Evaluation of the Environmental Components that Affect the Need for User Entertainment in Commercial Complexes of Tehran Metropolis

 The design and implementation of large-scale commercial complexes in the metropolis of Tehran have flourished for over a decade. Most of these complexes have easily attracted various age groups. Some are more successful, and some lose their customers after a period of prosperity. Public areas' forms indicate entertainment's superiority over shopping. Also, the activities in complexes provide the possibility of spending leisure time in the best way under the name of a shopping center.

 Theoretical foundations of the research are based on the achievements of environmental psychology, which began with William Glasser's Choice Theory and the importance of the need for entertainment. And practical components of the quality of the environment have been extracted from related literature. These components are based on human needs for recreational activities and have been determined by library studies and citing the opinions of philosophers. The effect of components on users' need for recreation was analyzed by survey research method and correlation. 

 The result shows that the measures of the designed system consisting of three components: socio-behavioral, physical-spatial and perceptional, to meet the need for recreation of users, have a significant relationship with entertainment as a reason for the presence of users in commercial complexes.Specifically, among the measures of the collective-behavioral component, the factors "various service uses," "the presence of food courts," "the security of the complex space due to the number of users," and "the presence of a suitable space for children to play" are among the reasons. 

 By introducing an effective subcomponent, this paper shows that the leading presence of people in commercial complexes is due to the need for recreational activities. Therefore, the components of the need for entertainment in the design of commercial complexes can be considered as a factor in increasing the architectural spatial quality of public areas, which can meet part of the secondary and semantic needs of human beings.