks in Sahand, Tabriz. Using a face to face method, 120 visitors of the park were interviewed. The questions were about the reasons and motivations of women to go to the park, impacting factors on their physical health, their favorite activities and correctitude of creating Ladies Park idea. For analyzing the data, SPSS and Excel software were applied. The results of the present study showed that the main factor to motivate the women to use the Ladies Park is doing exercise and sport activities in order to reach the body fitness and weight losing. Also, some other reasons such as unemployment, loneliness, spending leisure time and visiting friends are the internal factors for using the Ladies Park by women of Sahand city. Physical development of social spaces as well as expansion of sport facilities can play an effective role in success of Ladies Parks.