Design Stategies for Boys’ Preschools in Isfahan with the Aim of Creating Place Attachment

One of the first and most important public spaces with which children deal is the educational space and the most basic spaces are preschools. Children's belonging to preschools affects their future to enhance their education. Many studies have been conducted in Iran on the creation and upgrading of educational spaces for children, but studies on children as the main source of qualitative data are very limited. The main question in this paper is, what are the factors affecting the place attachment of preschoolers from the views of boys and what are the design strategies derived from them. In this paper, using a combined and four-stage research method, design strategies were developed to establish the belonging of boys to preschoolers in Isfahan. The three main components of place attachment in these spaces are physical, individual properties, and personal and social interactions that were derived from the first stage using library resources and their content analysis, along with their main categories and sub-categories. Subsequently, at the next stages with a focus on these three key components, some of the designing strategies were developed by drawing mental images and open-ended interviews with children. Another part of these strategies was obtained through questions and answers from architecture experts, educators and psychologists of children. The importance of outdoor and natural spaces, the presence of nature, water and natural light indoors, wildlife, a space for physical activity, the use of technology for entertainment, spaces to show feelings and likening children with desired environments, spaces for child's identity and development and imagination, interactions, participation, and exploration was obtained from the first three stages of the research. The architects, educators, and psychologists of children, at the end of the fourth stage, provided details of some of their design and rating strategies in terms of their importance.