Eighth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Growing migration, cultural pluralism, and daily-emerging digital media have reduced face-to-face communication and social interaction. This issue has raised a serious question for architects on how to enhance social interaction by benefiting from the potential of spaces. In the meantime, given the role and significance of social interaction in the cultural-artistic development and mutual impacts of culture and art on the excellence of society, and in light of the fact that cultural, artistic, and recreational spaces provide the ground for the formation of social interaction, the issue of social interactions in such spaces takes added importance. In previous research, impact factors in upgrading social interactions from the viewpoint of sociologists and urban engineers have been studied and therefore the factors involved in the sociability of urban spaces have been discussed. However, the effect of cultural, artistic, and recreational spaces on social interactions has scarcely been studied in a systematic and methodological manner. In this survey, impact factors in upgrading social interactions measuring their effectiveness in cultural, artistic, and recreational spaces, with the focus being on Mashhad’s cultural spaces, have been studied from the viewpoint of citizens and artists. After desktop and field research, the subject’s literature has been analyzed. Then, correlation research has been conducted to determine impact factors in social interactions in the cultural, artistic, and recreational centers, based on which a structured questionnaire has been drawn up. In continuation, the views of 347 citizens and fifty artists in Mashhad were gathered. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS. The findings show that priorities are different for citizens and artists. The citizens prioritize the main four impact factors, including access and communication, utility and activity, sociability, and peace of mind and imagination. While the artists classify the factors as access and communication, sociability, utility and activity, and peace of mind and imagination. The difference lies in the priority given to utility and activity and sociability. Generally speaking, the results indicate that the impact factors, regardless of prioritization, are highly effective.